Church of Christ

[ADKoeF]

(07-05-2011 02:34 PM)Tony Mel Wrote:  It is worth noting that the theology of the Church of Christ concerning salvation and sanctification is not even Arminian. Arminians generally believe that a believer may forfeit their salvation by making a conscious decision to stop believing in Christ or live a life of sin. That is VERY different from committing a sin and having to confess it right away lest your soul burns in hell because of your forgetfulness. This makes our sin greater than God's grace. I would have to call this heresy.

Ex-Church of Christer here.

Like the IFB, every CoC is independent. There are way more splinters and camps within the CoC than there are with the IFB, which is amazing given their much smaller numbers. You are going to get a wide range of doctrines and beliefs. Most of these different camps have "disfellowshiped" each other and don't have anything to do with each other.

I can tell you than our (moderate to liberal) congregation did NOT believe you would burn in hell because you weren't able to confess a sin. I do know that there are some Churches of Christ that do teach that, but many do not.

Baptism is taught as necessary for salvation, and we were taught that baptism is the point at which we became a Christian AND the point at which we received the Holy Spirit.

I don't believe this any more, but let me clarify that a bit. I don't think you have to wait until you are baptized to receive the Holy Spirit, however, if you have been told that you won't receive the Spirit until you are baptized, you won't receive it until then because you haven't accepted it until then. So, they are wrong and right at the same time.

The real reason that they believe baptism is necessary is because of a particular reading of certain scriptures and the definitions of the words "for" and "and". You think the IFB proof-texts? You ain't seen nothing!

Oh, and the CoC is DEFINITELY a fundamentalist sect. That's why I like this site so much. The content almost all applies to the CoC as much as it does to the IFB.

One big difference is the organization of the local church. The IFB seems very single-pastor centered, whereas in the Church of Christ, there is no "pastor" per se, just a "preacher". The elders (who are supposed to fill the role of pastors) have all the power, and the preacher is just a hired gun. This is good and bad. It keeps the power out of a single man's hands, but it can be bad for the preachers. Abusing preachers is a sport in a lot of Churches of Christ.

[Darcy]

Hey, there ADKoF. Did you read my earlier post? i'm an ex-Coc'er too. Crazy how much we can relate to the ex IFB's.

[ADKoeF]

(07-24-2011 06:42 PM)Darcy Wrote:  Hey, there ADKoF. Did you read my earlier post? i'm an ex-Coc'er too. Crazy how much we can relate to the ex IFB's.

I guess I missed it! I'll go back and look for it.

Yeah, if we weren't so busy sending each other to Hell, we would have gotten along great with the IFBers!