'Ground of the Church'

[Freedom]

Originally Posted by Bradley

You can imagine my surprise then when I went blending in Singapore and found myself not in 'the church in Singapore' but 'the church of God in Singapore'. Subtle difference, but I had spent two years in the training being taught how bad this is. You just can't do that, you might as well call yourselves the southern Baptists.

There was another group that was 'the church in Singapore' and they had broken off. They got to keep the name, so this group I was blending with was forced to take another name. The other group was apparently not on the 'true ground', but the 'church of God in Singapore' was. Why was that? I couldn't understand. They had the right name, so they should have the ground.

Nobody could answer my question: what is it about 'the church of God in Singapore' that gives it the proper ground despite having the wrong name, and what is it about 'the church in Singapore' that puts it off the correct ground, despite the fact that they have the right name?

This is exactly the kind of question that serves to show how ridiculous the ground of locality teaching really is. I remember hearing that there are three "church in Toronto" groups each asserting themselves to be the church in Toronto. According to the LC teaching, it creates a big problem because the teaching doesn't account for the possibility of two or more groups simultaneously calling themselves the same name.