The Not-So Practical Expression of the Church

[Cal]

Originally Posted by Igzy

Let me try again. Two groups in a city. Both receive all believers and keep the faith. But each has different teaching and practice focuses. Both claim to be the city-church and to have the elders who are by necessity over the whole city. Each thinks the other is sectarian. Which one is the true church? I submit that, all things being equal, neither can know to the point that they can have the boldness to say the other definitely isn't. In other words, neither can do what the LCs do in claiming that everyone needs to join them, an arbitrary requirement which is a seed of division.

Since this thread has seemed to have run its course, let me cap it off.

The essence of the above quote--if there are two groups in a city claiming to represent the church in that city how does one know which is correct?--has to my knowlege never been addressed by any defender of the local ground doctrine.

I posed the question a couple of times on the old board. No one touched it. I've sometimes wondered if maybe it just was overlooked, so I have posed it formally in a thread of my own creation here. Still, no one has taken it on. My feeling is this fact speaks deeply to the shortcoming of the doctrine. The question has not been addressed likely because there is no satisfactory answer.

Titus Chu was said to have once been asked a similar question and his answer was that the church which receives believers the best is the true one. But that begs the question of what if both groups receive believers pretty much the same? It doesn't take much reflection to see, therefore, that any claim of being irrefutably the unique representative of the church in the city can be nothing more than subjective opinion at best. Further, I would say, it is a claim that only need be made for self-serving purposes.

I believe church life should and can be practical. But the LSM model, I have shown, is by definition impractical. Practicing it requires the acceptance of arbitrary assumptions which cannot be justified as being required of believers, and which are therefore the seeds of division.

Until someone can satisfactorily address this issue, I have to conclude that the ground of locality doctrine as practiced by LSM churches is flawed.