My Local Church Experience - And My Testimony

[DistantStar]

Originally Posted by Evangelical

You think it's dangerous that God has given you the Holy Spirit and wants you to become like Him? It's not dangerous, that's Christianity in a nutshell. Even Catholicism teaches that. If you aren't like Him, then you get to go to hell where people who "aren't like God" live.

We may (and should) imitate Him and strive to be as perfect as Christ is (even though it is impossible). Yet even then we strive to be the perfect Man Jesus is, not the God he is. We do not have to become divine like you believe. The LC denomination says "we become gods" (sound familiar to a certain serpent we all know and love?). Then they'll add "Not in the Godhead of course." "Be ye therefore perfect" comes into mind. An impossible command, but a command nonetheless. We should strive to be the perfect man even if it is impossible.

I understand the reasoning. I agree that Christ imparts himself into us by changing us to be more like him if we imitate Him. That he does impart His Spirit into us. Like a fossil whose initial properties are replaced with different ones, yet looking the same. My point is, there's fine line between being men with the Spirit of God, and being gods. Or becoming gods. This is dangerous thinking.

On God imparting Himself into us and changing us by working in us, I think you and I will agree. Then how is this achieved? Calling upon His holy and sacred name after each sentence? Just repeating it for some spiritual upliftment? Are you sure when you do this that it is Christ working in you and not just a psycological effect? I've seen people become almost drunk by doing this. If just an effect, are you sure you are not blaspheming? But hey, perhaps it is Jesus. Perhaps it is Him. Just a thought. I remember when I sat at the larger gathering people would say "Oh, Lord Jesus". Repeatedly. At times they'd say it just to say it. Sometimes we would just repeat it three times to be "filled" with Christ. I tried to imitate them, but it felt in my tongue like blasphemy. But hey, perhaps it's just me. The others are not intending to blaspheme Him. I assume that they are all at least sincere.

Here is a problem with your denomination: God never asks us to forsake our individuality to such an extent. The Local Church denomination does. We all are different members of the same body - we are all unique. Each with a separate mission and destiny. I know you can say "Well, were are still one body." Yes, but is the head of the body Christ with different Christians as members, each with unique views? Or is the head the Local Church denomination leaders with only their interpretation forced onto the members with "heretical" members cut off? Seeing other members as misguided at best?

The problem here seems to be between actually having your own views and having to conform to the views of a group. Does the latter not scare the blazes out of you? When I realised this I wanted to run to the hills with my hands on my ears and never look back, away from the City of Destruction (The Pilgrim's Progress).

The LC denomination has a distinct "us vs them" mentality. A very real issue of the feet hating the ears. They do not account for Christians actually living in a different way. The LC is right about certain things, yes. But they do not account for all the other things. As (the Catholic, if I may add) G. K. Chesterton put it (and note I don't think the LC quite heretics - not completely):

“The heretic (who is also the fanatic) is not a man who loves the truth too much; no man can love truth too much. The heretic is a man who loves his truth more than truth itself. He prefers the half-truth that he has found to the whole truth which humanity has found. He does not like to see his own precious little paradox merely bound up with twenty truisms into the bundle of the wisdom of the world.”

C. S. Lewis's book Mere Christianity talked about the balance between being an individual and caring for the group:
Edit: The book is not about this concept. I mean to say that one part of one chapter deals with it.

The idea that the whole human race is, in a sense, one thing - one huge organism, like a tree - must not be confused with the idea that individual differences do not matter or that real people, Tom and Nobby and Kate, are somehow less important things like classes, races and so forth. Indeed the two ideas are opposites. Things which are parts of a single organism may be very different from one another: things which are not, may be very alike: my nose and my lungs are very different but they are only alive at all because they are pats of my body and share its common life. Christianity thinks of human individuals not as mere members of a group or items in a list, but as organs in a body - different from one another and each contributing what no other could. When you find yourself wanting to turn your children, or pupils, or even your neighbours, into people exactly like yourself, remember that God probably never meant them to be that. You and they are different organs, intended to do different things. On the other hand, when you are tempted not to bother about someone else's troubles because they are 'no business of yours', remember that though he is different from you he is part of the same organism as you. If you forget that he belongs to the same organism as yourself you will become an Individualist. If you forget that he is a different organ from you, if you want to suppress differences and make people all alike, you will become a Totalitarian. But a Christian must not be either a Totalitarian or an Individualist.

I feel a strong desire to tell you - and I expect you feel a strong desire to tell me - which of these two errors is the worse. That is the devil getting at us. He always sends errors into the world in pairs - pairs of opposites. And he always encourages us to spend a lot of time thinking which is the worse. You see why, of course? He relies on your extra dislike of the one error to draw you gradually into the opposite one. But do not let us be fooled. We have to keep our eyes on the goal and go straight through between both errors. We have no other concern than that with either of them.

(Emphasis mine)

Admittedly I still have to think of what Lewis said here and how much I believe it. I just thought it interesting to share.

In conclusion, I guess my point is that we should be careful. Looking back at the post I feel like I simply stated a few thoughts in no clear order. Please pardon me for this. I'd like to hear others' thoughts.

Edit2: Are you a part of the Local Church? Reading your comment again I realised that you may have just been curious about a single point and that you may not even be a part of that denomination. If you are not, then excuse me for associating you with them. If you are, then all is well.