Ground of Locality and Generality

[tasteslikegold]

Originally Posted by Igzy

Since the one practical church per city doctrine forces the adherent to reject others' personal leadings of which group to meet with which conflict with the one he holds to be correct, the doctrine is by its very nature sectarian. The adherent cannot both believe that he is following the right eldership and honor the leading of someone else in the city who feels led to follow another eldership, even if both elderships meet on the "ground," because there can be only one practical church and so only one practical eldership. So the adherent must either at some level consider all others divisive, or admit that he is still not clear who the eldership is, or reject the doctrine of one practical church per city.

So either all others are sectarian, or the local ground adherent is sectarian. Again, there can be no middle ground.

...Or everyone is wrong. Seems to me that, by the very nature of being divided, or chosing to separate oneself from the "mainstream," there is no way to consider oneself "undivided." it's a double-edged sword: Either you accept that all of Christendom is divided and believe that God honors that, or commit the same perceived sin of dividing yourself by standing on a "ground," a principal of unity which you believe is true.

The only solution, then, is doing what the Roman Catholic Church has advocated Protestants do for centuries: Return to the "Mother" church. Of course we all know that won't work. So what did the Roman Church do to rectify that problem: In recent history they simply said, "They are all part of the Roman church, whether they acknowledge it or not."