Replies

You make my point well. You have to protect your system.

You need to protect your system as well. You are not a disinterested party. You have made many disparaging remarks about the Church and defined Her as outside of the true beliefs you hold. How is this any different from we indentifying what is orthodox and what is heresy? You do it too.

"You need to protect your system as well. You are not a disinterested party. You have made many disparaging remarks about the Church and defined Her as outside of the true beliefs you hold. How is this any different from we indentifying what is orthodox and what is heresy? You do it too."

1. We do not have a headquarters on earth.
2. We do not have a binding system of creeds.
3. We have no mortal, sinning man reigning over a city state on earth that tells us what we must believe and practice.
4. We do not have any written pronouncements of "ANATHAMA" toward anyone who is not "baptized" into any particular system.
5. We do not hold that any people are not genuine Christians and not children of God based on their membership(s), or association(s), or any allegiance(s)or whether they have received any sacrament(s).
6. We do not try to determine the salvation of any person(S) based on the name(s) with which they may be identified.
7. We do not pronounce any people to be "heretics" one the basis of their disagreements with us or whether they use any particular name to describe their heritage.
8. We do not determine doctrine from history, but we judge history from one source, the written Word of God, and yet we have nothing in a system that binds souls, kings, rulers, governments, nations or history to us.
9. We do not automatically determine something or someone is identified with us or any system based on words in historical documents ("bishops," "Catholic" (meaning "universal," and so forth).
10. We do not determine that the words "the church" in historical documents automatically means that the writer was talking about "our system."
11. We don't read the designation "Baptist" into any text that uses the word "church," as to connect the two together.
12. We do not teach that having the designation "Baptist" or officially adhering to any "Baptist" doctrinal or positional treatise(s) necessarily puts us in good standing with God.
13. We do not teach that the salvation of any man's soul, or his access to God for favor/grace is in any way connected to ours or anyone's earthly ecclesiastical organization, church, system or creeds.