can you please be more specific? there are lots of "churches of christ."
are you talking about Rev. Ike?
Have you been to rickross.com yet?
He has good info about many "cults" or groups that employ mind control techniques. My husband grew up CoC and I've seen enough of the Boston Movement to be horrified.
I don't have any info on it, but would appreciate knowing something about them. My granddaughter is going with a Church of Christ, and we don't know much about it.
Pepperdine is a CoC school -- biggest bunch of hypocrites I have ever seen in my life.
I was raised mainline c of c before converting to the Catholics...what are you wanting to know about it, or are you just counting heads?
The International/Boston Church of Christ is considered a cult. Here are Google references:
http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8&rls=SNYC,SNYC:2004-13,SNYC:en&q=International+Boston+Church+of+Christ
CULT
(Ping.)
I used to worship at the Church of Christ (ICC) in San Diego. It was around 15 years ago. What kind of information are you looking for?
May I suggest that for information aboout the International Church of Christ, you view one of their websites
http://www.icocinfo.org/about.html
To view information as to why the church of Christ is not a cult, you may want to visit here
http://www.preachersfiles.com/cult/000693.htm
Please note, that the names may be similar, not all of the teachings are, nor do they necesarily associate with one another.
And to view a few mens views of the doctrines of the church of Christ (if you have a lot of time on your hands) you may begin here. http://www.preachersfiles.com/archives.html
Am not ex Church of Christ. But a host of my Mother's relatives are--including the one ministering at her funeral tomorrow morning.
They came out wholesale into Charismania and are doing much better with The Lord than ever in their C of C years. However, they have not made it beyond all the parochial infighting and carping seemingly so common in that group and in their immediate family.
But, it is conceivable that I could offer some insights from their transition, perspectives and experiences if you had some specific questions. It's an issue I've talked about with them at length.
Blessings,
I think that the key issue is to get alone with God and Scripture and asking HIM to illumine for you the aspects of YOUR RELATIONSHIP WITH HIM which HE WOULD LIKE TO LEAD YOU INTO and WHICH the C of C has hindered, mangled or otherwise prevented.
Perhaps then to keep a prayer journal about your prayers and questions about the specific issues and The Lord's seeming responses to such in prayer, pondering, waiting on The Lord, in the shower, driving etc.
I think one aspect of C of C which my relatives found eventually to be most disconcerting and deadly was the aspect of--essentially--a works salvation. The doctrine might say one thing--but the practice on that score and the social pressures end up being another more deadly version of Christianity vis a vis the doctrine of Grace etc.
I think the value which my relatives most prized in their shift--and a major chunk of their church went with them, as I recall--was the FREEDOM that resulted in their relationship with The Lord--the FREEDOM TO BE THEMSELVES AND TO TRUST GOD TO BE THE AUTHOR AND FINISHER OF THEIR FAITH AS THEY WALKED WITH AND RELIED ON HIM TO BE SO. This was NOT license. But it was a new vibrant, DIALOGUE, DANCE, WALK which they had never before experienced and which was like a literal infusion of RESURRECTION LIFE INTO THEM and into their relaitonship with God and their daily lives in general. That was priceless to them.
Interestingly, the spiritual leader who sort of helped lead the group out has gone on to be a rodeo chaplain and abandoned the floundering small group he had started as an alternative church. Arrogance seemed to have been his major problem. And, there seems to be plenty left on the part of some C of C folks on that score.
But my relatives have ended up attending somewhat a Baptist background community church and the more vibrant of the local C of C groups again. Not because their theology has changed back--but because those groups are warm and welcoming enough and they have gotten a bit annoyed to fed up with the music at the Charismania churches which threatens to vibrate their bones to pieces at such loud volumes.
BTW, my relatives are 70+ years old. Most of (90%?+) their whole lives have been spent immersed in the C of C denomination.
I tried to join the Ex-Church of Christ but they turned me down. Seems I never belonged to the Church of Christ, ergo I couldn't now join the Ex-Church of Christ. Seemed kind of discriminatory. So now I belong to the Rejects of the Ex-Church of Christ. We are a small but dynamic congregation.
But shun foolish controversies and genealogies and strife and disputes about the Law; for they are unprofitable and worthless. Reject a factious man after a first and second warning, knowing that such a man is perverted and is sinning, being self-condemned." Titus 3:9-11
If Satan can keep Christians fighting amongst themselves, then we won't ever have the time or opportunity to do the Lord's work such as loving and serving others and seeking and saving the lost.
There are many here who have posted the Scriptures from the Bible regarding Baptism, so I will address the Boston Movement. My experience, actually is pre-Boston movement. The Crossroad's movement started in Gainesville, Florida at the campus of University of Florida. I attended FSU in Tallahassee and I became a Christian through the campus ministry at FSU (which also had the Crossroads influence). If memory serves me correctly (this was the 70's), Chuck Lucas was the leader in Gainesville and Kip McKean was a member there. I'm familiar with both names being associated with the Crossroads movement and the Boston movement sprung from that.
The point I want to make is, these were not evil people. They had a love for God, a love for the Bible and a love for the lost! What happened, as so many times does, is they became like the Pharisees and Sadducee's of Jesus time. They found ways to make it (they thought)"better" and then became legalistic and bound things on people that should never be bound. They truly believed they were doing the "right" thing, and I must say, they did teach a lot of people the Bible. I am very thankful that they took the time to teach me from the Scriptures and loved me enough to be concerned for my lost soul. Yes. They did show love.
Four months after I became a Christian, the church split. The campus ministry was unhappy with the elders and they walked out, taking almost half (mostly new converted Christians) the congregation with them. Being a follower of Jesus, and not of man, I didn't leave with them. I was the ONLY one from the campus ministry that didn't leave. It didn't make sense to me to just walk away from a problem. You work it out. You fight for it. I studied the Scriptures, talked and prayed with the elders and came to the conclusion that the split was wrong! The first few weeks a few others came back, but the group that left started their own church. From what I understand, this type of slit happened all over the country.
Looking back, yes, in many ways you could describe it as cult-like. The intentions were good, but there was extreme pressure to conform. What happens is the pendulum swings one way...resulting in legalism, then it goes too far the other way, resulting in apathy, and laziness. As Christians we need to be humble and teachable. If we love God and have made Jesus our Lord, then we should love others (the greatest command), and follow the teachings of Jesus. That doesn't make our Salvation works based. We can NEVER do enough to save ourselves. Only the blood of Jesus can do that. But, if we understand what Jesus did for us on that cross, then we should want to serve him in all we do.The Book of James in the second chapter talks about faith and works together. We do the "works"because of our Faith and love for Jesus, NOT to save us.
As for being hypocrites? Well, Christians are sinners, just like non-Christians. The difference is Christians are forgiven. The church should be full of sinners!
"If we say that we have no sin, we are deceiving ourselves, and the truth is not in us" I John 1:8
As for all the negative comments about members of churches of Christ. I must say...most of those comments came as a big surprise to me. In both Tallahassee and Memphis, the churches I attended had some of the most loving people I have ever met. They took me in as their own (none of my family are Christians), and taught me many things about being a Christian both in loving and in serving others.
My experience with the churches of Christ (other then the initial one) has been they teach what the Bible teaches, and are silent where it is silent. That seems to be a pretty good way to emulate the Christian's in the Bible described to us in the Book of Acts.The church I worship with in Colorado is far from perfect, but the members love God and want to follow what the Bible teaches. We love and serve each other and we reach out to the lost. There is no mandatory attendance, and you can choose to take the Lord's supper or not. It IS the highlight of our service and it NEVER becomes routine. How could it? We are remembering the death, burial and resurrection of our Lord. My daughter(16 years old) is leaving in a week with 8 others on a missions trip to Ukraine to go work with orphans and others there and teach them the good news about Jesus Christ.
Those of you that have been mistreated , ostracized or offended by members of a church of Christ member...all I can say is, just as in any group of people, don't judge the group by a few individuals. I pray that we can all have humble hearts as we strive to gain wisdom and understanding. Let us love each other in the Lord and let us always remain teachable, as I'm sure there are things we can all improve on.
I spend my time here at FR posting on threads dealing with Islam. Christians are desperately needed on these threads to spread the news about Jesus. Islam is an enemy of Christianity and of this Country and we need to educate ourselves and fight to keep our Freedom of Religion here in this Country. It is being attacked on all sides, so let's fight the evil forces of this world and love with the love of the Lord!
God Bless you all as you live your life in service to Him!
My husband and I were proposing a business matter to a guy feighning interest. His main goal was to get into our home with his friend and convert us. We finished our proposal and they start in on "Are you saved" etc. I couldn't believe someone could be so blunt and ask such a personal private question. They spent twenty minutes trying to convert us. My husband and I are practicing catholics, we believe Jesus is Lord and Savior, we give to charity, we follow the ten commandments, we're good to our neighbors, we forgive our enemies, we follow the golden rule to a "t", etc. That wasn't good enough for them.
We later had to pick up some of our business materials and they asked that we pick them up at their "church". It was in the middle of nowhere, on some hillside canyon place full of trees and bushes. Driving down there gave me the heeby jeebies (I kept thinking of the Blair Witch project LOL). On and on we drove down this mountain to this very secluded "church". I was freaked out at this point and just kept telling my husband to screw the business materials and lets get the hell out of here.
These people were from the "L.A. Church of Christ". Now, my best friend is an evangelical, and I have nothing against protestants; I've gone to her church and enjoyed it. This place was different; it was like a cult and it was creepy as hell.
Brrrrrrrrr Thats my creepy experience.
Boston church of Christ was involved in the "Crossroads" movement which amounted to a cult. That church is NOT representative of the churches of Christ across the nation. Each church of Christ is, by N.T. teaching, autonomous and does not report to or submit itself to any hiearchical structure. So, you will see some churches of Christ that are rather liberal, some that are balanced and some that are "anti", that is, no Bible classes, no weddings in the building, etc.