- This topic is empty.
-
Posts
-
I found their website the other day and was reading through it. I sometimes think we ‘staylds-ers’ might have more in common with them than the Utah LDS church. Quote:Scripture
Scripture is writing inspired by God’s Spirit and accepted by the church as the normative expression of its identity, message, and mission. We affirm the Bible as the foundational scripture for the church. In addition, Community of Christ uses the Book of Mormon and the Doctrine and Covenants—not to replace the witness of the Bible or improve on it, but because they confirm its message that Jesus Christ is the Living Word of God. When responsibly interpreted and faithfully applied, scripture provides divine guidance and inspired insight for our discipleship.
First Vision
In the early 1800s, a young boy named Joseph Smith knelt in the woods near his family home in Manchester Township, New York. He felt separated from God; he also wanted to know how he could make his life count for good in a world full of confusion and sin. He wanted to join with God’s people, but he had no idea how to do that. So, in response to the scripture from James, he prayed to God.
How long this first attempt at verbal prayer lasted is not known, but he came to a point of deep despair. At this point, a vision surrounded him with love and mercy. From that light came a voice as clear as his own. As the vision ebbed and the voice faded, Joseph felt that he knew the truth. He felt the healing presence of God within and the forgiving mercy of Christ. He knew that God would be with him.
He struggled through his teen years, trying to balance his experience with God with his desire to be accepted by others in his community. He continued to have significant spiritual experiences, one of which led to the Book of Mormon. He also felt called to establish a church, officially organizing it on April 6, 1830.
– They ordain women (and never banned blacks from the priesthood
– Their temple is an open place of worship
– They do not teach polygamy as an eternal practice. Some admit Joseph practiced it, but say that it the sealings were really marriages, then he was wrong to do so.
– They do not use the Book of Abraham
– Word of Wisdom is taught but not mandated and is not a ‘test of faith’
On Mormon heretic’s blog an CofC/RLDS member says:
Quote:
RLDS members at their core are dissenters and free-thinkers – the Mormon value they have always put first is free agency…
…people who view the Book of Mormon as a literal history book are in the minority in the Community of Christ. …Much of the events of the Bible are not literal histories, from Adam and Noah to the Judean kings. There doesn’t have to have been a real person named Job to make the scripture inspired.
It’s not all ‘Mackay11 Mormonism’ though. They seem to be trinitarians and call for ‘radical obedience.’http://mormonheretic.org/2009/06/09/interview-with-the-community-of-christ/ Unfortunately, the CoC are probably One reason why ours will be reluctant to change. Their ordination of women, their movement away from historical scriptures, their playing down of the first vision has not lead to growth. It has lead to further splinters and reduced numbers. The Utah COB can almost use them as a model for what NOT to do. The CoC seems to practice their belief in continuing revelation more than the COJCOLDS – their D&C now has 164 sections. Also, their section 132 definitely not the same as our’s. Quote:The Community of Christ states that it recognizes that “perception of truth is always qualified by human nature and experience” and it therefore has not adopted an official religious creed. Nevertheless, the Community of Christ offers a number of the commonly held beliefs of its members and leaders as the “generally accepted beliefs of the church.” As Stephen M. Veazey, current president of the church puts it, “Community of Christ is a church that provides light for the way as well as space for the personal faith journey.”
So it does look like some some people on this forum reflect some CoC beliefs. I think they really sold out by adopting the Trinity theory, though.Sure. And I agree with Shawn’s Trinitarian comment.
Sent from my SCH-I535 using Tapatalk 2
In some ways, yes – but they now are, in practical terms, nothing more than a mainline liberal Protestant denomination. I think most of us here are more like mainline Protestants
in some waysthan stereotypical “TBM” – but I think lots of active members are, as well. I want change in some areas, but I don’t want to lose what I see as uniquely and powerfully Mormon – and the Community of Christ has lost much, imo. mackay11 wrote:Unfortunately, the CoC are probably One reason why ours will be reluctant to change. Their ordination of women, their movement away from historical scriptures, their playing down of the first vision has not lead to growth. It has lead to further splinters and reduced numbers.
The Utah COB can almost use them as a model for what NOT to do.Old-Timer wrote:…they now are, in practical terms, nothing more than a mainline liberal Protestant denomination…
I want change in some areas, but I don’t want to lose what I see as uniquely and powerfully Mormon – and the Community of Christ has lost much, imo. Personally I don’t think it’s fair to make too many comparisons between the LDS Church and the RLDS/Community of Christ Church as if this somehow proves that if the Church ever admits they were wrong about some of the current doctrines and becomes more open about facing and discussing some of the worst problems with their story this will only result in even more lost members. First of all, it doesn’t look like the RLDS Church ever had nearly the same momentum or number of followers as the LDS Church to begin with. Second, the fact that the Church discontinued polygamy and the racial priesthood ban and continued to grow more than ever shows that it is possible to make major changes with most active members taking it in stride.
Third, I think it makes more sense to separate and analyze what actually contributes to growth and retention of members versus what actually limits long-term growth and contributes to losing many members. For example, suppose the Church continued to teach temple marriage, missionary work, and the idea of prophets/revelation almost the same way they do now but softened their position on some of the most costly or annoying points like the WoW, tithing, testimony, home teaching and other callings, etc. possibly by still preaching the spirit of the law but not pushing these things quite as hard as they do now to the point that they become deal-breakers for a significant number of members and investigators. What would happen in that case? Personally I think growth and retention would increase enough to far outweigh the losses primarily caused by the internet and it would inject new life into the Church for the foreseeable future.
So what if the Church is already larger than some more liberal groups like the Unitarian Universalists, United Church of Christ, and the Community of Christ? There are still more Catholics, Baptists, Methodists, Lutherans, Presbyterians, Episcopalians, and various Evangelicals that self-identify as such than Mormons or JWs in the US and I’ve never had them knock on my door trying to convert me and it looks like the LDS Church is even less relevant worldwide after all these years of supposedly being one of the fastest growing churches. My point is there is more than one way for religious groups to maintain relatively stable support from their followers. In our case, it seems that for any steps forward the Church always takes unnecessary steps back as well by alienating literally millions of members mostly because of extremely intolerant and inflexible attitudes.
Great post DA. Sent from my SCH-I535 using Tapatalk 2
DA, first, my comment didn’t address retention and growth at all, so I’m not sure how it is related to yours. You should know from my comments here that I am all for lots of changes. What I do not support is losing what I see as uniquely powerful aspects of our theology. That’s all I said. Just saying. Second, the Community of Christ membership numbers have dropped, so I think mackay11’s statement is fair. Yes, we ought to look at specific reasons for that decrease, but it is a fair statement as worded.
Old-Timer wrote:DA, first,
my comment didn’t address retention and growth at all, so I’m not sure how it is related to yours.You should know from my comments here that I am all for lots of changes. What I do not support is losing what I see as uniquely powerful aspects of our theology. That’s all I said. Just saying… Second, the Community of Christ membership numbers have dropped, so I think mackay11’s statement is fair.Yes, we ought to look at specific reasons for that decrease, but it is a fair statement as worded. I’m not saying it’s not worth considering the Community of Christ example at all I just think there is a strong tendency to read too much into what this means and sometimes this general observation sounds like, “See this is exactly what will happen to the LDS Church too if it tries to pander to disaffected or less-faithful members.” There is also the recurring idea that occasionally comes up that the LDS Church supposedly already has some sort of magic formula for success and you can’t argue with success therefore morphing into just another nondescript Christian church would be a bad idea based on this notion.
For example, in an interview Gordon B. Hinckley claimed that some of the main reasons why the Church was growing while some other churches were losing followers were because it makes “heavy demands on people” and doesn’t “bend with every wind of doctrine” as if members can’t get enough of being told what to do. To be honest, I think there really is something to this idea because the Church currently uses people’s sense of obligation to get them to do what they are asked and sometimes this actually makes them feel more invested in the Church to the point that it becomes a big part of their identity. However, I think there are also diminishing returns with this approach where the more demanding and difficult everything becomes the more you will end up losing many followers as well because of this and at some point the numbers will no longer break even. It looks like the Church already crossed this point a long time ago but mostly because of relatively large families on average and sheer effort to recruit new members it has continued to grow so far in spite of all the lost members.
Quote:I just think there is a strong tendency to read too much into what this means and sometimes this general observation sounds like, “See this is exactly what will happen to the LDS Church too if it tries to pander to disaffected or less-faithful members.”
Yes, unfortunately, many people want simple, easily digestible answers to complex questions.
Quote:I think they really sold out by adopting the Trinity theory, though.
+1 more.
Fire Tag is a blogger at Wheat & Tares who is a member of CoC. He often blogs about things from that branch’s perspective. John Hamer is a Mormon historian who left the LDS church and joined the CoC. For podcast lovers, here’s John Hamer on the succession crisis:
http://podbay.fm/show/312094772/e/1264381707 My honest view is that we are closer than we think (except the concessions that I feel the CoC made that actually dump some of our core doctrines IMO), but the CoC is mostly democrats and most LDS are republicans. As democrats, they are quite progressive. As republicans, our group is rather set in tradition. The other thing I’ve often noted is that so much boils down to the succession crisis, which wasn’t as clearcut as we like to think it was in the LDS church. Although success in our group is unrivaled by any of the other split offs, it wasn’t a foregone conclusion that it would be so. CoC currently has 250K members of record vs. our 14.4M, though.
cwald wrote:And I agree with Shawn’s Trinitarian comment.
I am fearing an explosion right now, as if matter and anti-matter are colliding🙂 Shawn wrote:cwald wrote:And I agree with Shawn’s Trinitarian comment.
I am fearing an explosion right now, as if matter and anti-matter are colliding🙂
Sent from my SCH-I535 using Tapatalk 2
The fact that we have 60000 missionaries serving any given year and that we have all these RM might be one reason the LDS church has has so much growth.
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.