The Sorry Condition of Christian Ethics

[Soloist]

Consider the head covering which has been argued on her before. If one was brought up to believe it was a cultural artifact how would one come to a belief that it was divine revelation?
For my wife and I we weighed historical practice and logic questions but ultimately we had to decide what truth seemed to be and by opinion became devoted to a divine revelation.
For taking Scriptures at face value weighed into this, we already believed the Scriptures to be divine but one had to understand them through multiple explanations caveats and cultural teachings. When we together said "the practice and belief we have, is not helping us to follow Jesus and not be hypocrites" we had to develop a new litmus test. So by opinion we chose to believe that the Scripture was wrote without intending a complex form of opinionated theology to understand. Thus we have determined truth to be based on our opinion of truth. No angel or God directly told us this was true, we didn't have a "burning in our bosom" but we chose to accept that God had given us His word and that He wanted us to practice it as He wrote it.
On the other side, I clearly do not believe that eating taco's for supper is divine but rather simply an opinion so there is a difference but I believe it is relatively impossible to state something is divine without an opinion to determine it.

[Szdfan]

Menno is a fine display of this. We have no unity on any of the issues he raises. Not even among the so called conservatives on here is there a unified position on any of these either. The only unity we have is that we have no unity.

Is that really that surprising? Anabaptism has no central doctrinal authority and puts a heavy emphasis on individual and communal interpretation. Is it any surprise that we are schismatic?

[Soloist]

Menno is a fine display of this. We have no unity on any of the issues he raises. Not even among the so called conservatives on here is there a unified position on any of these either. The only unity we have is that we have no unity.

Is that really that surprising? Anabaptism has no central doctrinal authority and puts a heavy emphasis on individual and communal interpretation. Is it any surprise that we are schismatic?

Is there a single religious group that actually is unified? Catholics? nope they have multiple separate groups/orders. Orthodox? Same sort except they have like 5 main groups. Past any of that you have the usual mix of this is liberal Catholic/conservative. They claim unity but there is a reason there is so much variety with them.
What I'm getting at is that a central doctrinal authority doesn't necessarily work. I think the JW's have some claim for unity, and maybe the Sikh... I don't really know of any group that they actually are unified on the doctrines. I'm sure Max would argue but I'm not talking agreeing with overarching things such as the Trinity and the Pope and I'm also talking practice rather then position statements.
Also, there is a stark difference from individuals who I was talking about and groups. For example the the Eastern Mennonites have unity on their core practices between church to church but less so to say the BMA...

[Ken]

Menno is a fine display of this. We have no unity on any of the issues he raises. Not even among the so called conservatives on here is there a unified position on any of these either. The only unity we have is that we have no unity.

Is that really that surprising? Anabaptism has no central doctrinal authority and puts a heavy emphasis on individual and communal interpretation. Is it any surprise that we are schismatic?

Is there a single religious group that actually is unified? Catholics? nope they have multiple separate groups/orders. Orthodox? Same sort except they have like 5 main groups. Past any of that you have the usual mix of this is liberal Catholic/conservative. They claim unity but there is a reason there is so much variety with them.
What I'm getting at is that a central doctrinal authority doesn't necessarily work. I think the JW's have some claim for unity, and maybe the Sikh... I don't really know of any group that they actually are unified on the doctrines. I'm sure Max would argue but I'm not talking agreeing with overarching things such as the Trinity and the Pope and I'm also talking practice rather then position statements.
Also, there is a stark difference from individuals who I was talking about and groups. For example the the Eastern Mennonites have unity on their core practices between church to church but less so to say the BMA...

Closest big group is probably the Mormons who are pretty unified as a church but have lots of individual dissidents. But to my knowledge they have very few if any dissident churches. Unless you count the fringe polygamist Mormons who broke off from the mainstream church over a century ago.

[ohio jones]

Closest big group is probably the Mormons who are pretty unified as a church but have lots of individual dissidents. But to my knowledge they have very few if any dissident churches. Unless you count the fringe polygamist Mormons who broke off from the mainstream church over a century ago.

Wikipedia lists about 50 current Mormon factions, plus several dozen more that have died out.

[Ken]

Closest big group is probably the Mormons who are pretty unified as a church but have lots of individual dissidents. But to my knowledge they have very few if any dissident churches. Unless you count the fringe polygamist Mormons who broke off from the mainstream church over a century ago.

Wikipedia lists about 50 current Mormon factions, plus several dozen more that have died out.

I don't want to argue the point. It was just an observation. When I meet someone who is Mormon (and there are a LOT of Mormons in my neck of the woods) I have a pretty good idea of what kind of church they go to and what their basic beliefs are. It is a pretty uniform faith. I can't say the same thing about say Mennonites, Catholics, or Baptists.

You are talking about this Wikipedia list of Mormon factions? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_d ... t_movement

I would just point out that all those fringe groups combined probably don't add up to more than about 0.1% of the 16.5 million mainstream Mormons

[ohio jones]

I don't want to argue the point.

*proceeds to argue the point.

[Ken]

I don't want to argue the point.

*proceeds to argue the point.

Guess I can't help myself!

[Ernie]

When I meet someone who is Mormon (and there are a LOT of Mormons in my neck of the woods) I have a pretty good idea of what kind of church they go to and what their basic beliefs are. It is a pretty uniform faith. I can't say the same thing about say Mennonites, Catholics, or Baptists.
You are talking about this Wikipedia list of Mormon factions? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_d ... t_movement
I would just point out that all those fringe groups combined probably don't add up to more than about 0.1% of the 16.5 million mainstream Mormons

I think the reason the main Mormon group is so large in comparison with the others is because they run their church like an efficient corporation. One Mormon told me, "How can you argue against us being the true church whenever we are so successful?"

Also they are successful, because they know just when to drop traditional beliefs and practices in favor of more modern ones. When public opinion forced them to drop polygamy, they got a revelation to do so. When public opinion forced them to drop policies against blacks, they did so. In contrast the traditionalists keep on practicing polygamy because they believe that nobody is allowed to change the scriptures.
The liberals watered down their theology so much that they don't require members to believe the Book of Mormon is inspired. If you can't trust your texts, you are going to lose anything that makes you stand out as something different.

A third reason they are so succesful is because they have a top notch missionary training program and a robust apologetics department.

[joey_the_ox]

Menno is a fine display of this. We have no unity on any of the issues he raises. Not even among the so called conservatives on here is there a unified position on any of these either. The only unity we have is that we have no unity.

Is that really that surprising? Anabaptism has no central doctrinal authority and puts a heavy emphasis on individual and communal interpretation. Is it any surprise that we are schismatic?

Menno Simons listed one of the marks of the "true church" as being "unadulterated, pure doctrine." Was he wrong about this?