Kingdom Christian and Charity Movements

[Ms. Izzie]

In the present case I advise you: Leave these men alone! Let them go! For if their purpose or activity is of human origin, it will fail. But if it is from God, you will not be able to stop these men; you will only find yourselves fighting against God.
Acts 5:38-39

[barnhart]

In the present case I advise you: Leave these men alone! Let them go! For if their purpose or activity is of human origin, it will fail. But if it is from God, you will not be able to stop these men; you will only find yourselves fighting against God.
Acts 5:38-39

This was my approach with the Charity folks as well. Once I was in the train station with a new believer I had been discipling and we happened on a group of Charity street evangelists. My friend was so pleased to see them and wanted to talk. He mentioned "We are mennonites too," and the man made a little jump backward and said very loudly, "No! we are saved out of the mennonites, they follow dead religion!" Now it seems some of that fire has burned out.

In general I appreciate the folks up there in Boston. I may not be exactly on the same page, but God bless them, may they increase.

[joshuabgood]

In the present case I advise you: Leave these men alone! Let them go! For if their purpose or activity is of human origin, it will fail. But if it is from God, you will not be able to stop these men; you will only find yourselves fighting against God.
Acts 5:38-39

This was my approach with the Charity folks as well. Once I was in the train station with a new believer I had been discipling and we happened on a group of Charity street evangelists. My friend was so pleased to see them and wanted to talk. He mentioned "We are mennonites too," and the man made a little jump backward and said very loudly, "No! we are saved out of the mennonites, they follow dead religion!" Now it seems some of that fire has burned out.

In general I appreciate the folks up there in Boston. I may not be exactly on the same page, but God bless them, may they increase.

That is where I am. Though I push Sattler and accept many of their critiques of the CA world.

[Judas Maccabeus]

In the present case I advise you: Leave these men alone! Let them go! For if their purpose or activity is of human origin, it will fail. But if it is from God, you will not be able to stop these men; you will only find yourselves fighting against God.
Acts 5:38-39

This was my approach with the Charity folks as well. Once I was in the train station with a new believer I had been discipling and we happened on a group of Charity street evangelists. My friend was so pleased to see them and wanted to talk. He mentioned "We are mennonites too," and the man made a little jump backward and said very loudly, "No! we are saved out of the mennonites, they follow dead religion!" Now it seems some of that fire has burned out.

In general I appreciate the folks up there in Boston. I may not be exactly on the same page, but God bless them, may they increase.

That is where I am. Though I push Sattler and accept many of their critiques of the CA world.

Does the leadership of the churches that support your school know about the goals and objectives of Sattler? About their general disdain for conservative mennonites? You can't separate the church from the school, because the church will be used for the mandatory discipleship program.

If they do not, it would be better if they heard it from you before you grant them any more access to students. Sooner or later, they will find out, and it would be better if they found out from you.

J.M.

[Judas Maccabeus]

In the present case I advise you: Leave these men alone! Let them go! For if their purpose or activity is of human origin, it will fail. But if it is from God, you will not be able to stop these men; you will only find yourselves fighting against God.
Acts 5:38-39

This was my approach with the Charity folks as well. Once I was in the train station with a new believer I had been discipling and we happened on a group of Charity street evangelists. My friend was so pleased to see them and wanted to talk. He mentioned "We are mennonites too," and the man made a little jump backward and said very loudly, "No! we are saved out of the mennonites, they follow dead religion!" Now it seems some of that fire has burned out.

In general I appreciate the folks up there in Boston. I may not be exactly on the same page, but God bless them, may they increase.

The issue I have is that they appear to have an intent to use the school to proselytize students into their movement, while all the time not making either their plans or their true doctrinal position clear. IF that is what they intend to do, it should be crystal clear to all. If they really have major doctrinal and practice differences with the conservative mennonite movement they should make that clear to all, especially the leadership of churches that send students there.

If the school did not exist, and they were not actively recruiting from among my community, I would not be seriously concerned about what they are up to. As it is there is much about their doctrinal and teaching position that we really do not know about. I will say, a group that has a large amount of doctrinal information that is only available to insiders is almost behaving like a cult. They need to put it our for all to see.

J.M.

[Judas Maccabeus]

In the present case I advise you: Leave these men alone! Let them go! For if their purpose or activity is of human origin, it will fail. But if it is from God, you will not be able to stop these men; you will only find yourselves fighting against God.
Acts 5:38-39

I guess you would be ok with Mormonism.

J.M.

[mike]

In the present case I advise you: Leave these men alone! Let them go! For if their purpose or activity is of human origin, it will fail. But if it is from God, you will not be able to stop these men; you will only find yourselves fighting against God.
Acts 5:38-39

I guess you would be ok with Mormonism.

J.M.

Nobody is persecuting these people, just discussing them, and given the strong critiques that FOTW-affiliated folks offer against other perspectives, some push back is to be expected. After observing them in a limited way for a while, I would say there is some validity to the charge that they seem disdainful toward conservative Mennonites/Anabaptists. That said I find them an interesting group of folks, and wouldn't be opposed to visiting and fellowshiping with them, and learning from them.

[mike]

There does seem to be a lot of similarity between FOTW and the Charity movement back in the day. There are some different twists, such as the bent toward promotion of college education, where the Charity movement seemed to have an anti-education bias. Proselytizing of conservative Anabaptists might be a common factor. For all our faults, we CAs seem to be an excellent, abundant source of willing participants in various socio-religious experiments.

[joshuabgood]

There does seem to be a lot of similarity between FOTW and the Charity movement back in the day. There are some different twists, such as the bent toward promotion of college education, where the Charity movement seemed to have an anti-education bias. Proselytizing of conservative Anabaptists might be a common factor. For all our faults, we CAs seem to be an excellent, abundant source of willing participants in various socio-religious experiments.

As a sociological phenomenon perhaps the movements are similar, but with regard to "faith traditions" and leadership influences etc I don't think they are very closely related. Charity from the beginning was very influenced by "ex-Amish" Mose S etc. Charity also had a strong baptist influence, Gothardism, revivalism, crisis conversionism, no rules'ism etc. All of which are distinct from FOTW in significant ways. FOTW is virtually untouched in leadership with regard to ex-"CA" influence. And despite the critiques, I have never felt judged or like I wasn't "saved" by them. At Charity, the are you saved question usually happened about 2 minutes inside the front door...when Bro Denny hit me with that, as a visiting stranger, I replied I hope so. The next five minutes were interesting to say the least =).

[mike]

There does seem to be a lot of similarity between FOTW and the Charity movement back in the day. There are some different twists, such as the bent toward promotion of college education, where the Charity movement seemed to have an anti-education bias. Proselytizing of conservative Anabaptists might be a common factor. For all our faults, we CAs seem to be an excellent, abundant source of willing participants in various socio-religious experiments.

As a sociological phenomenon perhaps the movements are similar, but with regard to "faith traditions" and leadership influences etc I don't think they are very closely related. Charity from the beginning was very influenced by "ex-Amish" Mose S etc. Charity also had a strong baptist influence, Gothardism, revivalism, crisis conversionism, no rules'ism etc. All of which are distinct from FOTW in significant ways. FOTW is virtually untouched in leadership with regard to ex-"CA" influence. And despite the critiques, I have never felt judged or like I wasn't "saved" by them. At Charity, the are you saved question usually happened about 2 minutes inside the front door...when Bro Denny hit me with that, as a visiting stranger, I replied I hope so. The next five minutes were interesting to say the least =).

Agreed on all points, and why couldn't I have been a little mouse at that conversation?