Interested in learning about Holdemans

[Soloist]

#6 concerns a “couple”, I only concerned myself with individual people. Sometimes a whole family leaves. Again they rarely if ever join another plain church.

As an example, an older couple (that is divorced and remarried) joined the Holdemans in Lobelville. Eventually they were not content there and left. Now they are members of David Black’s church in Linden.

Would you consider them to born again and still kingdom Christian or not? I consider David Black’s members to be, as far as I can tell, sincere born again believers trying to live kingdom Christian lives.

I don't know David Black.

I don't either, but the primary question here has nothing to do with David Black. You are side stepping the D/R point where you would not consider them to be part of the kingdom.

[Ernie]

As an example, an older couple (that is divorced and remarried) joined the Holdemans in Lobelville. Eventually they were not content there and left. Now they are members of David Black’s church in Linden.
Would you consider them to born again and still kingdom Christian or not? I consider David Black’s members to be, as far as I can tell, sincere born again believers trying to live kingdom Christian lives.

I would need to have more information about the nature of the divorce and the remarriage before I could make any comments about whether they could be considered kingdom Christians in my mind. Normally I don't make any such judgments until I have been able to talk with the couple myself. (unless the nature of their divorce and subsequent remarriage is public knowledge.)

Question for you Josh,
Let's say that John and Mary go to the same "mainstream" church as Sam and Susie. Both couples claim to be born again. John and Susie develop an emotional affair. John and Susie divorce their spouses and marry each other. If John and Susie want to join your church, would their marriage be accepted?

As I side note:
I am the call center manager for Gospel Billboards and I urge our team to not make judgments about divorce and remarriage situations over the phone. There are many possible variables and many dishonest people and it can be difficult to get the whole story in one phone conversation. Even when sitting with people face-to-face, it can be hard to get all the necessary facts.

There are about 5 different positions among Plain Anabaptists on what scenarios constitute adultery/sin. Seekers are likely to run into these differences at some point and learning of these differences can be quite disillusioning. However, there are scenarios that Plain Anabaptists and kingdom Christians commonly understand to be sin (emphasis on "commonly") and those I would normally view as sin, also.

The kind of scenario I picture above are clearly adultery (in my mind) and I believe that such relationships require repentance and separation in order for such persons to experience salvation or be part of Christ's church.

There are many other situations that I think could also constitute adultery, but because the scriptures seem to be less clear on these relationships (in the minds of Plain Anabaptists and kingdom Christians as a whole), I am hesitant to make universal judgments about such relationships. I think congregations need to be discerning in these situations and determine how they will relate to such couples.

This can be discussed further in a D&R thread if someone wishes to do so.

[Josh]

That’s a very fair response, Ernie. Thanks.

[Josh]

#6 concerns a “couple”, I only concerned myself with individual people. Sometimes a whole family leaves. Again they rarely if ever join another plain church.

As an example, an older couple (that is divorced and remarried) joined the Holdemans in Lobelville. Eventually they were not content there and left. Now they are members of David Black’s church in Linden.

Would you consider them to born again and still kingdom Christian or not? I consider David Black’s members to be, as far as I can tell, sincere born again believers trying to live kingdom Christian lives.

I don't know David Black.

I think you’d enjoy getting to know him - he’s a rising figure at AIC.

He somehow got himself ordained as a New Order Amish bishop which is an unusual path for a seeker family to take. Eventually the rest of his church decided they wanted things like cars, so he moved to TN and started a church mostly composed of seekers. It has some similarities to Shippensburg such as trying to all live short distances from one another.

[twinpines]

Holdemans have no concept you can “cancel” or “transfer” your membership. These are the only possible states a person can be:

#1. A non member who has never become a member. (This is most people.) This person may or may not be a born again Christian.

#2. A member who is a Christian.

#3. A member who has fallen into a sin so serious they are now spiritually dead. Excommunication is simply recognition by the church body that a person is spiritually dead.

#4. Extremely rare: someone who joined but had their membership annulled because they joined under false pretenses or was insincere. One woman claims she only joined to placate her husband to prevent him from trying to make their fam

Isn't there a number 5 and 6? I'm curious what percentage of Holdeman's would agree that the following is easily possible.

#5. A person who was a member of the church but left The Church, married another kingdom Christian (Bercot's definition) and is still born again.

#6. A couple who were part of the church but left The Church, are still kingdom Christian, and are still born again.

#5 may exist but is so rare the topic never even comes up. People don’t leave the Holdemans and go join another plain church. It is extremely rare (although I can thing of a case or two).

#6 concerns a “couple”, I only concerned myself with individual people. Sometimes a whole family leaves. Again they rarely if ever join another plain church.

As an example, an older couple (that is divorced and remarried) joined the Holdemans in Lobelville. Eventually they were not content there and left. Now they are members of David Black’s church in Linden.

Would you consider them to born again and still kingdom Christian or not? I consider David Black’s members to be, as far as I can tell, sincere born again believers trying to live kingdom Christian lives.

Josh, so am curious. If a family is born again christian, one spouse joins Holdeman while the other steadfastly refused to join. Would the holdeman church eventually encourage the Holdeman spouse to divorce the non-member?

[Josh]

twinpines,

Not at all. Getting a divorce in that case would probably lead to you being expelled.

[Ernie]

Question for you Josh,
Let's say that John and Mary go to the same "mainstream" church as Sam and Susie. Both couples claim to be born again. John and Susie develop an emotional affair. John and Susie divorce their spouses and marry each other. If John and Susie want to join your church, would their marriage be accepted?

[Josh]

Question for you Josh,
Let's say that John and Mary go to the same "mainstream" church as Sam and Susie. Both couples claim to be born again. John and Susie develop an emotional affair. John and Susie divorce their spouses and marry each other. If John and Susie want to join your church, would their marriage be accepted?

These things are handled on a case-by-case basis and tend to be evaluated by the overall spiritual fruit in the applicants' life (including their attitude towards their ex-spouses).

If they both claimed to have been born again and living a Christian life whilst they had an emotional affair and got divorced, no, they would not be accepted. Having emotional affairs is, generally speaking, a death sin and considered something that makes you "spiritually dead", because engaging in an emotional affair almost always requires pre-meditated lying, which is a very serious and deadly sin.

Now if they confessed and repented that they had no Christian life at all and were outside of God's grace during that time, that would be a different matter. Usually people are encouraged to make peace with a divorced spouse. People who bear a grudge against an ex (or have no repentant attitude at all towards being the aggressor in a divorce) generally are not accepted as members in the first place.

[Josh]

Josh, so am curious. If a family is born again christian, one spouse joins Holdeman while the other steadfastly refused to join. Would the holdeman church eventually encourage the Holdeman spouse to divorce the non-member?

Here are two situations, with some minor details changed for peoples' privacy:

- A husband desired to join and his wife was not interested in joining. She went through the motions and claims she faked her membership, vows, etc. because she wanted her husband to join the Holdemans since otherwise she thinks he would have tried to join the Amish. She asked her membership to be annulled, and it was granted.

He is encouraged to live in peace with her.

- A husband joined our church and eventually his marriage fell apart - wife moved away and they ended up with split custody of the kids. He very much wanted to get remarried but the local congregation did not feel comfortable with that, as there was no evidence of an affair / adultery, etc.

Unfortunately, he eventually became discouraged with Christian life, left the church, and ended up marrying an unbeliever.

Of course, I can repeat these stories, but the rumours continue to abound that the Holdemans make new members get divorced. I really wish people would stop spreading and repeating this rumour. It's an out and out lie.

[Ernie]

Question for you Josh,
Let's say that John and Mary go to the same "mainstream" church as Sam and Susie. Both couples claim to be born again. John and Susie develop an emotional affair. John and Susie divorce their spouses and marry each other. If John and Susie want to join your church, would their marriage be accepted?

These things are handled on a case-by-case basis and tend to be evaluated by the overall spiritual fruit in the applicants' life (including their attitude towards their ex-spouses).

If they both claimed to have been born again and living a Christian life whilst they had an emotional affair and got divorced, no, they would not be accepted. Having emotional affairs is, generally speaking, a death sin and considered something that makes you "spiritually dead", because engaging in an emotional affair almost always requires pre-meditated lying, which is a very serious and deadly sin.

Now if they confessed and repented that they had no Christian life at all and were outside of God's grace during that time, that would be a different matter. Usually people are encouraged to make peace with a divorced spouse. People who bear a grudge against an ex (or have no repentant attitude at all towards being the aggressor in a divorce) generally are not accepted as members in the first place.

This is good to know. Thanks, Josh.