02-27-2011, 11:48 PM
dr p Wrote:I'm curious as to what standard(s) you use to decide what you filter these considerations in approaching a text.
Well, I dont know that I use any standard.
I dont call myself a christian. If I did I'd be a heretic maybe. Some years ago I came to accept universalism, and full preterism, when I looked to the NT, so I would I guess use those filters. So on that basis I tend to see most of christianity as way off the mark (in theology anyway). Not to say that some christians haven't live very connected spiritual lives.
I dont accept that any of the organisations calling themselves churches have anything that sets them apart from, even me, if I went and started a church. This is not meant to be critical of them or their work, but to me they are just organisations that heard the news in the gospels and other NT books and began to teach what they saw (or even thought they saw) in there.
I dont see any of them as having any special mandate from God to be a "church"