Christianity has over the centuries often been distracted by various things, different aspects of the supposed life with God, that we have repeatedly lost track of just what God is doing in the world—in the Creation. In the tradition I was raised in, we spent a lot of time arguing against “the denominations,” and “returning to the old paths.” The idea was that God wanted us to worship and conduct our assemblies just like the first-century church and we spent a lot of time ferreting out the divine rules for “church.” The result for many of us was a sort of catechesis of Bible passages on various topics, normally focused on those things that made us different and others wrong. One of our proclamations toward those who didn’t “do church” the way we did was that they were “worshiping in error.” This was such a convenient phrase that we could use it about denominations and even those of our own groups if they did something in their assemblies or even structured themselves differently as a c...
Ramblings and observations