Cindy wrote:
DataRat did NOT say he has no fellowship with the Reformed Baptists. What he DID say is that he prefers Sunday worship with the Belgic Reformed congregation in his are. This is not schismatic. This is preference. Totally different.
Kim wrote:
Now, I come back online and find my question blow up out of proportion. DR being accused of schism. You don’t attend every church in your area? No one does we all just go to the same church every Sunday.
A Christian wrote:
You people just don’t get it, do you?
If I found another assembly in my area that believed the true gospel, I’d be running so fast to join them it would make your head spin. I am not a schismatic. I desire to join with other believers in fellowship and worship. I will not let non-essential secondary doctrines get in the way of worshipping together with my brothers and sisters in Christ. I would join with them in a heartbeat, no matter their view of baptism or ecclesiology or eschatology. I desire unity, not separation from brothers and sisters in Christ.
But to you people, where you worship is just a “preference.” You go to a particular church just because “we all just go to the same church every Sunday.” It’s just a habit. You would worship apart from your “brothers and sisters in Christ” (your own definition) based on preferences, habits, and secondary doctrines. This is schismatic. If you were not schismatic, you would not be in separate worship from those whom you considered to be brothers and sisters in Christ. You would desire to worship with them. You wouldn’t separate over non-essential issues. “Oh, they hold to the Westminster Confession, while I hold to the Three Forms of Unity, so I worship at the place that holds to the Three Forms of Unity, even though I believe the Westminster Confession people are Christians.” This is blatantly schismatic. When the PCA formed, they considered the OPC to be a true church, yet they did not join with the OPC. This is schismatic. And any “Reformed” or “Calvinistic” church that believes Arminian churches are true churches, then they should be eager to merge with them! After all, they preach the same gospel, just a little less consistently! A secondary issue!
So if you and anyone else on this list is not schismatic, you will work hard to unify all “true churches” (your own definition) in your area and join together in worship. You guys call me schismatic, yet YOU are the ones who are schismatic. I desire to join with ALL TRUE CHRISTIANS in worship. All true Christians are those who hold to all the essentials of the Christian Faith. Where we differ, of course, is around what the “essentials of the Christian faith” are. But if you guys were not hypocrites, you wouldn’t call me schismatic; you’d have to admit that YOU’RE the schismatic ones for not worshipping with certain “Christians” (your own definition) because of preference, habit, and/or secondary doctrines.
Agrammatos 