{"id":1811,"date":"2011-01-21T18:32:52","date_gmt":"2011-01-22T02:32:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/oxgoad.ca\/2011\/01\/21\/gospel-driven-separation-is-it-enough\/"},"modified":"2011-01-22T00:22:14","modified_gmt":"2011-01-22T08:22:14","slug":"gospel-driven-separation-is-it-enough","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/oxgoad.ca\/2011\/01\/21\/gospel-driven-separation-is-it-enough\/","title":{"rendered":"gospel-driven separation: is it enough?"},"content":{"rendered":"

What would you say to a group that believes the following:<\/p>\n

We affirm the Trinity \u2013 God who is a community of three persons \u2026 We believe in Jesus Christ, the Son of the living God, the Word made flesh, the Savior of the world, fully human and fully divine \u2026 This new life is the loving gift of God\u2019s grace that becomes ours through faith and repentance.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Does that sound OK to you?<\/p>\n

Suppose the group is one that holds to high moral values and eschews worldliness. What would you say?<\/p>\n

A Canadian evangelical magazine asks:<\/p>\n

The question Evangelicals must ask is: What shall we do about how much we have in common?<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The magazine concludes its article on this group with this paragraph:<\/p>\n

There is a tremendous opportunity for Canadian Evangelicals when it comes to the _________ of ______. They are a relatively small group within Canada that gives much independence to each congregation. They have a good orthodox statement of faith and a focus on Jesus Christ. \u2026 Can we as Evangelicals come alongside the _________ of ______, not denying our differences, but embracing our common faith?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The group in question is called the Community of Christ. Not familiar with that name? Try this one:<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints<\/em><\/p>\n

That\u2019s right. The Mormons. Not the main group headquartered in Salt Lake City, but the splinter group that formed after Joseph Smith, Jr., died and was originally led by Smith\u2019s son, Joseph Smith III.<\/p>\n

The magazine in question is Faith Today<\/em>, a publication of the Evangelical Fellowship of Canada (they send a free copy to our church from time to time). The article discussing this issue comes from the January\/February 2011 issue, pp. 30-32 and is entitled:<\/p>\n

\u201cCan Evangelicals Welcome the Community of Christ?\u201d<\/p>\n

The article carries this subtitle: \u201cEvangelicals have an opportunity to encourage orthodoxy and build fellowship with a small, Mormon-related denomination.\u201d<\/p>\n

Really now\u2026 nothing should surprise me about the muddled thinking of evangelicals, but this is truly amazing. The article notes that the Community of Christ has applied for membership and been accepted in the National Council of Churches, an organization that includes a number of apostate groups. The article mentions this as if it is no big deal.<\/p>\n

The article isn\u2019t fully supportive of embracing the Community of Christ because, as it does acknowledge, the Community of Christ also believes this:<\/p>\n

We affirm the Bible as the foundational scripture for the church. In addition, Community of Christ used the Book of Mormon<\/em> and the Doctrine and Covenants<\/em> \u2013 not to replace the witness of the Bible or improve on it, but because they confirm its message that Jesus Christ is the Living Word of God.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

That would be a problem, eh?<\/p>\n

The general tenor of the Faith Today<\/em> article seems to answer its own question positively, in spite of this problematic point of doctrine. It excuses the Community of Christ here because in 2007 a motion to affirm the Book of Mormon<\/em> as inspired was rejected. But still\u2026 the Bible is only \u2018the foundational scripture\u2019?<\/p>\n

My point in mentioning this story is not because I am worried that fundamentalists might become open to fellowship with the Community of Christ<\/p>\n

I mention it because in recent days we are hearing a considerable emphasis on \u2018gospel-driven separation\u2019, as if all that matters is the gospel, we need not consider questions outside the gospel in making separation decisions.<\/p>\n

This story starts with the gospel. The Community of Christ makes a statement that sounds fairly biblical as far as an understanding of key gospel points are concerned: Trinity, deity of Christ, salvation by faith and repentance. But there is so much more to the story.<\/p>\n

The current noise about \u2018gospel-driven separation\u2019 demonstrates a wizened and shriveled understanding of separation. I believe that it opens the door to significant errors, many of which I have discussed and warned about in earlier posts.<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t think we are in any danger of joining with a group like the Community of Christ \u2026 yet.<\/p>\n

But I do wonder what our formerly fundamentalist churches and schools will look like in ten or twenty years.<\/p>\n

\"don_sig2\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

What would you say to a group that believes the following: We affirm the Trinity \u2013 God who is a community of three persons \u2026 We believe in Jesus Christ, the Son of the living God, the Word made flesh, the Savior of the world, fully human and fully divine \u2026 This new life is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true},"categories":[71,44],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2fYWj-td","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/oxgoad.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1811"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/oxgoad.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/oxgoad.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/oxgoad.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/oxgoad.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1811"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/oxgoad.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1811\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1814,"href":"https:\/\/oxgoad.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1811\/revisions\/1814"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/oxgoad.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1811"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/oxgoad.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1811"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/oxgoad.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1811"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}