Sunday, September 14, 2008

Church Dilemmas

“Mad Church Disease”

Mad Church Disease is a book that reveals the naked facts about partisan religion and the Institutional Church. The book may be ordered by contacting the Author at the e-mail address at the bottom of the page. The price is $3.00 each, postage included. A companion book, The Apostate Church, which followed this one, sells for $4.00 each. Below are a few excerpts from Mad Church Disease.

Excerpts From “Mad Church Disease”

A few years ago a new malady surfaced among cattle that was labeled by medical professionals as “Mad Cow Disease.” The disease subverts the brain and nervous system and throws the afflicted animal into a quivering plight, from which there is no known recovery. I have chosen “Mad Church Disease” as the caption of my book because it depicts the disease that has attached itself to the body of believers—a spiritual disease that has caused untold division and turmoil within the Christian community.

We have taken a mistranslated word—“church”—and erected sectarian walls around it. Those walls form the Baptist Church, Methodist Church, Lutheran Church, Presbyterian Church, Catholic Church, Church of God Church, Christian Church, the a cappella Church of Christ Church, Assembly of God Church, Evangelical Free Church, and a host of others.

Here is where the fundamental and inexcusable sin has been committed. We have built our own brand of wall around “church” and excluded far too many sincere believers who do not “belly up” to our brand of religion. We call that wall “the Lord’s church” and dare anyone to breach it.

Yes, unquestionably, there is only one body of believers, as per Ephesians 4:4. But we have misused and misapplied that divine passage by applying it to the wall we have erected in the form of “church.” It is shameful and disgraceful. If Ephesians 4:4 can be desecrated by creating many bodies, it may also be violated by concocting many Gods, Spirits, hopes, Lords, and faiths.
The bottom line is that we have sinned by dividing that one body of believers into a profusion of sects and factions. We ought to get down upon our knees—now, not later—and petition the Lord to forgive us.

For a number of years, I gave hot pursuit to church ministries as pulpit minister and partisan pastor, but later discovered that my efforts to “church” others were “a chasing after the wind” and an emptiness that could not find an exit. That hollow part of my life was resolved in 1976 when, after careful evaluation of and research into institutional religion, I concluded that Churchianity was not the solution to sin, nor to the world’s problems. It was at that point that I launched an exposé of the institutional church and opened up its numerous maladies and apostasies.

There is much more just as interesting as the above excerpts. I have printed only a limited number of copies. To get yours, contact me at... Renewal@mindspring.com