Matt, I understand what you are saying.

My own personal interpretation of the situation is that real RLDSism is actually a religion of its own, even to the point of being distinct from LDSism. To see RLDSism as a sect or denomination of Christianity is to assume a viewpoint outside the ocnfines of RLDSism.

I understand also your point that the current incarnation of the church does not claim to be the “only” community of Christ. I guess the name “The Community of Christ” is just poor wording. By way of example, when some of Edgar Goodspeed’s colleagues translated the Old Testament, and published it in one volume with Dr. Goodspeed’s translations of the apocrypha and New Testament, the title of the volume was: The Bible — An American Translation. Had the title been “The Bible — The American Translation” you would see the problems that might have ensued.

I notice that some Catholic parishes have signs that say, “St. Jonavic’s Catholic Community,” or something like that. I suppose that maybe their command of the language is better.

But this is all becoming a moot point for me. I could handle RLDSism, but the attempts to change the church from a separate religion to a unitarianistic-type entity drove me nuts, so I had to leave the church. It’s been about ten years now, and I think that I might actually be able to go to some kind of a church now. It’s just really hard to get over the spiritual damage caused to and by the entire system. I’d call it something like an autoimmune reaction — the educated RLDS is allergic to his own religious beliefs. The chief symptom is complete anger and inability to talk to anyone who had anything to do with the change, or who agrees with the change. The only image I can come up with for the anger is the scene of a pregnant woman shooting the surgeon who performed her tubal ligation.

In a humorous vein, it’s similar to when Garfield told the tragic story of an uncle of his who had received a “species change operation.” According to Garfield, his uncle had himself changed into a dog, and “chased himself to death.” That’s what happens when you take a church whose chief tenet is that Christianity is apostate and give is a religion-change operation from RLDS to Christian.

Hang loose.
George

Your description of conservative RLDSers as a “man without a country” is agonizing. I think of many European Jews before the reestablishment of Israel.

To clarify terms: When I talk about conservative RLDSers, I largely mean Restorationists who separated. I understand the politics regarding who separated from who is important. But, not all did. There are more or less conservative RLDSers that remain part of the Community of Christ in membership and affiliation. So, the question about who owns and controls the RLDS name depends on where you (or anyone) stand in the history of splintering.

IMO, the issue of Islam is different. Many denominations and movements call themselves Christian without being sued by one Christian church or another. I would not compare the name RLDS to a global faith like Christianity or Islam. They are not the same. Perhaps the problem is that RLDSers see themselves as a whole religion as opposed to a church or particular movement within Christianity. That is part of RLDSism’s sectarian mindset and negative relationship to other churchs, which I talk about in my post. The Community of Christ does not claim to be the only community of Christ’s, and I think that is critically important

Thanks for reading, George.
God be with you,
Matt

Having a relationship with a faith community whose name changed to reflect the idea of being Christ’s community does raise some interesting questions–ones that you raised. If Christ reached out to all members of HIS community–the marginalized and rejected as well as the popular and accepted–then should not a school connected to a faith community claiming his name do the same? Not an easy task…but an important one.

I think the call ultimately comes down to the response he gave when asked about the great commandment(s)–to love God with all one’s being and to love neighbor as we love self. If that is our focus, then everything else will ultimately find its own place.

The leadership of the Community of Christ, by rejecting the finality of the scripture, is gradually pushing its own revelations and oracular pronouncements as the guide to the church. This is what happened with the LDS church in Utah, where the “Living Oracles” pronounced Genesis to be “baby stories” made up to avoid telling the real truth about how man came to be and what the male/female relationship was all about. As such, the CofC has pushed off into the same sex as the LDS church. Using the Book of Mormon or Joseph Smith as the figurehead on the ship doesn’t change the nautical location of the vessel.

The matter of female ordination was handled in the same authoritarian, heavy-handed methods used by the LDS General Authorities in enforcing African ordination. It is almost as if the First Presidency borrowed the LDS playbook.

What I’m trying to say is that the Community of Christ is not becoming “more Protestant,” but “more LDS” in its centralization of tyrannical authority in the whims and personal agendas of the high ranking leaders. And its natural allies are the postChristian denominations of Protesantism who are wandering away from the faith once delivered to the Saints in search of a Brave New World. There is no absolute truth; there is only what the Living Oracles are teaching this week.

How in this world can there possibly be a “conservative RLDSism” of which you spoke in your post. The Community of Christ is very far to the left liberal, and it has asserted total legal control over the name “RLDS.” If one is conservative, one is automatically prohibited by U.S. trademark law from being RLDS, since there is no effective expression of conservatism within the ranks of the paid priesthood hierarchy of the Community of Christ. Like “the man without a country,” the individual who believes and practices the RLDS faith that identifies RLDSism has a similar problem. He is a man belonging to a religion without a name, because the Community of Christ won’t share. Quite a contrast with Islam, which (to my knowledge) has never sued to force the Nation of Islam to stop using the name “Islam.”

I see the Community of Christ either dwindling until it disbands, or until it agrees to unite with a Protestant NCC denomination in the same way the Evangelical United Brethren did with the Moethodist Church in the late 1960′s. The last vestige of the EUB only survived as the word “United” in the new name the “United Methodist Church.” When the CofC finally merges with another church or religion, the only surviving part of the church will be the word “of.”

George