A church membership contract

The Wartburg Watch parses yet another church membership contract. This one binds you to the church until it decides it is allright for you to leave and start going someplace else.

Leaving CityView as a way to avoid conflict or avoid a sin-issue is not simply a matter of leaving CityView, but a living, breathing picture of abandoning the Gospel – because that same Gospel has the promise of power in addressing sin and healing damaged relationships. If someone were to leave CityView without addressing a relational conflict or a sin-issue, we could not give our blessing to such a departure until the conflict or sin-issue were settled. In such a situation, an individual or family would NOT be considered departed in good standing.

Well.

The bald fact that a church thinks it needs contracts with its members, and would even consider the possibility of hounding former members through subsequent churches, is disconcerting enough — but they certainly are revelatory. They mean exactly what they say: Y’all are sheep, to be herded this way and that by your betters.

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