How do you feel about Community of Christ (RLDS)?

The COC church here in the springs has free coffee.

Hot Springs, Arkansas?

Further west

Saratoga Springs, UT

Soda Springs, ID

Silver Springs, NV

Palm Springs, CA

Alice Springs, Australia

Some of my best friends growing up were RLDS. Always thought they were good people and it’s a much less controlling religion than the Utah based church.

The Community of Crist (RLDS) church directly across the street from me has always been a good neighbor.

I have noticed that they don't even have a quarter of the activities and attendance that they had when I moved here 23 years ago.

There’s a Methodist church by us that they had to park on the street on Sunday because the parking lot was full 25 years ago. Now on Sunday the parking lot is half full. The active members are dying off and they aren’t replacing them with younger members.

The only churches doing well are the large evangelical churches.

Why do you ask?

My impression is that it is a more humane church than the CoJCoLDS.

There used to be a small congregation in Lethbridge who met in an office building...will drive by it and see if the name is still on the building.

I've got a clock running...

Also, no racing!

Hehe...when I get around to it EOD

Its moved into another church building which interestingly is across the alley from the former Lethbridge Stake Centre...which got torched decades ago. The pastor is a University of Lethbridge prof.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/16/2024 09:38PM by Lethbridge Reprobate.

Seriously?  A stake center got torched, as in arson?

  
  

Met some folks from Banff. Wiley.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/16/2024 10:32PM by Beth.

As I remember it (it was a looong time ago) it was a membercof a prominent southern Alberta Mormon family with some serious mental health issues. It was the building I was baptized in .

I was dunked 67 years ago, Beth....but....

I have visited Community of Christ. Small crowd, all up in years. I read they just sold some of their historical items/property to COJCOLDS so that should keep the CofC going for a while longer. When I have visited (to support an older friend), I notice they are all about peace, truth, justice and are involved in good work activities of the local all-churches council. Unlike the Mormons/LDS. There wasn't hardly any indication that CofC has Joseph Smith lineage.

More humane, I agree. But also sinking fast due to no younger families.

Another dying denomination. These people always copy dying churches like the Anglicans and the Lutherans, not the successful ones like Pentecostals or other ones with growing congregations.

Robert Sole, what makes you think a big congregation is the sign of a successful church?

Actually, Robert Sole makes a very good point. The history of religions in the U.S. is all about people trying to find new and radical expressions of religion. This began with the arrival of the Puritans and Pilgrims in the 1600s (remember the Salem witch trials?) and continued through to the founding of the Methodists, Baptists, Christian scientist, and Mormon faiths of the 19th century and continues today in the fundamentalist faiths and the Calvary churches. What appears to be happening is that when churches become too much like outside society, then some of their parishoners start looking for, and finding, new and even more radical religions to satisfy themselves.

Also many churches become too tolerant. Why show up week after week if at the end of the day we all go to heaven anyway. Many of the above mentioned churches like ELCA Lutherans, Anglicans, UMC have a many paths to god approach which will makes you much better people does not make a good church.

Even if I believed in the whole Judaeo-Christian god idea, I would see little point to go to Lutheran services week after week since either way I am saved by grace or whatever. If even the pastor says you can accomplish the same thing by praying at home well, I guess I will stay home.

I don't think any of the "liberal" churches of today will make it. They seem like a place for boomers with gay children to go that have a cultural need for a church community but also don't think or want to be told their child is going to burn in hell for eternity.

Northern_Lights, Do you want to be told that your child will burn in Hell for eternity?

Of course not, but that can also be accomplished by leaving religion in the dust bin of history where it belongs.

You’re forgetting about Calvinism. My church wasn’t liberal, but as Southern Baptists we believed in predestination and that you cannot lose your salvation.

We didn’t go to church to get to heaven; we went to be in the presence of Jesus and like-minded people. There’s a NT verse along the lines of where two or three are gathered together in Jesus’s name, he’ll be in the midst of them.

I liked the music. The rest was nonsense.

Wound not the magic answer be that if you stopped going to church you were not stamped for salvation to begin with so therefore they are still right? It is all nonsense, and for music much better to go to a concert.

I was a child and had no choice. I’m just telling you that it’s not a liberal/conservative thing in the sense you put forth. My church was very socially conservative.

ETA: And because I did believe at one time and was saved, I’m still “saved” despite being an atheist. And thanks to predestination, I have no control over being among the elect. Either you win the Big Gig in the Sky Lottery, or you don’t, and the elect were chosen before the Earth was created. I remind my mother of those tenets when she goes on a Christian rant and tell her not to worry about my soul. She doesn’t find it amusing.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/16/2024 04:46PM by Beth.

The problem isn't "tolerance" mainly, it's woolly theology and no depth. They don't offer anything you won't hear elsewhere.

Imagine joining a club that tells you that you don't have to pay an annual subscription, doesn't offer any benefits if you do, and doesn't seem to know what it's supposed to do. But at the same time that club spends most of its money on its buildings and admin. That is a bad economic strategy for the club. It doesn't collect money but it does spend a lot of it.

Imagine that club only meets for an hour a week (maybe two for a Wednesday coffee morning). And nothing that club does is very interesting.

Most people wouldn't want to continue being a member of that club. Or they might join another club that has clearer aims, meets more often and appears to encourage their personal development.

blindguy, I understand the history of religion in the U.S. differently. Mormonism and Christian Science certainly arose in the U.S. and could be seen as uniquely American. Methodism and Baptism arose in England, 1612 for the Baptists and around 1730 for the Methodists. Both were movements of revival against the Church of England. Other groups, Puritans, Quakers, Mennonites, Anabaptists, etc. came to be free from religious persecution in Europe. Doesn't mean they didn't carry the prejudices of the old world with them, just that their goal was religious freedom. I don't know what you mean by radical expressions of religion. I think Jesus was a radical.

My understanding of Protestant history agrees with yours.

Much of my viewpoint comes from a well-researched book written by former Richard Nixon speechwriter Kevin Phillips. Chapter 4 of this book which deals with the history of U.S. religions is available through the NPR website.

https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5292686

While I've posted this chapter in the past, I do find it occasionally necessary to reread and repost the information. The radicalism here refers to both religious practice and political viewpoints that follow from that practice.

Too small to matter. I think there will be no such thing in 25 years.

Sorry I need to be snarky right now.
The Community of Christ could learn about investments from the LDS church.
So the LDS church has an over 100 billion dollar rainy day fund.