If you haven’t read the previous posts and the subsequent comments, this will probably make no sense. You’ve been warned! 🙂
I’m not sure if my Dad’s going to comment again or not, since it’s been several days now. And I haven’t come across any other members of the Church of Christ that want to comment either. So as an ex-member, I’ll try to stand in a little and give you an idea of where they’re coming from.
As has been mentioned already, much of the teaching on withdrawal comes from 1 Cor 5 and 2 Thess 3. There are some ancillary passages as well, but these two are the main ones. To be clear, a strict reading of these passages does teach the idea of withdrawing from members who have stepped beyond the way a Christian should live and behave. And as my Dad’s already pointed out, there are at least 3 reasons for doing this: 1) the Bible commands it, 2) it removes a “bad apple” from the congregation, and 3) it should show the erring member where he’s wrong so he can repent.
So I do want to be clear that I don’t think my Dad is completely off the mark. In his defense, most times I’ve seen withdrawal implemented, it’s been toward people who still considered themselves Christians to some degree or another. In other words, withdrawal actually had a chance of working in those situations.
However, the situation with me and my wife is different in that we stopped believing Christianity altogether, and the Bible simply doesn’t give instruction for those kinds of situations. And when it does talk about those who are non-believers, it says NOT to withdraw from them. So that’s the point that I hope he’ll address. Again, people (at least in my area of the world) don’t typically leave Christianity completely, so this is uncharted territory for my family — I’m not surprised that they thought withdrawal was the proper response. But I think a closer examination of the New Testament shows that it’s been misapplied, and I really hope they’ll consider that.
I’m not naive enough to think this would solve all our problems — being around one another would still be tense at times. After all, we no longer share what used to be the most important thing in our lives. But I do think we could get back to a good relationship that we’d all enjoy, even if it’s tempered by some bittersweet nostalgia.
Thanks again to all of you for your comments and your interest. I hope these posts haven’t gotten you down! My wife and I (and our kids) are truly in a great place right now. 🙂
Finding Truth 
Ark,
Yes, but Marcion not only wanted to wipe out the Hebrew Bible, but demote the Hebrew God as well. That would have made very little sense to the early Christian Apostles and Fathers for two reasons: much of the OT was useful material that could be manipulated to serve their own ends and why demote one god in order to create another. It was just overly complicated or, better yet, overly Greek.
For the early Church, Marcion’s beliefs were just too close to Gnosticism–for which they possessed a deep-seated aversion–and Marcion just denied too much of what the early Church wanted to be true about Christ–that he was fully human and fully God. Maybe they would have sided with him if he had given them their fully human Jesus, the bodily Resurrection, and didn’t demote the Hebrew God. Perhaps, if Polycarp and Iranaeus had not denounced him as a heretic that would have been helpful, as well.
In truth, Gnosticism, Marcionism, Valentinianism forced the Church to separate themselves from the heretics–Docetists, Gnostics, and even Iranaeus’s friend, Justin–because they would not submit to Church authority. But they were all highly influential in the development and formation of the canon.
This only brings me back to my earlier point, which was not intended to suggest that the early Church wanted a clean OT slate, but that they would have used whatever OT slate was available to support the Gospel as long as it was their version of the Gospel. Their version included a human Christ and bodily Resurrection. For the early Christians a fictitious Exodus or an incorrect attribution of the destruction of Jezreel to Shishak, instead of Hazael would have been irrelevant to the theological validity and the historical authenticity of the Gospels. The early Church’s doctrinal and theological disputes were, primarily, about Jesus, Paul, and the Gospels; not about the OT or even, to a certain extent, the Hebrew God, as Iranaeus and Tertullian indicate. Jesus not being human or God or differing interpretations of Paul were more dangerous to early Christianity than OT prophecy or, as Justin believed, the god of Plato being the same as the god of the Bible was less dangerous than the Resurrection being a merely spiritual occurrence. The Gospel was always at the forefront with everything else playing a secondary role to the Gospel’s conversion power and credibility. And this Gospel-driven mindset survives to the present day.
I think this point is worth making: Christians do not look to OT prophecy then Jesus, but to Jesus then OT prophecy. The prophecy is not the bedrock of Christian faith. Yes, the OT comes before the NT chronologically, but in the eyes of Christians the NT precedes the OT. Prophecy is only one of the evidences for faith. It is not the sole or the primary reason for becoming or remaining a Christian. For many Christians, the OT was a trial run; a failed experiment. The OT necessitated Jesus’ coming, even if it did prophesy it as well. It is the NT that is important to Christians–it has been from the first–and it is the NT that you will have to undermine if you want to undermine Christianity.
LikeLike
Unklee,
Yes, I will agree and while the OT has a good deal of history it also has a great deal of myth. More than myth than history, in my opinion lol. But you are right the line between myth and fact is not always clear in ancient writings, as reading Herodotus or Homer or Thucydides demonstrates. It is no different with the Bible, but there is a considerable deal more riding on historical reliability in the Bible than in other ancient works. Whether this is fair or not I am unsure but it is the unequivocal truth.
Regards
LikeLike
@Persto
We are talking all ends up here.
The reason the OT is crucial to the whole Christian story is not so much the prophecy angle ( which can quite easily be dismissed as fallacy) but rather that Jesus references the Old Testament: the Law, Moses, etc
If we are to assume that Christians don’t need the OT to justify their faith and belief in Jesus’ divinty then how do we account for Jesus, a Jew, using the authority of the OT to explain/justify himself?
This would now requie some VERY creative redaction on the part of Biblical scholars.
There was NO ‘christianity’ at the time of Jesus death, merely a small group of Jews who had been left confused and with little direction.
For the beginnings of Christianity as it was to become merely look to Paul. He had no interest in anythng but spreading an ideologfy, a doctrine, that left the Jews who were supposedly Jesus followers out in the cold – and he references the Old Testament – he had to, other wise those he preached to would have had no idea what he was talkng about.
Christians don’t need the OT with all it’s barbarism and nonsense and ridiculous food klaws etc – and they have Pal to thank for putting on its own unique track – but while they cliam it is not important, without it, their religion would have no history to base itself and would be rendered meaningless and without context.
Islam is no different. I just wish the Jews would hurry up and come out of the closet and admit it is all a crock…:)
LikeLike