It should be noted (again) I am not taking a jab at Methodists. I am and will always be a big fan of John Wesley, and the work he did. So, please don't interpret my comment in a way other than the symbolic sense in which I hoped it to be meant. I could have just very well used the German Pietists, or Jewish Essenes. I picked the Methodists, because well, most people on here know a bit about their history.
Thanks for your concern. I'm simply saying that God has not called us to be Methodists. That is, He's not called us to the strict border-line ascetic lifestyle that early Methodists had adopted, for which Wesley wished he had made stricter. I'm not intending this as a slur against Methodism in anyway. I'm just saying, God has not called us to be Methodists :-) I picked "Methodists" perhaps a little bit for shock value. If I said Pharisees, Essenes, whomever, it doesn't quite hit home or speak as loudly. It can be glossed over. Methodist... that'll make you think, as Methodism is something that has existed in our own back yards. It's contextualized in that sense.
_________________Jimmy H
KingJimmy, I love the works and testimony of John Wesley and early Methodism, but I understand where you are coming from and do not believe you did anything wrong in your statement. I think we need to be careful not to idolize any particular denomination. It should sadden us that denominations/divisions ever came into fruition in the first place. The Methodists, Presbyterians, Baptists, Pentecosals, etc. should have never named themselves as such, but simply as the Church of Jesus Christ. Someone says, "what about the need for seperating one's group from cults who call themselves "the Church of Jesus Christ, like the Mormons"? What did the early Church do? They too had many false teachers among them who claimed to be part of the Church. But they still simply called their particular group "the Church in such city, at such's home". They were all connected.
