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In response to my statements in Post #23, Lucian Hodoboc asked in Post #24
“Please elaborate...”
I assume the request relates to the first sentence of my post. I will reply accordingly.
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The perspective of life, and of faith, and of relationship with God, as displayed by the Apostles and the apostolic church, was demonstratively different from that of the churches that developed thereafter.
I would suggest that that is especially true of churches that concentrate on ritual. They equate (to a greater or lesser extent) membership of the organisation, with efficacy in linking people to God (via baptism, eucharist/communion , etc.).
I would further suggest that because the apostolic church is sometimes termed “primitive,” rituals, relics, images of saints, and the veneration of Jesus’ mother, etc., had not yet been established.
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Could it be that the later imposition of organisation-centric procedures and loyalties have resulted in the loss of a vibrancy that was characteristic of the original dedicated Christians?
If so, that could well explain my first sentence in Post #23.
The vibrancy that results from an understanding and acceptance of what can be called the Simple Original Apostolic Gospel, makes the determination of exactly what that Gospel was and is, a very worthwhile exercise.
(But a word of disclosure is appropriate here. Someone I know who undertook that exercise, has been labelled a traitor, and angrily called that to his face, by members of his particular church. He knows what it means to count the cost; but he considers it well worthwhile.)
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