The problem with the UPCI

[kclee4jc]

here it is "Word Magnified Above the Name"

listening now..

[kclee4jc]

http://www.apostolicpodcast.com/serm...e/GeorgeGlass/

[kclee4jc]

haha..found twice

[Ferd]

fantastic!

[returnman]

Originally Posted by Originalist

It is ironic that our most recent split was due to a group who wanted to keep the ban on advertising on TV. They actually split over that. My pastor at the time voted against lifting the ban and was not happy that it was indeed lifted. But he was outraged when these men actually left the organization over this.

Even our own Elder Epley stated it was sour grapes to pull out over it after enduring other issues throughout the years.

[Ferd]

Originally Posted by Jermyn Davidson

They didn't see this coming because they never thought the day would come when a bunch Jesus-Name Pentecostals would choose to devour each other instead of choosing to love and encourage each other.

There wasn't a "growing doctrinal difference" between the two camps. There was a growing desire to no longer be united and people have been using all sorts of religious excuses to justify their sinful attitudes towards people that for YEARS were considered to be their brothers and sisters in the Lord.

Originally Posted by Esaias

You say there wasn't a 'growing doctrinal difference between the two camps' but I can see it plain as day. AFF is in fact a sort of microcosm of that schism.

If two groups differ on the nature and mechanisms of salvation, how can they stay in unity for long?

On the other hand, I do find it interesting that people who suppoedly are willing to 'agree to disagree' on the subject of salvation are willing to to split over the subject of television.

There is no question that there were growing differences. But it wasn’t simply two different beliefs about salvation. It was a wide range of things from television, dress standards etc to salvation etc.

Remember that this didn’t happen in a vacuum. All of this happened within the context of the wider culture.
Some guys like Westberg were reactionaries. They stood against every single thing that came down from the culture.
Others were more willing to see themselves as people who had to work within the culture
And still others were moved by the culture to the point that they really didn’t separate from it.

By the time Westberg decided he needed to do something that divide was getting wider but it wasn’t what it is now for sure. Personally I think he realized he was at the end of his life and he wanted to do something to push things his direction after he died.

I also think it was about as wrong-headed a thing as anyone could have come up with, because in the end it forced men to choose sides in a way that was in some ways against their own interests. It caused a deepening and a widening of the doctrinal differences that while already there.

[Ferd]

Originally Posted by returnman

Even our own Elder Epley stated it was sour grapes to pull out over it after enduring other issues throughout the years.

It is my humble opinion that the split caused by the 1992 fiasco was the worst day for the UPCI....and the split caused by the lifting the ban on advertisement on TV was the best possible thing that could happen to the UPCI at the time it happened....

[Jermyn Davidson]

Originally Posted by Esaias

You say there wasn't a 'growing doctrinal difference between the two camps' but I can see it plain as day. AFF is in fact a sort of microcosm of that schism.

If two groups differ on the nature and mechanisms of salvation, how can they stay in unity for long?

On the other hand, I do find it interesting that people who suppoedly are willing to 'agree to disagree' on the subject of salvation are willing to to split over the subject of television.

The doctrinal difference you refer to was part of the original agreement from the very beginning.

So no, major doctrinal differences didn't grow-- they were highlighted, emphasized, and made to be a dividing point by people who forgot the spirit behind the merger that formed their great organization.

They became sinful, unloving, and hopefully they have found repentance over their nastiness and the pain they caused their brothers and sisters in the Lord.

Millstones any one?

[Ferd]

Esaias, the unifying factor was the name of Jesus and what that meant to the men in both the PCI and the PAJC. Oneness doctrine mattered deeply to them all.

It seperated them from everyone else.


I don’t mean this as a dig in any way shape or form, but for those that left, it seems to me that Oneness no longer holds that preeminent place.

[Esaias]

And can nothing good come of all this?

We now have more Oneness Pentecostal organizations on the scene. We now have people looking at the purpose of organizations (not as many as I would hope, but it is there...)

All the people were in one place, and God wanted them to move on and out, so he caused a scandal and a rift and they moved on and out, and the rest is history (speaking of Babel).

All the church was in Jerusalem. God wanted them to move on and out. So He allowed persecution to get them off their butts and get with it.

Perhaps God doesn't want one 'monolithic mothership' among Oneness Pentecostals.

How many Baptist orgs are there? tons. And are not Baptist churches ubiquitous across the land?

Just wondering out loud here.