Notice my moderated tone...

This was written on a forum where Christians who tend towards clericalism and sacerdotalism commune; the subject is 'house churches' and are they 'moral' (etc., etc.):

Each one of these points mentioned here will be found in any of the house churches you may visit in the Southern Oregon area - without exception. They may be held to varying degrees and by various persons within the fellowship (the leadership of these groups, however, seem to have a uniform disdain for "educated clergy"), but the tenets of being anti-establishment, anti-accountability, anti-seminary, against standards for ordination (or ordination at all), and anti-sacraments in any historical sense has become a kind of informal statement of faith among them.

We have found it to be very detrimental in building up a healthy church(es) in this environment.

I find this interesting because these are traits of regenerated believers, and it's interesting to see evidence of fellow believers here and there in the world about one.

So, what is this litany of 'unmoralistic' behaviour?

1. "...I think the problems of the House Church 'movement' is that these congregations are many times formed out of anger and disillusionment with the 'established' churches..." Yes, this is horrible. To have such an open and shameless disdain for man-fearing and man-centeredness. Who do these so-called Christians think they are? Such lay persons should be put to discipline.

2. "...hence the frequent disdain for specialized education for clergy and the self ordination thing." Yes, and using the Bible to defend such views. This is why lay persons should not be allowed to have Bibles let alone read them. This is the way it was for much if not most of Christian history, and everything's gone downhill since lay people got it into their simple minds that they are able to understand what the Bible says.

3. "There seems to be an overall rebelliousness against any sort of authority." Yes, and they seem to have some novel notion that Jesus is their King, as if Jesus has anything to do with lay persons other than through God's ordained-by-accredited-seminaries mediators.

4. "They also have some pretty messed up ideas about the sacraments." I've even heard tell some of these lay persons think baptism is of the Holy Spirit, and that the Lord's Supper is symbolic of something to do with becoming like Christ and connecting with Christ. It's based on this misunderstanding of the concept of 'regeneration' and being so-called born again that these people believe in. Again, if they were under the care of ordained, formally educated mediators who could enlighten them and illuminate the Word of God for them they wouldn't labor under such childish notions.