Posted by SB on 4/24/2001, 2:37 pm

Posted by Steve B. on 4/2/2001, 3:52 pm , in reply to "I'm amazed at the gross misrepresentation of Oneness in the HUGE logical fallacy" A2, You write Those who have not seen Michael's post before, need to see it, but it still does not incriminate Oneness, but is rather a illogical attempt to make Oneness "SEEM" like it is the cause without proof. Actually, my use of michael's posting did not have anything to do with my case against Oneness theology, but was meant as a commentary on Lanny's remarks about the fall of the Chapel being “not the end of the world spiritually.” It seems to me that such a view runs the risk of trivializing the issues raised (not to mention the trials caused in the lives of real people) by the Chapel's rise and fall. To repeat what I said in my previous posting, UROG theology was only one of the elements in the whole mix, not the only or even the main cause. Sincerely, Steve ---------- Oh yes, minimize it by saying it is only "one" of the elements Posted by Anon.II on 4/2/2001, 4:14 pm , in reply to "Re: ...amazed..." Again, it remains a logical fallacy to blame Oneness for the sins of men. ---------- Steve: Where do you get your numbers? Posted by Simon on 3/31/2001, 11:32 am , in reply to "Reflections on having lots of things to say." Steve, You say... So many people went into the Chapel thinking they were moving with God, and left so thoroughly devastated that now only a minority want to have anything to do with actively serving Him in a body of other believers. If somebody has done a study about this, contacting former Chapel members and asking them what they're doing nowadays, and has contacted a large enough number of them—a great majority, in fact—to be able to figure out an accurate percentage of who's going to what church now, who's no longer going anywhere, etc., I'm very interested in seeing the results of it. If not, I'm wondering where you get this information. ---------- Posted by Steve B. on 3/31/2001, 12:11 pm , in reply to "Steve: Where do you get your numbers?" Simon, Actually, you have a good point. I would be interested in seeing some numbers myself. What I base my observation on is only the subsequent history of people I personally knew, and of the kind of postings we see on this board today. Outright angry blasts at Christianity may not be in the majority, but I think admissions of alienation from the larger church probably are. Also, there has been some some random word-of-mouth information that I have no reason to doubt. For example, about a year after the collapse, a friend of my wife's who is a lawyer, and who was involved in many of the Chapel divorce cases, told her that according to his count the number of divorces of Chapel couples was over 60%. If anything, that was a conservative number based on our own actual count of couples we could think of. And after that time we continued to hear of many divorces. While I am not saying that a divorce makes it impossible to ever serve God again, it is hardly a mark of success in Christ-like living in the body of which one was a member at the time. Sincerely, Steve ---------- You changed the subject on me Posted by Simon on 4/18/2001, 4:54 pm , in reply to "Re: numbers." We were talking about your statement: "...Now only a minority want to have anything to do with actively serving Him in a body of other believers...." ...and then you ended up talking about the percentage of couples that were divorced. What I was asking about was where you got the numbers about former Chapelites who are no longer attending church anywhere, not about how many couples at Chapel ended up getting divorced. I'm not even disputing that perhaps what you're saying could be true. But if it is, I'm going to want a reliable source, not just some people making up figures off the tops of their heads. Do you have any sources, Steve, or did you just make this up because you wanted it to be true? ---------- No, you made a frivolous objection Posted by Steve B. on 4/18/2001, 8:12 pm , in reply to "You changed the subject on me" Simon, You need to re-read my answer to your first posting. There I said What I base my observation on is only the subsequent history of people I personally knew, and of the kind of postings we see on this board today. Outright angry blasts at Christianity may not be in the majority, but I think admissions of alienation from the larger church probably are. The emphasis was never meant to be on precise numbers, in any case. I felt that some people on the board were in denial about the true magnitude of what happened at the Chapel, and the implications of it in regard to what had been taught there. Whether a majority of its ex-members are still serving the Lord or not, the undeniable fact is that the the Chapel collapsed in a way that has been rivaled by few other churches. I am still meeting or hearing of people today that have devastated spiritual lives because of it. My point was that it is surely not out of line to inquire about the causes of such remarkable devastation. Also, the staggering number of divorces that took place is not a statistic to be shrugged off as an inaccurate measure of that disaster. Christians of the old school, from both mainline and Pentecostal churches, felt that a divorce rendered both spouses ineligible for the ministry, regardless of who sought the divorce or where the actual guilt lay. I know that this was true of the denomination in which I was raised (Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod) at least through the 60's. Because both the Pentecostals and mainline Christians of today regard divorce much more lightly does not lessen the spiritual significance of a divorce in the eyes of God. That so many occurred as a result of the Chapel and its various teachings says quite a bit about the Chapel, whether its ex-members care to admit that or not. Sincerely, Steve