I have now reposted it.

I really like this article. Would you mind if I repost it at Eclectic Christian?

It is definitely in the spirit of some of the articles that I have been writing, but you have certainly provided some clarifying thoughts.

So I agree now.

Devoid of distinction?!! Maybe I read a different post, nothing is more distinctive than Christ himself.

Disagree. I don’t know about Eastern Orthodox, but I do know that for the Roman Catholics, that’s simply not the case. You definitely have to agree with the formally defined dogmas, but outside of that there’s a TON of flex; even inside the dogmas most Romanists informally allow plenty of flex (even though there’s no doubt about the importance of the dogmas formally). Behavior is far more important.

Agreed for the fundies; I grew up with a few of them as close friends, and if you didn’t agree that every word meant what they said it meant… Well, you can hang out, but you’ll get _ministered to_.

I have to agree with Rishardson — Centralism sounds awesome, but it’s completely devoid of distinction. Every single position you named is actually Centralist by that definition — every one has some central issues and focusses on them. The only question is how *big* you claim the center is, and who defines it. In fact, I think the question of “who defines the center” is the important one, and although you mention it, you don’t give it any coverage here.

Who DOES define the “center”? For fundies, their pastor almost always does, with the condition that their pastor MUST be attested to by certain reference works, like the Scofield Notes. For Romanists, Rome. For liberals, modern consensus. For almost all denominations heresies, recent and ancient, help define the center by highlighting its edges, and heresies are seen equally by their consequences (splitting the church) as by their violation of established doctrines. I enjoyed OJ Brown’s “Heresies” text on this subject.

Yes, I used the “S” word! If you don’t believe in Satan you don’t need Jesus.

My vote is for Jewish Christians. Or Pentecostals.

I mean, this sounds great on paper and it is something I worked on until my de-conversion from Christianity, but isn’t it sort of a pipe dream that would sound great in a sermon but has very little reality attached?

Please take this sincerely, as I am not trying to ridicule (aside from my Pentecostal joke). I think a Christianity that is at least somewhat unified would at least give some credibility to the perceived truth of scripture - it would actually be quite amazing. I am simply wondering how the notion of “Centralist Christianity” wouldn’t be dropped at the first mention of divergent “centers.”