[QUOTE=laughingpastor;515457]Is the point of being a denomination to create clones?  How narrow should a denomination be?  How narrow was the company Jesus kept?  Is narrow thinking, narrow loving, narrow living our God given calling?[/QUOTE]

It can be as narrow as one wants it to be.  Especially if one believes that theology has remained static since the 16th century.

A new song for Cally....opps I know you prefer Cal.  A new song for Cal.

"Shallow and narrow....
Shallow and narrow....
there's a fountain flowing shallow and narrow!"

Join in boys and girls.  Today we are talking about God's really shallow water.  There's not enough room for everyone in God's Kingdom so sing with ferver so that you might be one of the lucky ones to get through the narrow gate!

Really?  You think dear ole Jude is earnestly contending to drain the fountain of God's grace?  To earnestly contend for faith once delivered must be done in the parameters of your interpretation of what Scripture mandates?  Hmmmm.  Really?

Really?  Are you suggesting that the members who happen to serve in the corner of Christ's chruch known as the PCUSA are not earnest in contending the faith?  I know you haven't mentioned the PCUSA here.....but you do everywhere else and you will eventually....so I ask!

Really? Is that your picture shooting a gun?  Were you driving by the local PCUSA church when you were firing it?

Really?

[QUOTE=laughingpastor;515457]Is the point of being a denomination to create clones?  How narrow should a denomination be?  How narrow was the company Jesus kept?  Is narrow thinking, narrow loving, narrow living our God given calling?[/QUOTE]

My answer - as un-narrow as possible! Jesus's initial followers, as I understand it, tended to be what we today would call working-class, or even poor. And how can you square a narrow church with Paul's statement that in the church there is neither Jew nor Greek, etc.? IMHO you can't!

As Tony Campolo (the only evangelist I'll admit to listening to) says - For a true Christian, life's a party, Jesus is the host, and ALL are invited!

Shalom,
Merrill

Rom 11:32      
For God has consigned all people  to disobedience, that God may have mercy upon all.

[QUOTE=greenponder;536482]What would you consider the positive changes in theology to be since the 16th century?[/QUOTE]

Karl Barth, Dietrich Bonhoeffer,Wolfhart Pannenberg, Teilhard de Chardin, Emil Brunner, Reinhold Niebuhr, Paul Tillich, and Hans Kung, to name but a few.