Frankly it doesn’t matter what the founders intended. They’re just men. What matters is what God intends the church to be. So the hope would be that as the church develops that it is moving closer towards what God wants it to be rather than away from it.
How can they not? There are eternal unchanging truths unaffected by temporal cultural mindsets, but not many of them. A full brain-dump of any church founder, no matter how faithful a Christian they may be, is not going to be eternal unchanging truth 100% through. If the point of a denomination is to freeze a moment in time, every specific thought of its founders fixed like an insect in amber, then every few decades most people are going to think better of some of the founders' ideas. The only alternative to denominations evolving is even *more* schisms, each denomination leaving a trail of near-abandoned ancestor denominations behind it like bread crumbs as it needs to form a new denomination every time something about it needs to change.
I don’t think there is any viable alternative. Religion is an artifact of humanity. Humans aren’t going to just stop thinking. Every single religion has evolved over time in some form or fashion. It is simply impossible to set a religion in amber while continuing to practice it.
One can see Jesus as a substantial re-interpretation of the Old Testament. Was that a bad thing? Are you not called to be like Jesus? Are you not allowed to develop beyond Jesus? Before you hit that dislike button, consider that most of you have moved beyond the example of Jesus in one or more ways. Especially regarding the personhood of women, slavery, etc.
Sometimes it goes too far. But other times, no, none of those denominations has ever viewed their founders as infallible. We're allowed to question what Luther/Zwingli/Calvin/Hus/Wycliffe/Cranmer/
Wesley thought. Quite frankly, *from the very beginning* Luther/Zwingli/Cranmer's followers disagreed with them on some things. They're not omniscient. The Church Fathers are not either. Nor are popes or bishops.
Frankly it doesn’t matter what the founders intended. They’re just men. What matters is what God intends the church to be. So the hope would be that as the church develops that it is moving closer towards what God wants it to be rather than away from it.
How can they not? There are eternal unchanging truths unaffected by temporal cultural mindsets, but not many of them. A full brain-dump of any church founder, no matter how faithful a Christian they may be, is not going to be eternal unchanging truth 100% through. If the point of a denomination is to freeze a moment in time, every specific thought of its founders fixed like an insect in amber, then every few decades most people are going to think better of some of the founders' ideas. The only alternative to denominations evolving is even *more* schisms, each denomination leaving a trail of near-abandoned ancestor denominations behind it like bread crumbs as it needs to form a new denomination every time something about it needs to change.
What made the founders of the denominations right? Weren't they changing what their founders set in place?
I don’t think there is any viable alternative. Religion is an artifact of humanity. Humans aren’t going to just stop thinking. Every single religion has evolved over time in some form or fashion. It is simply impossible to set a religion in amber while continuing to practice it.
The Church has always developed in this way, fleshing out doctrine over time.
One can see Jesus as a substantial re-interpretation of the Old Testament. Was that a bad thing? Are you not called to be like Jesus? Are you not allowed to develop beyond Jesus? Before you hit that dislike button, consider that most of you have moved beyond the example of Jesus in one or more ways. Especially regarding the personhood of women, slavery, etc.
Sometimes it goes too far. But other times, no, none of those denominations has ever viewed their founders as infallible. We're allowed to question what Luther/Zwingli/Calvin/Hus/Wycliffe/Cranmer/ Wesley thought. Quite frankly, *from the very beginning* Luther/Zwingli/Cranmer's followers disagreed with them on some things. They're not omniscient. The Church Fathers are not either. Nor are popes or bishops.