Village Life in the United States

At the risk of sounding dismissive, should that not be 22,001 denominations now (yours included)? Presumably all the others had reasons to 'depart' for 'good' reasons. One can look at the bible, take a 'principle' and form an opinion as to 'how it was meant to be' look around and find its isn't working 'how it was meant to work' and depart from it.What is unique in your community over and above the thousands of other reasons people had to depart?Is your own community not indicative of mans tendency (Christian or no) to decide for himself and ignore the unifying (if difficult to swallow at times) action of the Spirit?{AbE} items in '' are things which are examples of that which might result out of how one interprets the lessons contained in the bible. Edited by iano, : No reason given.

What I was getting at with my question was this. We have a situation where there are 20000 or so 'Christian' denominations in the States. They presumably all had reasons, like the instigators of Rose Creek, for concluding that there was something amiss with the way Christianity was being 'done' and decided to follow what they reckoned (and what they felt our Lord was guiding them towards) was a better way.In the case of your community this presumably happened through interpreting the bible and whatever other data (early church writings?) they felt was relevant in coming to that conclusion. In the case of Rose Creek Village the guiding principle seems to be "living out the life as Jesus would have us live it out"But it is just one of 20,000 shades of interpretations is it not? And an ultra - exclusive one at that given this statement: Your stance is based on an interpretation which is formed into a doctrine. And the "living according to" is simply a natural outworking of adherence to that doctrine: that Christianity means "living according to"Are you not just another denomination? And seeing as it is based on an interpretation) is it wise to write-off so many others as non-Christians. Christianity is often accused of being exclusive - but is this not a case of hyper-exclusivity?

Given your earlier comments that you will seek unity with those who think like you do (ie: who share the same doctrine) then it is not surprising that someone (yourselves) might be considered to be achieving best-practice and that others would want to follow best-practiceIt doesn't really answer my question though - about whether you agree that Creek is one denomination of which there are many (some of which will globally share your views). And given that, whether you have any qualms about 1 denomination (of 200 or so people - most of whom are children) out of 20,000 denominations, making such claims as to who is or isn't a Christian. (I accept that some others within the 20,000 will share your basic doctrine but I don't know whether they make those same claims so I referred to your community alone)