A Declaration
Don't Call Me "Brother:"
Why I Left The Church of Christ
For nearly a decade Ben Bilyeu was a zealot for the church of Christ propagating their doctrines and defending their ideology. But after years of scrutiny of their teaching and especially the lives of its members, Ben Bilyeu came to the conclusion that the church of Christ is a denomination just like the other churches in Christendom which not only does not “have the truth” but has no idea what “the truth” is! He concluded further that the faith of its members is the corporate faith— not an individual faith— a collective of invalids, not committed individuals, because its members know nothing of the holy book they claim to study so intently or of the Jesus they pretend to adore so much. The church of Christ is the gilded faith, the lives of its members being an indelible testament to the fact they do not believe what they confess, a bastion of hypocrisy, as they preach but they do not practice. They pray but do not believe. They sing but do not follow and they vow but do not keep!
The church of Christ is a cathedral of atheism—Christian atheism— as not one in ten thousand can cite even the rudimentary evidence for their professed belief in the existence of Deity, or a modicum of proof that Jesus is God— incarnate. Further evidence of their infidelity is discerned by the fact that they deny the existence of God in their individual lives. The concept of Christ being Lord is alien to them! They are the titanic of the lost, as not one in a hundred thousand can enunciate what the New Testament teaches concerning absolution from ones sins. In spite of their frequent refrain of being the ekklesia, it is doubtful that any of them—any— has realized forgiveness from Heaven, as many of them were coerced into water salvation when they were children and the others were duped in to the baptistery by the “hear, believe, repent, confess…” nonsense! While they claim to “have the truth” these people, however, are content to merely sit on a pew, and “worship,” unmoved by the fact that their neighbors are dying in sin and on their way to a Devils Hell! For them, going to church (not death to self and commitment to Christ) is all the proof they need to show they really are good people and thus acceptable to God. But one problem: Jesus didn’t “go to church!”
Finally, the church of Christ is a brothel of the immorality that they vow so righteously to abhor. They divorce, commit adultery, desert their spouses and families, embrace the materialism, the dirt and the darkness of this world—yet never miss a service! The church of Christ is an easy religion void of any sacrifice, blood, sweat or tears, whose only cost, at best, is to attend a service or two. (Even then, most do not bother to return for the Sunday pm service!) The church of Christ, in its essence, is but a social club with religious overtones, and is not the body of Christ! There is nothing in the lives of its members that would cause one to identify them with the life of Christ—nothing— let alone their being the true church! Their preachers are good old boys, salaried saints— stand up comics who like to crack jokes and cite “a merry heart does good like medicine” to justify their routine. Their homilies are an insult to the intellect of man and a blackguard to the God of Heaven who inspired Holy Writ! These pulpit dandies are prima donnas, hood ornaments, who spend more time with the hair stylist than they do with The Book—and it shows! The only thing ‘polished’ about them is their teeth and their fingernails and their sole expertise is the cultivated art of PR and compromise. Church of Christ preachers are an effeminate, ignorant, and cowardly lot who confidently stammer their “truth” before their jaundiced and biased assemblies but these church of Christ dandies would not dare debate their “truth” in a public setting. Not one of these professional 'christians' has character enough to preach against the sin of divorce, adultery, slander, materialism, or withdrawal of fellowship from those who practice these sins, and scores like them! They love their pay cheque too much; after all, that’s why they preach! The prime directive for their preaching is two fold: that the brethren might “feel good” (and that they, in turn, may secure their job!) But Jesus did not come that we might “feel good!” He came that we might be good!! Never in society has there been a class of individuals so void of intellectual acuity, so vacuous in character, so adept at a sedentary work ethic who are paid so well for accomplishing nothing as is the group known as “church of Christ preachers!” The “Elders” are junior business men, not one of whom is “apt to teach,” and are no more capable of defending the flock from an agnostic high school freshman, let alone a seasoned Jehovahs Witness, and they are no more qualified to be a Bishop than they are to be a pilot of a 747! It is impossible for a spiritually minded person to assemble with these people for any length of time and not be overcome with the sense of farce and fakery— the odium of hypocrisy— which pervades all they say and all they do!
The Declaration “Don’t Call Me ‘Brother:’ Why I Left The Church of Christ,” in six propositions, exposes their pathology and expounds the definitive proof that Christendom—churchism in general, and the church of Christ denomination in particular, is not the embodiment of the Christ, but is, in fact, a stumbling block and a great adversary to His cause because all hypocrisy is denial. All denial is unbelief and all unbelief is atheism—Christian atheism! Two CDs (2hrs and 20 minutes) $7.95, $1.75p/h
