The Essential Question

It is always important, and instructive, to return to basic principles. This serves to clarify all of the facts and burn off the dross of temporary issues and spiraling arguments.

I make several assertions to which I have not received sufficient rebuttal to cease pestering the universe with my statements. These are as follows:

A) That NTCC, reflecting the fear-based control reflexes of it’s Founder and guiding spirit, RW Davis, seeks to institute and enforce upon it’s ministers AND members a laundry list of “standards”, taboos, and abstinences that reach quite outside of and beyond the exhortation and/or specific restriction of the scripture.

B) That in doing so, NTCC frustrates Grace and truncates the growth of the Christian man or woman, denying them Liberty in Christ as recognized by the larger body of believers throughout the world. While cloistering in stagnation, NTCC further consigns the balance of the world’s Christians to the Lake of Fire, whose only offense is the violation of the personal opinions of RW Davis.

C) That in order to enforce and propagate these regulatory burdens on numerous proselytes, NTCC has established an Anti-Christian hierarchy of ministers who enjoy non-scriptural authority over Christ’s followers while exacting undue adoration and deference, thus abusing the Body fo the Lord and wantonly wearing out the saints.

Need I remind the patient reader–may I solicit your patience yet further?–of the reason for the existence of NTCC? The blustery spittle of it’s many pulpiteers could be mopped up and wrung into a veritable ocean of lofty self-importance. NTCC declares itself to be special, a modern move of God, the last chance, the last hope for our time, God’s very own elite special forces, established “For such a time as this” to snatch from the fire those many so-called Christians who have been deceived by the wily tricks of the enemy and have soiled their spiritual underpants by indulging in games such as Go Fish, Uno, Old Maid and Monopoly (with dice) and have endangered their eternal inheritance at the Arcade, the Bowling Alley and the Football stadium. NTCC seeks to deliver the planet form tight trousers, goatees, cigars, shorts, scissors (in some cases), lack of scissors (in other cases), french fries, and chewing gum. In summary, NTCC exalts it’s opinion-based, para-scriptural definition of “Holiness” so as to maintain an exclusive claim to righteousness.

This presents a chain of problems from which they are unable to disentangle themselves. These difficulties can be delineated thusly:

A) Should the leader of NTCC come to acknowledge his erroneous blunders according to the scripture, he will have effectively penciled himself onto the lengthy roster of would-be gurus who claimed to have the market cornered on Truth, only to be unmasked as fraudulent carnival hucksters.

B) As the secondary leadership of the group continues to de-emphasize the artificial standards that define the movement, (for utilitarian reasons) the members, though pleased with the development, must now ask “What is special and different about NTCC?” They should wonder why they altered their own lives in drastic fashion if the standards are unimportant. They should be scratching their heads over the fact that they left their original church home and willingly cast off the velvet ropes of true friendship that once bound them to precious saints that they have been wrongly taught to label as “compromisers”.

C) The abusive, ridiculous level of patrician authority that ministers enjoy in the presence of their congregations is encouraged by a twisted view of pastoral authority, and only maintains its bite into the life and flesh of each member because the “Holiness” rules–promoted as God’s rules and lauded as the NTCC claim to special status as God’s very own Last Day’s brainchild–hold the individual captive beyond the power of his or her will.

The member feels an obligation to obey in all things, lest the disfavor of the Pastor result in the condemnation of God. The fear of separation from the organization is evidence to the fact that NTCC equates departure from it’s ranks with spiritual death.

D) The softening, mitigation, or outright abandonment of any or all of the group’s standards or practices can only amount to a statement of futility; that all has been in vain, which means; the ministry of RW Davis is non-existent, which means; his organization is operating without the charter of the Holy Spirit, which means; it has not purpose other than existence for the sake of existence. It will be revealed as simply one more fractious cult whose members are owed an explanation.

E) The group’s false doctrine concerning the Tithes, which are demanded on pain of Hell by NTCC but are not required by the New Testament, amount to income through extortion. To continue is to be in sin, but to alter their position would be disastrous to their identity as well as to their financial status. In such dilemmas, organization takes priority over Truth.

F) To re-iterate; most of us joined ourselves to this organization because we thought it was unique in it’s message and in the delivery thereof. If attempts at damage control include a tapering down of the stridency and/or immediacy with which holiness standards are promoted and enforced, then there never was a reason to bend the respective paths of our lives to the will of NTCC.

This is the second article in the series entitled “Farewell Address“.