Never had any contact with them, but I've heard of them before. Their doctrine isn't particularly different from the many other north american christian sects. If you're dead-set on going to church, it seems like they might be one of the more fun groups to hang out with - other than probably taking themselves too seriously and actually believing in a magic man in the sky.

Seems a strange mix, racism and methodism.

Not what a Brit would expect. I attended a methodist cub scout pack (3rd Horsell, in Surrey, 1969-70 ;-). They were a bit dull, but overall quite nice - and certainly not racist.

Tom in Paris

You'll have a pillar of fire out of your ass if you eat habanero peppers.

Over the years, I've known a number of people associated with The Pillar of Fire - just lucky, I guess.

Why do you ask?

Sounds repulsive and racist, nothing like the regular Methodist churches and people I know. Never heard of it.

I work with a doctor who travels over 100 miles each Sunday to attend services at their church in Los Angeles. he and his wife seem to be genuinely good people who practice their faith and support many social justice-related causes.

it's an interesting denomination in that they have relatively few congregations, but those they have thrive to some degree. It's more common for denominational affiliations, except for those of the dwindling mainline Protestant denominations, either to have many local churches at least in a given region, or to be more like the LDS Smith family offshoots, where they have few, and the congregations are tiny as well.

The origins of this church were odious in my opinion, with KKK and anti-semitism in their relatively recent history, which is a bit hard to get past. To me, there's nothing LDS INC. can do to become acceptable in my eyes because of the very foundation on which the church was built. This group, too, had a highly faulty premise on which it was built.

I have the same issue with my wife's Roman Catholic Church, which we frequently attend together as a show of family unity, but I make no secret of my lack of faith in much of what the church teaches. I do like the stained glass windows, though. Fortunately my wife is at least a cafeteria Catholic, feeling free to pick and choose her beliefs from wherever she wants and to reject anything she doesn't like. She mainly finds comfort in the ritual of mass. If she reaches the point that such is no longer the case, we'll stop attending. Our current plan is for our children to make First Communion for family tradition reasons but not to go through confirmation unless they choose to do so on their own as legal adults, and to discontinue CCD immediately after First Communion. wife plans to teach our children's CCD classes or at least to sit in on them so she'll know exactly what's been taught to the children. Our kids are Irish twins; because of how their birthdays fall and California's school cut-off dates, they will be in the same grade in school and same CCD classes.

The Pillar of Fire Church appear to take the same stance almost every US branch of any offshoot of Methodism takes, which is that the practice of homosexuality is in contrast with Christian teachings. The United Methodist Church is, I believe, in the process of dividing over the issue of homosexuality.

As churches go, these people seem relatively progressive -- not quite United Church of Christ, but much further evolved than the Baptists or independent evangelical Christian faiths that proliferate around here. Their recent history is too shady for me to take them very seriously, though.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/04/2017 06:25AM by scmd.

Don't think LD$, Inc. could ever shed its racist past and present so easily.