Comments on: A faith dispute goes public

By: Keith McCallum

Keith McCallum — Wed, 18 Feb 2009 05:46:05 +0000

Hey! Another Jesus Freak! Cool!

I really enjoyed these comments — I had to laugh, too.

Y’all have pretty much figured us out at NeoXenos. I’m the “anti-Christ” Mrs. Smith blogs against daily. Definitely appreciate the attention, because we’ve really gotten a raw deal from Mrs. Smith’s activities. On her latest blog she accuses us of cannibalism! (http://parentsagainstxenos.wordpress.com/2009/02/12/i-dont-know/) What a hooter!

But the history of the event is described here http://neoxenos.net/inside/2008/12/refugee-life/

This is a cool site, with a good purpose. I’m definitely bookmarking it.

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By: Julia Duin

Julia Duin — Tue, 17 Feb 2009 17:34:18 +0000

Too bad the reporter had no background as to what those of us raised in the Jesus movement did in the 1970s. Heavens, not only was I rebaptized at the age of 17 (and to this day I oppose infant baptism) but after college I moved into a Christian community where we pooled all our salaries and underwent intensive discipleship. My parents weren’t happy but they visited our households, talked with the leaders and simply waited until I moved out 2 years later.
So what this teenager is going through with Xenos is light compared to we all used to do way back when.

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By: Darlene McCallum

Darlene McCallum — Mon, 16 Feb 2009 18:31:24 +0000

My husband & I are the “devil” & the “devil wife” from the article. My husband is senior pastor of Xenos Christian Fellowship of Northeastern Ohio. Our home churches meet in Stow, Cuyahoga Falls, Kent State University campus, & Findley College in western Ohio.

This has been an interesting adventure for us. A lot of the questions you ask are answered on the following links which include our public blog & website: issues.neoblogs.org/posts/cult-accusation/ & neoxenos.org/inside/akron-beacon-journal/. I could explain here, but these links do it best.

We, too, would like to see the Beacon-Journal take a different tact, but newspapers, after all, tend to focus on the controversial. We tried very hard to encourage the reporter to focus on who we actually are. It is hard to criticize them for this as their goal is to bring in readership. Jim Carney, the reporter, tried for 3 months to get this right & yet still maintain his objectivity. We applaud his efforts despite the fact it was not our choice to be followed around for 3 months & end up with an article about us on the front page. We do pray God uses it for His glory & pray consistently for this mother & for the reconciliation of their family.

Our focus is on the “unchurched” youth of our culture. It is a disturbing trend that even “Christian” kids from Christian homes are leaving the church in droves. Both Barna & Josh McDowell have statistics on this. Upwards of 80% of these kids leave the church by their 20’s & never return. Much of this exodus is due to the fact that kids do not see the relevancy of Christ or the church in their lives. Their faith never becomes their own & their only option is the world system which has a lot to offer. If kids growing up in the church don’t see the relevancy of Christianity, how can kids who’ve never been exposed to the Gospel see it? The Christians they know look no different than anybody else. In fact, what little they see is not attractive - rules, traditions, & judgment rather than grace & love relationships. For more info from us on this see: neozine.org/inside/can-they-be-rescued/

We don’t have a “worship service” which only Christians enjoy, btw, but do worship as per Romans 12:1,2. Our emphasis is on evangelism, discipleship, & deep, personal relationships with each other, those outside our fellowship, & with Christ. The Bible says we show our love for the Lord not by singing or other traditional forms of worship, but by sacrificially loving others. John 13:34,35; 21:16, 17. This takes incredible amounts of time & sacrifice than merely participating in a worship service. Not that worship services are wrong, but they often take the place of real worship. We believe strongly that the early church has much to teach us & try to emulate Acts 2:44-47.

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By: Bob

Bob — Mon, 16 Feb 2009 10:53:46 +0000

I disagree strongly with what Maureen said about participating in Mass after reaching the age of reason. Catholic parents are hardly absolved of our responsibility to form our children in the faith simply because they are seven years old, and participating in the sacramental life of the Church if fundamental to forming children in the faith. When she says that “both parent and child are permitted to go their own way,” I wonder: permitted by whom? Certainly not by the Church, who regards parents as the first and primary religious educators of their children.

How can Mrs. Smith claim that she raised her son as a good Catholic when he rarely attended Mass as a child (which means the family rarely attended), Mr. Smith works for the porn industry (I find it interesting that she uses the euphamism “adult industry”) and she herself hosted “passion parties” in her own home (when young Tom was present?). It seems to me that Mrs. Smith had her baby boy Baptized, sent him to Catholic school for a few years, and thought her responsibility for his religious formation ended there.

I don’t know anything about Xenos, except that it sounds like a lot of other similar churches, but it seems to me that Mrs. Smith doesn’t have much room to complain. She failed to fulfill her obligation toward her son. Perhaps she’s acting more out of guilt that genuine concern.

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By: Chris Bolinger

Chris Bolinger — Sun, 15 Feb 2009 20:43:37 +0000

Daniel, I’m not sure that the author “gets” Xenos. Here are the ways that he describes Xenos, both in the Stow area and the Columbus area:
* Congregation
* Group
* Ministry
* Loosely organized…megachurch (love that one)
* Church
* Fellowship

Emergent churches, house churches, and other non-traditional churches are booming but still seem below the radar of most in the media. Religion reporters need do some homework, and quick, or risk looking pretty ignorant. Putting Xenos in context would have helped this article a lot.

Also, as Mike noted above, the fact that rebaptizing is a common practice seems lost not just on the mother — who attempts to equate it with cultic behavior — but on the author.

It’s a lengthy article, but not necessarily a good one. A “C” grade at best on this one.

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By: Mike Hickerson

Mike Hickerson — Sun, 15 Feb 2009 03:02:03 +0000

Maureen, rebaptizing is indeed a serious issue, but it’s also a common practice among churches that recognize only “believer’s baptism” as legitimate. For those churches, it’s equally “creepy” to hear about a person who thinks he is a Christian but has never made a public profession of faith and submitted himself to baptism by immersion.

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By: Maureen

Maureen — Sat, 14 Feb 2009 23:41:41 +0000

For purposes of Mass attendance obligations, anyone over the age of reason (usually 7) is responsible for his own behavior. So if Mom was willing to let the kid incur sin on his own soul, both parents and child are permitted to go their own ways.

Rebaptizing is very much more serious. First of all, the kid is saying that his family and the pretty much the entire Catholic Church are not baptized Christians at all. Certainly an attitude you don’t expect from your own son, even if you’re lax in the Faith yourself. Second, there’s something intensely creepy for a Catholic about finding out that someone is abusing his own Baptism and thus committing one of the older heresies. Again, even somebody who never goes to Mass at all would be shocked and sickened. (Indeed, it’s often the people who never go to Mass who secretly set most store in Baptism.)

It makes me kinda shudder, even thinking about it. “Sure, I used to believe that God’s mark on my soul was indelible, but now I figure it was never really there and I was always a godless heathen until this week.” Brrrrrrr.

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By: Brian L

Brian L — Sat, 14 Feb 2009 16:52:21 +0000

Mark has a good observation. Xenos was ‘emerging’ before emergent was cool.

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By: Mark Byron

Mark Byron — Fri, 13 Feb 2009 23:31:33 +0000

I recall hearing about Xenos in Columbus, OH; a blogger friend of mine went to the large Xenos church in Columbus at the time. I don’t recall it being any more cultic that a typical evangelical church, although it did lean a bit in the emerging-church direction and focused quite a bit on small group fellowship. The church seem to have started as a series of fellowship groups that coalesced into a church, so their focus is on small groups rather than the main Sunday service, which gets called “Central Teaching” in Xenosese. That might make it seem a bit on the cultic side to the outsider.

The church in question in Stow (old stomping grounds from my graduate school days at Kent State) is a spinoff from that Columbus church; Stow is a upscale suburb of Akron, and Kent is just east of that.

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By: Dave

Dave — Fri, 13 Feb 2009 21:29:44 +0000

At least Mom didn’t have Sonny kidnapped and “deprogrammed” as was all the rage in the 1970s.

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By: Brian L

Brian L — Fri, 13 Feb 2009 20:54:59 +0000

I remember when my family was horrified that I had joined a “cult.” They didn’t want me to divorce my wife, renounce my family, and go to live in a monastery, etc.

It has been 11 years, but they’ve finally come to accept that being a Southern Baptist minister is not so bad after all…

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By: Brian Walden

Brian Walden — Fri, 13 Feb 2009 18:35:24 +0000

To me it seemed like this is primarily a family problem; religion just provides a convenient excuse for fighting. Mrs. Smith’s argument from religion doesn’t seem cogent. She didn’t make her son fulfill his basic obligation to participate in Sunday Mass while he was a minor living under her roof, but now that he’s 18 and on his own she doesn’t want him to get re-baptized. She admits that she has an duty to raise her children in the faith, yet her husband works for a porn distributor. It appears that religion wasn’t a big factor in the Smith’s lives until Thomas left home.

Whether my interpretation is right or wrong, I appreciate that Carney gives lots of details from the perspectives of each side and lets the reader draw their own conclusions.

Another financial question that jumped out at me is who’s paying the son’s college tuition?

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