Normal Is Not An Option

People in the church of Christ believe that one's salvation depends on correctly interpreting scripture. If you don't interpret it correctly, then you won't know which pattern of worship is correct and which rules to follow. The COC believes that there is only one correct interpretation and that it is the only church in possession of that correct interpretation. However, the COC in any form didn't exist before 1801, the year of the Cane Ridge revival, which marked the beginning of the Restoration Movement headed by Alexander Campbell and Barton Stone. No one who came before them, save for the apostles and their immediate successors, had the correct interpretation of scripture. Thus, nearly 2000 years of Christian history and tradition count for nothing and everyone who lived and died during that period died in sin. If there is only one correct interpretation of scripture, how do we know which is correct? Why didn't God explicitly tell us which one is the correct o...

I'll be perfectly honest: the whole time I was attending the COC I absolutely dreaded Sundays. When I was a kid, every Saturday night was a let-down because we couldn't do anything fun. We had to make sure our Bible lessons were done, take a bath, and get to bed early. And I spent the whole evening dreading the next day. Sundays were extremely stressful, with Dad yelling at us to get up and get dressed so we could head to church and be there super early so we could greet everyone else. I hated it. I didn't like greeting everyone. I just wanted to be left alone. Then we had Bible class (what other denominations call "Sunday School"), which was usually excruciatingly boring, although sometimes it could be exceedingly irritating as well, depending on who the teacher was. My classmates were always obnoxious. Then we went out into the auditorium for the actual church service, which again was boring. Even as an adult, I rarely found the sermons to be engaging or uplifti...