How Christian is the teaching of the Christians?

              Of course, Christian teaching is possible without schools, dogmas, catechism and theology. However, the question is more difficult to answer what the Christians consider false teaching in comparison with just citing the Bible. Although they have a “teaching folder” in which - as the ex-brothers remember - “significant morals, theological teachings and church criticisms are written”, according to some these “were not truly important things”. Ten years ago I praised that the theological books of other religions were stacked on their shelves, but according to several members these only served to make it easier to argue against them. “We accepted the Holy Trinity teaching of the Roman Catholic Church, but not the Church itself, which we did not consider the church of Jesus”, comments Aranka.  To the question if they have ever seen, perhaps not true Christian teaching, but at least a person like Mother Theresa whom they consider a true Christian, they responded “the general view was that anyone who is not a member of the congregation is not a true Christian”, but many added to this “we knew very well that we were not really living like the first Christians”. In the course of the conversation the picture was further refined: it was revealed that in the congregation rejection was not voiced so much, rather that they were trying not to make the mistakes made by Christian churches.[1] It was not really the written teaching we missed, rather the “concepts used too flexibly and not uniformly, which was to our detriment” (Albert). They all deem that their teaching was more sober than fundamentalist or liberal teachings, they rather complained that ”the topics were overly intellectual, they discussed many subjects that were detached from real life (for example the dating of the books of the Old Testament), while “the importance of the right cast of mind” was rarely mentioned. Some members felt that “with the exception of a few subjects (for example Christology) we were rather focused on refuting false teachings” (R. from Austria), and there were some who voiced that instead of teaching “it would have been better to emphasize the humbleness of the heart, love for God, obedience and the love of justice” (Aranka). Antal and others felt that the teaching was immature in relation to Christian perfectness, the process of sanctification, issues connected to the Church (such as infallibility), and an Austrian brother complained that the power of mercy and salvation was emphasized less while deeds and performance more.

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