Warning: Proceed With Caution. Joining a Christian church is joining The Totalitarian System

Someone who is on the side of God the Creator, and who desires to attain the salvation of Jesus Christ, must Proceed With Caution when it comes to joining any formal organization. 

This is because we inhabit a totalitarian system; meaning that all formal institutions in our society are connected by a multitude of bureaucratic linkages - as was evident in 2020. 

Both totalitarianism and bureaucracy are intrinsically evil - which means that all formal institutions (politics, government service, law, medicine, corporations, charities, mass media, police, military, science, the arts, teaching etc... all of the social institutions) are (and must be) overall-aligned with the purposes of evil. 

  

This situation is a real and present danger: a spiritual hazard. 

The unwary shall be led-astray. 

And the warning applies as much to religions, churches, and specifically-Christian churches - as to all the other institutions; so that a Christian who joins a church is in spiritual Danger, and needs to Proceed With Caution. 

This does not mean that a Christian ought to avoid all churches - far from it*. 

For many people, a church is necessary; and for others a particular church (when available and accessible) is positively beneficial to sustaining faith.  

But it does mean that - just as a Christian chooses his church with discernment; he must not set-aside that discernment after joining that church. 

In a totalitarian world, no institution should be trusted; because none are worthy of trust. 

"Christian" must not, therefore, be striving to serve and obey any actually-existing church, nor even that particular sub-section of a church which Christian has chosen from the contending factions. 

(Service and obedience to any totalitarian-aligned organization will lead the individual towards evil - later if not sooner.) 

Instead; he ought to be ready and willing to continue evaluating all aspects of the church; including whatever the church teaches, instructs, or demands.  And proceeding (to the best of his ability) on the basis of these evaluations. 

It is a matter not so much of every Christian "taking responsibility" for selecting and implementing his faith - everybody already does that - but of acknowledging the fact that he is responsible: like it, or like it not.  

*After all, many people must work therefore have a job, and will mostly work for an organization or several; everyone will have multiple dealings with government and large corporations; indeed people must join all sorts of institutions. We must join the totalitarian system. Opting-out of The System is not an option. You may try to ignore The Matrix, but The Matrix will not ignore you. 

So what's the special problem with a church? None unless you forget that the church is a part of The System, and think of it as something qualitatively apart. 

Yes, I know about the "Spiritual Church" within the "institutional church", and the SC is - of course - what you want, as a Christian. 

The trouble is that the church will try to insist upon the institution, while leaving the spiritual stuff as... well, nice but optional. Spiritual disobedience is tolerated, even encouraged (plenty of bishops and archbishops who don't believe that Jesus was divine, or don't believe in Satan or hell) - but institutional disobedience? That is what gets priests defrocked and laity excommunicated.