So Many Churches...And It's a Good Thing
We’ve all heard complaints about Christianity being so divided.
So many churches! So many denominations!
Shouldn’t there just be ONE Church where everyone agrees on everything?
As good as it sounds on paper, the church has never been that way.
Early Christians in churches founded by the apostles often ended up disagreeing with the apostles! Many of the New Testament letters were written by the apostles to persuade people that by disagreeing with apostolic teaching they were going astray and they needed to come back to the truth. So much for the 'Golden Age' of the 'one true Church'!
During the centuries just after the apostles, one of the big disagreements among Christians (despite the ever-present threat of arrest!) was the proper date for the observance of Easter! The Western and Eastern churches to this day disagree on that and calculate their respective observances differently!
When Christianity came out of hiding after three centuries of persecution, they argued about the nature of Jesus because ideas had developed differently throughout the Roman world. Was Jesus God or was He only a man? Was He a mix of God and man, and if so, how exactly did that mix work? Those ideas were argued for almost a century.
Another hot-button issue was church leadership. Eventually the bishop of Rome claimed superiority over all bishops and churches. That didn’t sit well with everyone, so in 1054 AD the western Latin-speaking Catholic Church separated from the Greek-speaking Eastern Orthodox churches. Each side excommunicated the other. Another big difference between them: the Greek church said the Holy Spirit proceeded only from the Father while the Roman church insisted that the Holy Spirit proceeded from the Father and the Son.
Five hundred years later several priests and monks ‘protested’ (hence ‘Protestants’) what they deemed errors in the Roman Church. Rome wouldn’t change so they started their own churches – the Lutheran, Reformed, Mennonite, and Anglican branches of Christianity.
Protestantism sees the freedom to dissent as a healthy thing, so the floodgates opened wide and Protestantism is characterized by dissent and division, starting new churches or denominations over larger issues (e.g. the meaning of baptism and communion or how to govern a church) and and sometimes over seemingly trivial issues (e.g. the use of musical instruments in church, the freedom to drink alcoholic beverages, and the timing of the rapture). It’s often the trivial differences that generate more hostility between groups of believers. But quite often, with the changing of the landscape, differences fade and understanding changes. Differences seem less important than we initially thought, and we find ways to heal the rifts.
People change, and as people change, the world changes. As the world changes, people change again… You never step into the same river twice.
Human hearts and souls are not fixed in concrete. We change and more importantly, we are made to change, and there are things about us that are always changing.
So why would we expect that one church would fit everyone? God, who created our diversity and made us to change, is not uncomfortable in giving us space to accommodate our little differences.
There are core truths that must always be held, but not everything is a core truth. And in the things that are not essential to the faith, there is room to differ and room to change.
And people seek fellowship with the church that fits them where they are.
And sometimes they change and seek a different church.
And sometimes the church changes and they need to look for a better fit.
I don’t see any of this as necessarily indicative of a problem.
I see different churches as God’s accommodation to our ever-changing understanding, behaviors, and tastes.
I don’t seek one perfectly right institutional church. It won’t exist until Jesus comes back. In the meantime, each local church must seek the face of God in Jesus Christ and govern itself by its understanding of the Scripture under the guidance of the Holy Spirit.
So many churches! So many denominations!
Shouldn’t there just be ONE Church where everyone agrees on everything?
As good as it sounds on paper, the church has never been that way.
Early Christians in churches founded by the apostles often ended up disagreeing with the apostles! Many of the New Testament letters were written by the apostles to persuade people that by disagreeing with apostolic teaching they were going astray and they needed to come back to the truth. So much for the 'Golden Age' of the 'one true Church'!
During the centuries just after the apostles, one of the big disagreements among Christians (despite the ever-present threat of arrest!) was the proper date for the observance of Easter! The Western and Eastern churches to this day disagree on that and calculate their respective observances differently!
When Christianity came out of hiding after three centuries of persecution, they argued about the nature of Jesus because ideas had developed differently throughout the Roman world. Was Jesus God or was He only a man? Was He a mix of God and man, and if so, how exactly did that mix work? Those ideas were argued for almost a century.
Another hot-button issue was church leadership. Eventually the bishop of Rome claimed superiority over all bishops and churches. That didn’t sit well with everyone, so in 1054 AD the western Latin-speaking Catholic Church separated from the Greek-speaking Eastern Orthodox churches. Each side excommunicated the other. Another big difference between them: the Greek church said the Holy Spirit proceeded only from the Father while the Roman church insisted that the Holy Spirit proceeded from the Father and the Son.
Five hundred years later several priests and monks ‘protested’ (hence ‘Protestants’) what they deemed errors in the Roman Church. Rome wouldn’t change so they started their own churches – the Lutheran, Reformed, Mennonite, and Anglican branches of Christianity.
Protestantism sees the freedom to dissent as a healthy thing, so the floodgates opened wide and Protestantism is characterized by dissent and division, starting new churches or denominations over larger issues (e.g. the meaning of baptism and communion or how to govern a church) and and sometimes over seemingly trivial issues (e.g. the use of musical instruments in church, the freedom to drink alcoholic beverages, and the timing of the rapture). It’s often the trivial differences that generate more hostility between groups of believers. But quite often, with the changing of the landscape, differences fade and understanding changes. Differences seem less important than we initially thought, and we find ways to heal the rifts.
People change, and as people change, the world changes. As the world changes, people change again… You never step into the same river twice.
Human hearts and souls are not fixed in concrete. We change and more importantly, we are made to change, and there are things about us that are always changing.
So why would we expect that one church would fit everyone? God, who created our diversity and made us to change, is not uncomfortable in giving us space to accommodate our little differences.
There are core truths that must always be held, but not everything is a core truth. And in the things that are not essential to the faith, there is room to differ and room to change.
And people seek fellowship with the church that fits them where they are.
And sometimes they change and seek a different church.
And sometimes the church changes and they need to look for a better fit.
I don’t see any of this as necessarily indicative of a problem.
I see different churches as God’s accommodation to our ever-changing understanding, behaviors, and tastes.
I don’t seek one perfectly right institutional church. It won’t exist until Jesus comes back. In the meantime, each local church must seek the face of God in Jesus Christ and govern itself by its understanding of the Scripture under the guidance of the Holy Spirit.