I’ve lost count of how many denominations there are in the world: I am talking just about Christian denominations. I seem to remember that there are 7,000 in America and more than 25,000 world-wide. Protestants have sure been living up to their name (I protest).
How did Christianity get to such a state of consciousness?
It’s not like we weren’t warned or told about the problems associated with such divisiveness. Jesus is reported to have said in Matthew 12:25 (NIV), “Every kingdom divided against itself will be ruined, and every city or household divided against itself will not stand”. Add whatever NOUN you want to the principle: nation, family, religion, corporation, community, etc.
The mythological encouragement is found in John 10:30, “I and the Father are ONE.”
This isn’t just a statement about one man and His Creator. This is a principle that speaks of everyone, every man, woman, and child. We are ALL ONE. In John 17: 20-21 we read (NIV), “My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me”
Why can’t we SEE (Be) this?
Professor Vittorio D. Macchioro wrote, “From the Apostolic Age it has been shown a dispersive tendency, a tendency to divide, dissolve into churches, sects, and heresies. The whole sad history of Christian disintegration takes its rise from the theory of the cognitive function of theology.” In other words what about the BEING of a LOVING person who doesn’t feel a need to CONTROL, CONVERT, or CASTIGATE those who have not the same theology as you?
Whatever happened to the God is LOVE and so too are we principle?
We have so many people who feel an urgency to make other people believe exactly as they believe because they have the only correct formula to please God, dot the correct i’s & cross the t’s correctly & 1.”earn?” 2.”receive?” 3.”achieve?” salvation.
When I meet one of these folks I do my best to let them do the talking (everybody likes that) & affirm what I can of what they’re saying. Keeping my mouth shut is sometimes the most loving thing I could do because my theology shared with a fundamentalist has been known to leave them thinking I’m going to hell & it’s there fault cause they couldn’t make me see the truth, that any deviation from their “formula” for salvation is a one way ticket to H E double hockey-sticks!
Chuckmeister- Wisdom, my friend, wisdom.