Christian Denominations
Why the multiplicity, complexity, and infinity of God’s nature predicates the existence of denominations.
As I write this article, the Methodists are splitting again over ministry ordination restrictions and marriage of the LGBTQ community. This is not a bad thing as some want to make out. Saints are called to love the LGBTQ community without exception. But saints in the Body of Christ must completely ignore parts of scripture instead of just twisting it to come to this conclusion that the restrictions be lifted. So be it. They can form their own denomination and have that conversation with Jesus later (as I will be having my own, I’m sure).
This illustrates the first point. Theological splits are preferred over bloodshed, which was ashamedly the preferred methodology before separating the Church and state. Unity is preferred, even prayed for by our Saviour, but splitting with deep theological divisions can be healthy. Splitting over political or worldly issues is problematic.
There are other, less often discussed, or anticipated challenges with a completely unified Church. Corruption is one of them. The Catholic Church owes its healthy theological condition to the Protestants. Without the split, a church government that was so corrupt with power and monies that the Popes sired illegitimate children and offered evils such as indulgences may have never reformed. It also served as a stark warning of acquiring those two dangers that have unfortunately not been heeded by the 21st-century Western Evangelical church.
The other issue is the very nature of God himself. While we use words like Trinity to express his multiplicity (the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit), they fail us. The word does not exist in the Bible. How God can be one and three at the same time is beyond human logic as it should. A God that the human mind can explain is not God.
As described in the Bible, God's multiplicity hints at a complexity we currently see but dimly. God is described as all-knowing, yet when in human form interacting with Abraham, he seems to have limited his knowledge. Jesus himself did what he saw his father in heaven do (John 5:19), knew men’s hearts (John 2:24), yet did not know the day of his final return. The Holy Spirit is the most mysterious of the tribune, but Jesus lauds it as more important than his continued presence on this fallen world. To further anguish the human mind, God is eternal. He has never not existed. How can this be?
Exegesis is the act of the Saints applying the Word of God to our lives. One cannot avoid theological implementation. Jesus commanded us to apply his teachings to this world to further his Kindom. He did so in maddening generalizations. If one reflects on Church history and culture, the necessity of this is born out. So too the indispensability of denominations.
One must not view the Word of God, written by men living in cultures that existed no earlier than two thousand years ago and as far back as potentially four to six thousand past, with modern eyes. This is damned nonsense. God’s laws included laws for the treatment of slaves, which was practically unheard of because slavery was common. Everywhere. Without exception. This is like saying God’s laws were misogynistic. No, men were misogynists, and God was addressing the culture of the day. We smugly tsk, tsk, ancient civilizations moral behaviors while performing evil acts that would make them either aghast or right at home.
The Body of Christ is foolishly viewed in the same lenses. We condemn the behaviors of prior Saints who worked faithfully to change and improve the societies they lived in, resulting in nearly every ethical and moral improvement in the last twenty-one centuries, and then condemn them for participating in those cultures they were seeking to change. All the while conveniently turning a blind eye to our own failures and oversites of evil.
The Body of Christ historically has progressed. Not by changing the Word of God, but by allowing the Word of God to transform the Church to reflect God’s love in the culture it inhabits. The Protestant movement was the first, but not to be the last. Cultures have changed since the Apostles witnessed Jesus alive after he was crucified. Saints living in 4th century Rome faced different challenges than Christians living at the beginning of Post Modernism in the 18th and 19th centuries. Christians presently in China dream of the religious freedom enjoyed and abused by the Saints in the US.
God’s complexity, multiplicities, and eternal nature combined with a humanity that is ever progressing and increasingly complex cultural structures necessitate varied implementations and expressions of God’s love and response to these corrupted and evil systems. As technology has enabled tiered levels of cultural complexity within small geographical areas (i.e., urban and suburban), this means even more varied responses to Jesus' command to preach the Gospel and make disciples.
These are called denominations. God’s varied denominations should be celebrated in the Body of Christ, not disdained. The denominations that have not altered God’s word, but have allowed it to alter them to respond to a fallen world, can, have, and will continue to work together. They have their theological differences but a common Lord as the Spirit witnesses to the Spirit. Their unity is in the cause of Jesus and his Kingdom, and their final unity will be glorious and richer for the diversity, not poorer.
