Tuesday, June 17, 2008

Do Denominations Disprove Christianity?

When dealing with skeptics you may hear, “If Christianity is true, why are there so many denominations?” Or “How can Christianity be ‘the truth’ if you can’t even agree amongst yourselves?”

This person wants to claim that the theological differences between various groups of Christians proves that our beliefs are inconsistent. That’s obviously not true, but it can be hard to explain why off the cuff.

We can’t deny that Christians disagree with each other on a lot of things. We disagree about how to govern a church, how to worship, and how salvation works. We argue about authority, tradition, and money. We differ over when Jesus is going to come, how Jesus is going to come, and what is going to happen when Jesus comes.

But we do not differ over the presence of sin, the need for a savior, the fact of the cross or the resurrection, or whether Jesus will return. We know what the Good News is, who needs to hear it, and what will happen to those who don’t accept it.

In short, the basics of Christianity are accepted by pretty much everybody, and the fact that we cannot agree about a variety of secondary issues has no bearing on whether or not the core tenets of the faith are true.

5 comments:

babwryter said...

I've been a member of many churches of different denominations because of moving around, and feeling led by God to various churches.
I grew us Wesleyan, then was Methodist, Christian and Missionary Alliance, almost Baptist and Lutheran.
They all had valid scriptural reasons for their various differences in the areas of baptism, spiritual gifts, etc.
I think a good place to start to see the common ground is the Apostles Creed.

Nancy said...

I had just this moring posted the following concerning denominationalism....*: )

It is good to know that there are true defenders of the faith in each of our main line denominations. I feel that denominationalism is a good thing… When we as Christians are set in a body of believers that underscores our particular gifting, we are in unity with that group and can in such unity impact the community around us significantly. The down side of it is that many take it as an opportunity for quarrelsomeness in differences instead of majoring on the love we share as the Body of Christ shown forth in many members.

Found your link at Joe Carter's Blog and am enjoying your blog..*: )

Anonymous said...

Sorry to bump this post from 2008, but I am intrigued by this:

We differ over when Jesus is going to come, how Jesus is going to come, and what is going to happen when Jesus comes.
[...]
the fact that we cannot agree about a variety of secondary issues has no bearing on whether or not the core tenets of the faith are true.


Are you saying the return of Jesus is a secondary issue for Christians?

ChrisB said...

His return is not secondary. When, how, and exactly what will happen is.

Anonymous said...

Thanks