Christian Unity, Part Two

My earlier post on “Christian Unity” seemed to get a good response from folks. It generated far more comments than I usually receive (I think of these as “blogger ratings” as well as opportunities to meet new and interesting people all named “Anonymous”), and one or two folks apparently even linked the article to their own blogs. That’s very cool.

However, the thing that struck me most about the comments was that not one of those who weighed in to express their dislike for what I wrote bothered to refute or even actually to address the issues that I raised. Mostly these people wrote to tell me that it was arrogant of me to dare suggest that there can only be one true Church in existence, thereby relegating all others (Ahem, "theirs") to the status of schisms. Isn’t that fascinating? If you say that there is one true Church, people will get very worked up against that idea. But if you say that Christendom is horribly divided in direct contradiction to the will of God, nobody gives a hoot.

Of course Protestant Christians in particular are not really in a position to lament such disunity with any sincerity, for their entire church experience over the last nearly five hundred years is nothing but schism after schism. In fairness, Martin Luther never meant to wind up as a schismatic. He only sought to bring reform to the Roman Catholic church, but got the boot instead. Hopefully it was at least made from fine Italian leather. Once outside, he ranted and raved about the Papists for the rest of his days, even using terms against their priests that made the poor fellows sound like witches. In fact he made quite a lifelong hobby of inventing new and clever invective against his former church, between sips of beer presumably. But other Protestants soon bored of this, or else didn’t drink as much, and instead turned their righteous wrath against one another. An entirely new hobby was born which involved pointing out all the “biblical errors” in the other guy’s church so that you could divide from him to form your own, more pure church.

The basis for deciding such biblical purity was entirely subjective of course, and depended on many factors including Western society’s steady move toward rationalism. The sacraments were the first to get cut, for they simply did not make sense in the new age of reason unless they were reduced to mere mental memorials only. The ever-virginity of Mary was soon dismissed as well. Never mind the fact that it had been believed from antiquity; demented Protestant theologians apparently could not imagine the aged Joseph keeping a 13-year-old cutey like her around the shack without desiring a little “comfort” in his old age. The backwater theology of Anselm of Canterbury was foolishly resurrected, and aided by John Calvin, freshly inspired by his tulip garden, was churned up into a new “biblical” theology introducing the world to a God and Father of wrath and Perfect Justice, who could only forgive us if we afforded Him the strange pleasure of putting His own Son to a horrific death.

And so it continues. Protestants, armed with the termite-ridden wooden sword of Sola Scriptura, have “played bible” with each other for generations and have endlessly hacked away at one another’s belief with no apparent concern that someone just might put an eye out, and along the way have battled themselves into ever-increasing schism, heresy, and even blasphemy. Today such stalwart doctrines as those concerning the Holy Trinity, the virgin birth and deity of Christ, and His bodily resurrection are among the last remaining relics of a past and forgotten orthodoxy being freshly overhauled in light of current “biblical truth”.

And what is the response of those Protestants in such progressive denominations who disagree with these doctrinal overhauls? Well, what else? They divide and form a new church, much more pure than the one which they left.

Well, perhaps there is something good in all this after all. With all this healthy division and schism going on, hundreds of years worth of it in fact, you would think that someone, somewhere must be just on the verge, maybe just one or two more divisions away, from finally producing (Drum roll, please) the Biblically Perfect Church. And it only took mankind around two thousand years, give or take! We can all look forward to that accomplishment.

Yes, I can see why people might have a hard time believing that the one true Church is the one that God made way back at the first Pentecost. For one thing, such a belief leaves so little room for us men to champion our own personal biblical interpretations and make a name for ourselves. What’s the point of having a bible if we can’t use it to show some other fellow how wrong his church is? If we were all members of one Church what on earth would we do all day except pursue our salvation according to the gospel of Christ and share the fruit of that with others? What kind of a life would that be, for goodness sake!

Yep, God sure made it hard for us to find His one, true Church. But let us simply remember that any God who would take such delight in the death of His own Son probably doesn’t really care for us all that much either.