Why Are There So Many Denominations and Does It Even Matter?

Jesus prayed that His followers would be one. If that's true then why are there so many Christian denominations today? From debates over doctrine to differences in practice, we answer an honest question: Are denominations a problem to solve, or simply evidence that believers are trying to faithfully follow Jesus?

Transcript

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So we have questions. What are questions that you have an answer? Because questions that we put is we do eat the list. We will leave the rest of the game. Let's leave it. Let's go there. What's going on, Land of Podcasting, and welcome to another episode of Let's Go There. As always, I am joining the podcast studio with my friend Russ the Bus Williams. I'm your host, Ben Pucas. And today we are diving into a question that a lot of you got to ask in many different ways. And so we actually took a few different questions and we brought it into one. And really the main question is why are there so many different denominations? Really, other questions that people ask like, does it even matter the denominations? Is who's right, who's wrong? Is denomination divisions, maybe between like a Pentecost church and a Methodist church, the Church of Christ church and the and the non-denominational church, is that inherently sinful? Like what's the plan? Like, why are there so many one? And then is it a bad thing? And if it isn't a bad thing, then which one should I choose? And so bringing all of these questions in, I think really the real question is, and the reason people ask it is we see, like especially, like you look at Cersei, Arkansas. I think there's like 80 different churches in a town of 24,000 people. I think it's easy for us to look at that. It's easy for us to feel some sort of this kind of idea of tribalism in the church that we're at. We identify with the church that we're with. So, you know, for me, I go to Fellowship Bible Church. I think it's easy for us, because we go to fellowship, for those that are watching this that are members at fellowship, I think it's easy for us to look at fellowship and go, okay, is my church better than another church? Is my theology better than this church? If if I went to this church, is that a bad thing? Do people who go to that church, do they love Jesus less, or do they even love Jesus at all? And I think before we can even get into whether it's right or whether it's wrong, I think we first have to understand how we got here. And I think it's one super important for us to know is human beings from the very beginning of time will always and forever, always disagree about everything. I mean, you just look at the time of Jesus. Like we were talking about denominational splits where people that were supposed to be one. You see in John 17 that that we were supposed to be unified, Jesus prayed to his father, would these people that are about to be my disciples, not just the ones that are living, but the ones that are to come, would they be united just like you and I are united? And then you look, Jesus leaves the earth, and almost immediately there's people that are disagreeing about things, and not only are they disagreeing about things, but it's causing them to split. And and you look at those like in the very beginning, like, was Jesus really God? Did Jesus really die? You know, those are two big theologies, but the biggest theology that people disagreed about, and you see it written in scripture, especially with Paul, is okay, Gentiles, I guess they can potentially be a part of the kingdom of God, but shouldn't they have to continue to obey the law, obey the Torah, like Jews do? And this was a big argument. And because there were arguments, people were dividing, and because people were dividing, people that were supposed to worship together are now worshiping separately. And on top of that, they're making the other people the enemies. They're making the other people that don't agree with them to be the bad guys. And so instead of fighting for the kingdom of God, the kingdom of God is divided. And as Jesus said, a kingdom that is divided, you know, will fall. The only kingdom that will stand is a kingdom that is united. We have to continue to stay together. And so you see that in the early church. You see it in church history over time. There was theological disagreements and they kept uh continue to be multiplied. Splits happened over doctrine, some happened because of abuse. Like you see in the Protestant Reformation in 1517, there's a guy named Martin Luther that was starting to study scripture and he's starting to think, wait a second, the way that the Catholic Church is doing things isn't right. In fact, there's corruption, they're telling people to do things that are not biblical so they can stay in power and they can rule people's lives. And this man, Martin Luther, came and and he he he put the 95 theses on top of the on the door of the Catholic Church to basically not wage war, but to say, here's 95 things that you are not getting right that the Bible specifically says. And from this, I don't think he thought to himself, I'm gonna create a new denomination, but through this came disagreements, and through the disagreements became splits, and that became known as the Protestant Reformation. This is how Protestantism, which if you're listening to this podcast, there's a high likelihood that you are probably underneath that umbrella of Protestantisms. That's how that happened, because there was you know corruption. But you the key thought in this is that not every denomination, like you see in the beginning, that that there's sin involved in some. Not every denominational split is sinful. Like, and you know, so the question is are denominations bad? Why why should we not just have one? Like inherently, I do not think denominations are bad. I don't think people are inherently living in sin because they're wanting to split the church. Because when you look at people, there's a wide array of people. We're we're different skin colors, we have different cultures, we have different socioeconomic backgrounds, we have different religions, and we have different ideologies and different preferences. So I think at the core of denominations, I don't think any of them are bad. I don't think we I don't think God looks at it and goes, Well, how dare you, fellowship, worship over here, and you, downtown Church of Christ, worship over here. Like inherently, it's like, man, as long as my people stay unified, man, that's great. Like worship in different places, worship one place with no instruments and one place with instruments. One place is going to have a medium-level kind of worship experience, and one place is going to have the smoke and the lights and the show, and it's loud and it's fun because people have different preferences. Like, and I think actually, because of these different styles and traditions and emphasis, you know, I think about communion at fellowship. We offer it every single week. Like it's like here, if you want it, you can have it. And then once a month we take it as a church. There are some people that are like, dude, I love taking communion every single week. Like there's something that's really beautiful about it. The way I actually interpret scripture is I believe every time we're supposed to gather that that Jesus wants us to take communion. And so instead of going to fellowship where it's optional, I'm going to go to a place where we do it every week because that stirs my affections for Jesus. You know, and I think it's great when we then go, okay, people at fellowship are not necessarily sinful. The people at fellowship aren't necessarily doing it bad. It's just not my preference. And so there's different styles, there's different structures, there's different beliefs. And I think inherently it's okay, and inherently it can even be beautiful. But I think the problem starts, you know, and there's a lot of different problems, but I, you know, just a few of the ones that I have seen just with my own eyes over the last year is when there are so many denominations. When you have the Methodists and you have the uh Church of Christ people, and you have the Nazarenes and you have the non-denominationals, which by the way, what's really ironic about a non-denominational church, it's now a denomination, which is funny. Like we all have these different denominations. I think the kind of heart that can be created in people is this idea of shopping for what fits us best. And here's the problem with that. I think it starts to become a problem when we shop around for churches to go who, what pastor, what belief system, what structure, what style best fits me. And what that ends up creating is this consumeristic mindset within the church. What church makes me feel the best about me? What church makes me drive home feeling good about myself? And really what that turns into is it turns something that has absolutely nothing to do with us and makes it everything about us. Instead of the church being this window that we're supposed to look into the world, it becomes a mirror of how it can serve us and love us and be according to our tradition. And then what ends up happening is when we are a part of a church that we love in the beginning and they believe the things that we believe and they have the style that we have, and then either something changes or a belief comes out that we don't necessarily agree with. Instead of staying in the ring and trying to stay unified with an imperfect people that aren't always going to agree with everything that we believe, the easiest thing for then us to do is to pick our stuff up, take our ball, go home, and find another people to do life with. And what ends up happening is there's this revolving door of people going in and out of churches. I saw a study the other day by the Barner Group that says that on average, this is a crazy set, people that stay within the same town for longer than 15 years change churches every five. And I think that is, is because when things don't go our way, when leaders don't make the decisions that we would make, when the worship starts to get a little too loud or the worship starts to get a little too soft, when maybe someone comes out with a theological statement, the elder board comes out with something that we don't agree with. Instead of staying in the ring and going, why is this something that you believe in? We believe that we are the ultimate truth within ourselves and it's no longer serving us, it's no longer convenient for us, and so we leave. Man, that's not the purpose of the church. That's not the heart that Jesus had. That's not the only hope of the world that the church is supposed to be. I believe what Jesus wants us to do is to find a church, whether we agree fully with it or not, because here's the deal: we're never going to agree fully. There's no such thing as a perfect man or woman for us. There's no such thing as a perfect church for us either. There are going to be things with every church that we're not going to agree with. There's going to be decisions, especially in leadership, that other people are going to make that we wouldn't necessarily make if we were in their shoes. That doesn't mean that we take our ball and go home. And what's happening is people aren't building really deep roots in the churches. They're not sinking their teeth in and devoting their life to churches because they're not giving it enough time for the root system to go deep so that the harvest can be plentiful. I think that's the problem with this idea of we're just going to create another church. You don't agree with us? That's fine. We'll split off and go over here and create our own new church. And so at the heart of it, I don't think diversity is a problem. I don't think denominations are a problem. But when we start to shop around and we run away when it gets hard, or even we start looking down on other believers for not believing the same way we do, I believe not only is that not the way that God designed it, I believe it grieves the heart of God. And I believe 100% it's sinful. Like, not kind of sinful, not I mean, like inherently. Like I think God just like is so disgusted by it. I mean, you think about Jesus came to reconcile us to God, and because he reconciled us to God, he reconciled us to each other. That what this the church is his inheritance. And I believe what we have done is we have spit in the face of the death of Jesus and we are dividing things that Jesus died that we could be united. Like we're not spiritually elite because we're in a different church than somebody else. We haven't been given this special revelation that nobody else has. At the end of the day, if we're believers, we all have the full measure of the Holy Spirit. Are we going to disagree on things? Absolutely, we're going to disagree on things. But the important truth is this if you love Jesus, as we're just saying right here, then you will be and will become a part of the body of Christ. Like I want us to think about that for a second. One day, there's a day coming where every knee will bow and every tongue will confess. There's a day coming where I die, where Russ dies, or maybe before we die, you know, we hear the trumpet come up from the clouds and we get taken up. And one day all of us are going to be in heaven and we're worshiping Jesus. Y'all, there's not going to be a Baptist section in heaven. There's not going to be a Church of Christ section. There's not going to be the non-denominational section where they're all doing things a little bit too crazy, and the Baptists and the COCers think they're just being ridiculous and cheap grace. There's not different sections. And so because there's not different sections in heaven and there's not different heavens, there's not different bodies. It's not that Jesus is the head of the Baptist body and the Church of Christ body and the non-denominational body and the Methodist body and the Catholic body. Jesus is a part of the body. Denominations are not going to matter in heaven. Like there's going to be one people worshiping the one true God, the way that we were designed to do it in. Like, so when we start dividing things, when we start saying, I'm more spiritually leap because you don't believe something that I do, we're dividing and we're actually not living in heaven on earth. We're not living in the kingdom restored. That's literally what Jesus came to do. He came to bring and say, the kingdom of heaven is at hand. The kingdom that I built in the very beginning, before Adam and Eve decided to screw it all up, I'm bringing that back. It's going to be Eden restored. And every single time we start dividing things that Jesus died to unite, we go back to the way, we go back to the fall. We go back to the kingdom of this world and we start dividing the very things that Jesus died that could be united. And at the end of the day, the church is the only hope of the world. The goal of the church is to equip the saints for the work of the ministry. The goal of the church is to partner with Jesus and bringing dead things to life, to partner literally with Jesus and robbing other people's graves, just like our grave was robbed. And sometimes what can happen is our obsession with who's right and who's wrong can get in the way of the mission that Jesus actually brought us to earth to do. The purpose of the church isn't to figure out who's right and wrong. And I love these questions. And I think all these questions come from a really great place. But I think just the fact that we have to ask the question shows the heart that we have. We're trying to ask: Am I right? Do I believe the right things? Do I worship the right way? Is the worship the right volume? And I think Jesus is like, those things are secondary. Your goal is to equip the saints for the work of the ministry for what? What is the work of the ministry? To go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. Go into the nations. Go to people who don't know me. Be my witnesses in Jerusalem and Judea and Samaria and the rest of the world. Be my witnesses in Circe and in Arkansas and the rest of the world. Our mission, we are the only hope of the world. This world is darkening and we have light. And too often we are spending time talking about it now. There's time that is being devoted to who's right and who's wrong, and we're arguing about things that Jesus is like, at the end of the day, I don't care as much about those things as you do. Do you know why I say that? Because hear me say this. Theology matters, people. That's why we have a podcast. Like, if theology didn't matter, we wouldn't care about this. We just move on and let people fight about stupid stuff. It matters. Truth matters, doctrine matters. But if the goal is simply winning arguments, instead of loving people the way that God designed us to, and listen to me. We've drifted. We've stopped focusing on the essential and we've started focusing on the secondary. And so think about this for a second. Because I think part of this, people will say, you know, like it is important. Theology does matter because there are some people who have such a wrong theology that they've actually added to the gospel or they've taken away from the gospel. And these people, which is funny how we like label people and don't use their names when we disagree with them sometimes. These people, their theology is so wrong that they're dying and they're going to hell. Okay, let's say that. Let's say that's even true. Is it true? I don't know. That's between them and the Lord, first of all. We are not the people to judge in the sense of if they're going to heaven or hell. If there's another believer, it's our job to judge them in the sense of holding them and bringing them back to the truth. But let's say for some reason, and I'll just be honest, okay, honesty time. Not gonna say names, not gonna say people. I have gotten emails before from people in the town that I live in telling me that they're praying for my salvation. Uh, because I don't agree with some of the things that they agree with, and vice versa. And I'll a lot of times I'll answer the email, like, thank you so much, please keep praying, like I need to be saved. Like, which is just funny. So let's say that that I mean it happens. Like, people believe in this town, because of our theological differences, that I'm living in sin and I'm dying and going to hell. So let's say that's true. Let's say I'm a Gentile. Or I'm gonna switch it. Let's say Russ is a Gentile. I believe he's doesn't know Jesus because of his theology. How am I supposed to treat Russ with disdain? With the cold shoulder, with a Facebook post where no one really knows what you're talking about, but everyone knows who you're talking about, hiding behind a screen. Is that how I'm supposed to treat a non-believer? No, what does Jesus tell us we do with non-believers? We love them. If Russ really is a non-believer because of his theology, do you think that I'm gonna go up to Russ and start cussing him out and saying stupid things to him and telling him how wrong he is? Do you think that's gonna draw him to Jesus? You think Russ is gonna hear that and go, man, I feel so loved after that, man. Thank you so much. Man, this really changed my life. I think I really want to start following Jesus now. Gosh, no, that's not true. Then why do we do that in the church? Why do we start attacking people and throwing things? Listen to me, other churches are not the enemy. And I think the actual enemy has done a really great job of clouding our vision so that we don't actually think that he is the roaring lion seeking someone to devour. The church of Christ rode down the road is not the enemy. They are part of the body of Christ. So not only are they only not the enemy, there are brothers and sisters, and they're doing this mission with us. And he's trying to distract, he's trying to disorient, he's trying to take what God died to unite to divide, because a divided front is going to fall, and we're not as strong separated as we are together, and we've just missed it. And here's a humility check. Are you ready for this one? Let's say I think Russ is going to hell and I hate him and I post about him all the time and I talk about it behind his back all the time. What if I get to heaven and Jesus Christ, my Savior, who has the nail-scarred hands and the nail-scarred feet, whose life I'm living for, I'm living for him. I go up to him and he's like, Hey Ben, you know that theology that you were so bought in that you were right? You were wrong. And actually Russ was right. What if you're wrong? What if I'm wrong? Like, here's the deal. I believe very strongly about a lot of things. You're like, yeah, dude, this is why you have a podcast. You speak into a mic and talk about what you think all the time. But my real question is this like, when I die and when I have to it's a humility check for me. When I get to heaven and Jesus is like, hey, you missed it. You didn't get this right, you didn't get that right. I think there's even things in this podcast that I'm gonna, with the best of my ability, not trying to do it purposefully, but I think I'm gonna get to heaven, and God's like, Yeah, that wasn't right. You missed it. It wasn't true. I wanna be able to live in such a way that even though I got it wrong, I still continue to live the life that God wanted me to live. You know, there's an elder here at our church. Uh we it's here's the deal. We gotta pray for our elders. Like, cause w I've been able to sit in that room with those men, and it's a really hard position. So even like right now, like if you can just pause this podcast, man, for like 30 seconds, man, pray for the elders at your church. Pray for wisdom, pray for clarity. It's a hard job, man. And I'm gonna tell you this right now, it's the most thankless job I think I've ever seen in my life. But I'm sitting with elders and we're trying to discuss this theological thing that we just had to talk through a couple years ago as a church, and I mean, it was the most like in your face thing. I mean, I felt like I ate, slept, and drank this theology. Like in my mind, I'm like, I'll ne I never want to read another verse about it. Like, I'll just kind of skip it when I get to it and be like, God, I've already done enough of that. But it was hard. And he he said something that really grounded me, because it's like there's pressure of we want to get this right. And he says, you know, guys, I think about this. I know there's gonna be things in my life that I get wrong, but if there's one thing in my life that I get right, I want it to be love. In fact, I would rather get every theological stance wrong but get love right. Because we're not called to be right, we're called to be loving because how do the law and prophets get fulfilled? Through being right, through being with the right denomination, being baptized in the right way, worshiping the right way. No the way that all the law and prophets are fulfilled, it's first love God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. And secondly, love people, love your neighbor as yourself. And Jesus, Jesus Christ, red letters says, if you do those two things, not some of the law and prophets, all of the law and prophets are fulfilled. First Corinthians 13, we can have all knowledge, we can have all gifts, we can do things in the best way, we can even lay down our lives on the altar to be burned as a martyr. But if I do not have love, I gain nothing. We don't bring people and we're not fulfilling our purpose by winning theological dates, we're not by proving our intellectual superiority. The way that the church advances in the world that we live in today is love God, love people. That's it. Through love. And so when you think about denominations, who's right, who's wrong? Man, I love the fact. If you go to a different denomination than a non-denominational church, I love it. I would even pastor another church that's not a non-denominational church because I think it's less about which of those are right, but which of those churches, one, continue to love people and be on the mission. And secondly, how many of those churches are not making other churches their enemy? But even though they believe differently, even though they function differently, even though they have a different organizational structure, even though Sunday mornings look very different, do those churches continue to remind their people and continue to remind themselves that that church down the road is not the enemy. They are our brothers and sisters. We need to be praying for them, we need to be loving them. We need to be pouring into them because even though they agree, we don't agree with everything that we agree with, they are still a part of the body of Christ. And because Jesus has reconciled us to God, therefore now we are all reconciled to each other because we are a part of the same body. The goal is not to create enemies that are not there, it's to remind ourselves that there is an enemy and he is trying to distract. So our denominations bad by no means. But if they divide what Jesus died to unite, if they create enemies of other people, and if they make us passive to run away from the family that God has called us to sink our roots deep into, then we have missed it. It's less about who's right, and it's less about who's wrong, and it's more about who can I love today, even if I disagree with them, because at the end of the day, I may be wrong and they may be right. And even though, let's say, best case scenario, I'm right and they're wrong, I want to be able to make sure that I can't rub that in their face when they get to heaven. I want to look at my Jesus one day and say, you know what, Jesus, I continue to love them. And so denominations, I believe they're always going to exist. Are they a bad thing? No. But they're going to be imperfect because they have imperfect human beings. We see in church history there's been corruption and there's been a lot of hard with denominations. But the goal of Christianity, the goal of following Jesus is not creating the most correct tribe. The goal is becoming like Jesus. And Jesus said, the world will know we belong to him, not when we agree on everything, but the world will know that you are my disciples because of the way that you love. And so that's the podcast. That's denominations. And so, whatever denomination you go to, man, I'd love to know what denominations are tuning in. If you want to click on the link in the episode notes right here, we'd love to know uh what denomination, what church you go to, where are you from? Are you Fellowship Bible Church? We know we're already getting some people from uh out of state listening to this. And so if that's you, welcome. If this is something that blessed you, man, this is crazy. Can you just stop right now? Don't turn off the podcast. Could you please just click the subscribe button on whatever platform you're on? If it's Spotify, man, click on that button. If it's Apple Podcast, click on subscribe subscribe. And then every single week, every Friday at 6 p.m., you will get a notification that a new episode is released. It'll download it to your phone so you can listen to it when you're ready to do it. But that's the end of this episode. We'll see you next week as we go there and as we answer the questions that you're asking us, the questions that keep you up at night. We hope that this was a blessing to you. We'll see you next week. And until then, hook us and Rust the Bus out.