Why are there so many churches?
There's one Bible but hundreds of different denominations of Christianity.
That could be pretty confusing for a person looking for the truth.
One church is teaching this. Another church is teaching just the opposite.
Who's right? Does it even matter?
Some people like to say that it's good to have a lot of choices--
just different roads all going to the same place.
Imagine you had a time machine and went back to the first century,
to the day that God established His church.
What if you walked up to one of those new Christians and asked him,
"What denomination did you just become a part of?"
He'd probably look at you like you have two heads.
"What church did you just become a part of?
Was it Methodist, Catholic, Baptist? What denomination?"
He'd probably say,
"I don't know what you're talking about. I've never heard of a denomination.
All I know is that I became a part of the church that belongs to Jesus."
And that would be exactly right because there was only one.
Jesus promised to build only one church and He adds the saved to only that one.
Acts 2:47 says:
All of the saved were in that one church.
So how did we go from one church in the Bible to hundreds?
In short, people disagreed about what they should do in religion,
and so they broke off and began their own groups.
This is nothing new, though.
Divisions were happening all the way back in Bible times.
But in the Bible God says that denominations or divisions in the church are actually a bad thing.
In 1 Corinthians 1:10 it reads:
The first major division that is still around today
has roots pretty soon after the New Testament was written.
Individual leaders in the church called bishops
began exerting more and more influence over local congregations
and then larger regions and eventually over every church around the world.
Over the years, they created many new doctrines
and followed man-made traditions that are not found in the Bible,
including the office of the universal bishop or the pope,
the clergy laity system, priestly celibacy, selling of indulgences, confessional booths,
the rosary, purgatory and limbo, infant baptism, the infallibility of the pope,
transubstantiation, and many other changes as well.
This denomination, of course, eventually became known as the Roman Catholic church.
History tells us that in 1054, Catholics disagreed sharply about the pope and some other things
so the church split into two denominations-- The Great Schism--
the Roman Catholic church on one hand and the Greek Orthodox church on the other.
In the early 1500s, there arose the Anabaptists--
a group that rejected the Catholic church and its practice of infant baptism.
From these sprang modern-day Baptists, as well as the Amish and Mennonites.
Around the same time, a German monk named Martin Luther
protested against many of the Catholic teachings
and helped ignite what became known as the Protestant Reformation.
Rather than going completely back to the Bible, he simply attempted to fix the errors
that he saw in the Catholic church.
Some changes were good, such as rejecting indulgences, the pope,
and using the Bible as their only authority.
However, Luther and other reformers-- such as John Calvin--over-corrected some things
and began to teach various faith-only doctrines, contrary to what the Bible says.
Luther's followers began the Lutheran church in his name.
Presbyterians and Methodists sprang out of this movement as well,
with the Salvation Army denomination coming much later from Methodism.
The church of England--or the Anglican church-- started in 1534 because King Henry VIII
wanted to have his marriage to Catherine of Aragon annulled.
But when the Roman Catholic church said no, he started his own church: the Church of England.
From this we also get the American Episcopal church.
The Latter-Day Saints--or Mormonism-- began with Joseph Smith in 1830.
He said he had visions and that God revealed to him that other churches were wrong
and he claimed to receive additional scriptures on golden plates,
which is known today as the Book of Mormon.
Shortly thereafter in the late 1830s, the Adventists were begun by a preacher
named William Miller who focused on the second coming of Christ--His advent--
and he made many predictions that never came to pass.
The Seventh-Day Adventists sprang out of this movement
and, to a lesser degree, the Jehovah's Witnesses in the 1870s.
Pentecostal groups such as the Church of God, the Holiness movement,
Assemblies of God, apostolic churches, they have the roots
in American revival movements in the late 1800s and early 1900s
with a heavy emphasis on the Holy Spirit and spiritual gifts.
Community churches and non-denominational churches tend to lean pretty heavily Baptist
or they might be a mix of all of these various denominations.
As we look through history, we might disagree on the various dates and particulars,
but one thing that we can all agree on is this:
Right now there are a lot of divisions in Christianity,
and this is something the Bible condemns.
God only ever established one church, and we should aim to be a part of that church
and not some man-made denomination that comes much later in history.
While many of these denominations do claim
to be the very same church that existed back in the first century,
when they all teach different things, they can't all be right.
We need to compare what they believe and practice against what the Bible actually says.
If you want to learn more about that one church of the Bible and how to be part of it,
we invite you to reach out to us. We'd love to hear from you.