In article ,
Vox Humana wrote:


How do you account for so many denominations each having so large a
difference with fellow Christians that they can't abide belonging to the
same organization?


There are a number of reasons. The first is because people are
different and their needs are different. There was a good book written
some years ago by Bruce Larson, in which he illustrated it with a
parable. It went something like this (I am paraphrasing from a
years-old memory):

There was once a man who had suffered many reversals in his life.
He had tried and failed a multiple businesses. His car had just
been reposessed. He had an addictive personality and in spite of
his best efforts, could not shake many self-destructive habits. He
had failed in love. He had failed so many times, he took his
failure for granted. He saw himself as a failure and despised what
he saw in the mirror.

There was another man in the same town who had a golden touch. He
was a millionaire. Important people came to him for advice. He
had a wonderful marriage and his kids were exemplary. He worked
out and looked good. He felt great about himself. There were also
two churches in the area. The first, Our Lady of Eternal
Redemption, focused on the love and acceptance of Jesus Christ. It
told about how that every day was a new day in Christ, that all the
sins and failures of yesterday were forgiven, and that, in Christ,
all things are possible.

The second, The Church of Eternal Repentance, focused on the fallen
nature of man and the offer of redemption through repentance and
humility. It preached about how that, no matter how good we think
we are, as long as another person is in need we have not done what
we can. It focused on the fact that we are all sinners and need
the forgiveness of Christ. It told the story of the young rich man
(Matt 19:16) who followed all the laws but walked away from Jesus
when he was told to sell his posessions and give it to the poor.

Larson points out that while both of them teach the truth, the
concentration if very different. It would be a good thing for the
first man to enter the first church and the second to enter the second,
and possibly a very bad thing for the opposite to occur. In the
best case, the needs of each would be met -- the man in trouble would
be given encouragment and validation, and the man with it all would
be taught humility. In the worst case, the man in trouble would
focus on his failings and might have a hard time recognizing the
value of his redemption,a nd the man with it all would see his
wealth as validation.


The second is that there is great ambiguity in most aspects of
Christianity. Jesus noted that there were really only two rules to
being a Christian: loving God above all else, and loving your neighbor
as yourself. Everything else falls from those two. Most of the things
that people think of when they think of Christian orthodoxy are not
things that Jesus particularly cared about.

Virtually every variant on the things that Christ didn't deal with has
been proposed. That Christ was both human and God, that He was not
human at all, that he was God but was an illusion, that He was human
and not God. The orthodox trinitarial belief was established in the
face of Christians who believed in the trinity, who believed in a
pantheon of dieties, who believed that Jesus and God were enemies,
etc. -- all of which, in fact, were relatively consistent with the
fundamental teachings of Christ. Christ was concerned with how we
lived our lives and with our relationship with a diety we could not
comprehend. He was not all that concerned with which incorrect
comprehension we chose.

What this means is that most decisions that Christians have to make
about life are thus pretty much judgement calls. Generations of
theologians and demagogues have tried replaced the Pharisees in trying
to write laws for every little contingency, and its not surprising that
they differ in their extrapolations.

This is compounded by the fact that Christianity is focused on belief
(orthodoxy) rather than practice (orthopraxy). This is in contrast to
Judiasm and Islam, where what you *do* is as or more important than
what you *believe.* The belief system of Judiasm and Islam is pretty
simple; it's the practice that gets the textual real estate. In
Christianity, it's the opposite. Thus, not only is it *belief*
that is key, but most of it is up in the air.

Even in the early church, this was a problem. Paul, following a
vision, brought a radical interpretation of Christianity into
the forefront. Paul claimed authority based on his vision, his
determination and suffering, and the results of his work. On the
basis of this personal authority he tosses Jewish law out the
window. What most Christians don't read was the response of
the followers of Peter in the Pseudo-Clementine Homilies who
believed that Christianity should essentially remain a form
of Judiasm:

And if our Jesus appeared to you also and became known in a vision
and met you as angry with an enemy, yet he has spoken only through
visions and dreams or through external revelations. But can anyone
be made competent to teach through a vision? And if your opinion on
that is possible, why then did our teacher spend a whole year with
us wh were awake? How can we believe you even if he appeared to
you? ... But if you were visited by him for the space of an hour
and were instructed by him and thereby have become an apostle, then
proclaim his words, expound what he has taught, be a friend to his
apostles and do not contend with me, who am his confidant; for you
have in hostility withstood me, who am a firm rock, the foundation
stone of the Church (Homilies 17.19).

All may not have been quite as fluffy bunnies and candy cane among the
Apostles as a superficial reading of Acts would imply.

Paul even ran into this problem of personal interpretation when dealing
with the Corinthians. He first wrote to them that to a person at one
with Christ, *all* things are permitted. He meant, of course, that if
a person were in touch with Christ then one would only *want* to do the
right thing -- all things are lawful but not all things are "expedient"
or "beneficial". Of course, many Pauline Christians took this to mean
that anything goes, and Paul then had to write letters almost
retracting this statement and giving lists of permitted and not
permitted.


Third, because Christianity allows broad variation in faith and
practice in order to meet individual needs, it's not surprising
that this leads to exploitation of that freedom. Jesus noted that
the things that limited faith in different people are different ("If your
eye offends you, pluck it out"), and that the practice demands
of faith for one person would not be that of another. Some people
have problems with sex. Other people have problems with food.
Other people have problems with being ostentatious. And each
support group essentially forms a denomination. Some, like the
Shakers, are self-limiting. Others are not.

Fourth, Christianity is a faith that has authority based in three basic
things: the Bible, personal revelation, and tradition. Different
denominations place different emphasis on each source of authority.
Fundamentalists cling to the Bible and essentially ignore the other
two. Mystics focus on personal revelation and use the other two as
commentary and guide for the mystical experience. My pastor likes to
quote a Sufi he once knew who told him about his training in the Holy
Koran. This Sufi trained for months and was not *allowed* to read the
Holy Koran. Finally he went to his master and asked why, as a Moslem,
he was not allowed to read the Holy Koran. The master replied "First
find God. Then He will give you the insight necessary to understand
the Holy Koran." This is the basic attitude of mystics, whether they
be Christian, Moslem, or whatever. It's why a Buddhist is willing to
write the introduction to the mystical writings of the Catholic monk
Thomas Merton. And it is an attitude opposite to that of
fundamentalists who believe that reading the Book is the *way* to find
God. Finally, traditionalists focus on continuity between their beliefs
and those of the early fathers who were closest to Jesus Himself. Each
of these different approaches result in a different flavor of faith,
and all are Christian.


billo