“I appeal to you, brothers, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree, and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be united in the same mind and the same judgment.” St. Paul wrote these words in a letter to Christians in Corinth nearly 2,000 years ago, and they have been convicting Christians across the world ever since. Conflict and disagreement are universal, as part of our sinful human nature, and this is evident in every human assembly, including the Church. For while Christ is its founder and head, the Church is populated by billions of people with billions of different opinions, perspectives, and backgrounds. This is why Christian unity has eluded us for millennia.
Looking at the countless denominations in Christendom, it’s evident that we have not yet fulfilled Jesus’ prayer in John 17:20-21, in which he prays to the Father “for those who will believe in Me through [the disciples’] word; that they all may be one, as You, Father, are in Me, and I in You; that they also may be one in Us, that the world may believe that You sent Me.” If you visited every Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Lutheran, Baptist, Methodist, Presbyterian, Anglican, and Pentecostal church on earth and asked for a show of hands as to who would like for all Christians to be more unified with fewer divisions, most hands would go up. That’s why the 20th century experienced a phenomenon called the Ecumenical Movement.
Beginning around 1910, various Christian church bodies held inter-denominational conferences for the purpose of promoting “ecumenism,” a word that Britannica defines as “the movement or tendency toward worldwide Christian unity or cooperation.” In some ways, this movement was a blessing, since it got Christians of different traditions and perspectives talking and listening to one another. It also unified our efforts on social issues like the pro-life movement, missionary activity, and caring for the needy. I would argue the ecumenical movement is one of the main reasons why most Catholics and Protestants don’t see each other as enemies anymore (outside of Ireland, anyway). For progress in all of these realms, the Christian world owes the ecumenical movement a debt of gratitude. However, the Church’s efforts toward ecumenism have brought about a negative consequence as well: the watering down of biblical teaching.
While it’s unfortunate that we have so many denominations, and it would be ideal for there to be a single unified Christian Church, there is a reason denominations exist: because Christians of the past took their beliefs seriously and were unwilling to ignore, obscure, or deny what they believed to be biblical truth in order to unite with a church body they disagreed with. In heaven, there will be no denominations, just as there will be no national borders. But on earth, the reality is that denominations (like borders) are the best possible solution, given our fallen condition. Therefore, it is better to worship and commune with Christians who share your confession of faith than to pretend that all Christians believe the exact same thing and ignore the many passages of the Bible we interpret differently. God’s Word deserves our total devotion, and our brothers and sisters in Christ deserve our honesty.
Unfortunately, portions of the 20th century’s ecumenical movement determined that unity was more important than what we believe, teach, and confess about the Word of God. This led many Christians to sweep essential Christian truths under the rug to “keep the peace” and instead claim to “just believe in the Bible,” with no reference to what we believe about the Bible. But if a Baptist, a Methodist, and a Lutheran all come together and agree to start a unified Christian church, will the church proclaim a Baptist, Methodist, or Lutheran interpretation of Scripture?
The answer for many in the ecumenical movement was: none of the above. And thus non-denominational churches were born. There are currently about 44,000 non-denominational churches in the United States, making church homes for around 21 million Christians. I am not by any means saying it is wrong to attend or belong to a non-denominational church, but I believe it’s naive to view non-denominational churches as the solution to bring about Christian unity. In fact, it often does the opposite. Since every non-denominational church is independent of any synod or larger church body, it essentially makes every non-denominational church its own denomination.
But Christians who belong to mainline denominations should not be naive either to think that aligning ourselves to a larger or older tradition makes us perfectly unified with all others who bare our denominational name. For example, I’m a Lutheran, and according to internet sources, there are approximately 100 million Lutherans in the world. So, that means my confession of faith aligns with 100 million other Christians in perfect unity, right? Unfortunately, no. Not even close. Of these 100 million Lutherans, 17 million belong the state churches of Norway, Sweden, Finland, Iceland, and Denmark.
In these Lutheran-majority countries, “being Lutheran” merely means checking the Lutheran box on the census to show you’re patriotic. This is evident in the fact that, among the aforementioned 17 million Scandinavian Lutherans, only around 3% of them attend church. The United States is home to six million Lutherans, but half of them belong to the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America (ELCA), which denies that the Bible is the Word of God, embraces homosexuality and abortion, and bares no resemblance whatsoever to what Martin Luther and his followers risked their lives for.
Even the Roman Catholic Church, which boast 1.4 billion members worldwide, is far less unified than the numbers would suggest. For example, the Catholic Church in Germany pushes for women’s ordination and same-sex unions, while the Catholic Church in Africa rejects such progressive doctrines and is far more conservative. There are dozens of Catholic churches across Eastern Europe that reject various Catholic teachings in favor of Orthodox beliefs, but get to call themselves Roman Catholic because they have sworn allegiance to the pope. In reality, Roman Catholicism is not one church, but many different churches who have the commonality of submission to the pope.
Jonathan Kettler is a history teacher at Brandon High School.
