I have
to admit that I stole the idea for the following story, and I do not remember
where:
The
church rejoiced when the Jones and the Martins decided to join the
fellowship. Both families were drawn by
the friendliness of the people, the magnificence of the choir, and the churches
involvement in mission. Another reason
they joined the Newtonville Community Church was because it was the only church
in town.
Newtonville was a small town the
average traveler missed; all it took was one blink, and you could drive from
city limit to city limit; and the only building you could see from the highway was
the church.
You may be surprised to know that
of the 273 people who lived in Newtonville, only 64 of them were members of the
church, but on Sunday morning the church was full, for when you include the
children, the church could have as many as 110 of God’s people present.
All was well in the Newtonville
Community Church until the adult Sunday School class had a lesson on the end
times. As the teacher talked about how
difficult it is to understand what the Bible says about the final judgment, one
of the members interrupted, “It’s no problem at all. I just read that book ‘Left Behind,’ and it
clearly uses what the Bible says to outline what the ends time will be
like. The Lord will return at the
trumpet sound and reign on earth for 1000 years.”
Another class member was of the
opinion that the 1000 years spoken of in the Bible was symbolic, “Imagine 1000
years, that’s a long time, it represents the fact that Jesus is ruling now and
will rule for eternity.”
Well debate turned into raised
voices, and raised voices turned into yelling, and people said things they
shouldn’t have, until one elder said, “Well if that is the way you feel about
it, I’m going to start my own church,” and he did, and 32 of the members went
with him.
They started the Newtonville
Premillennial Community Church. Now
there are two churches in town. The
choirs were about half as good as when there was one church, and it seems that
the two churches combined only did about half as much mission as the original
church.
A year passed when both churches
started having a fight over the idea of predestination. Can you believe it? You could hear the Calvinist saying, “If you
read Romans it says that we are predestined.
God chooses us before we could possible choose God.”
“No, no, no, ‘whosoever will,’
that’s what the Bible says. Whosoever
will call on the name of the Lord will be saved.” Well you guessed it, voices were raised,
tempers lost, and before you knew it, there was a split in both churches.
Now there were four churches in
Newtonville and each had 16 members.
There was the Newtonville Pre-millennial Providence Community Church and
the Newtonville Pre-millennial Free-will Community Church, the Newtonville
A-millennial Providence Community Church, and the Newtonville Pre-millennial
Free-will Community church. The choirs
in the four churches were about one-fourth as good as the choir when they all
went to church together, and with so much money going to pay the light bill in
four buildings, there was not much left over for mission.
Well it didn’t stop there. There was a funeral of a dear man who did not
belong to any of the churches, but the pastors of all four churches spoke at
the funeral. The first pastor said, “We
will miss old Zeak, but he is in a better place. You know the Lord said to the thief on the
cross, today, today you will be with me in paradise. Well today, Old Zeak is in paradise.”
The second pastor to speak said, “I
too will miss Zeak, but what the Bible teaches is that Zeak will be raised at
the last trumpet when the dead in Christ will rise.”
Most everyone at the funeral was
civil enough not to extend the debate, that was until the next Sunday during
Sunday School. There debate broke out
and tempers flared and some said, “Well just start a new church that believes
like we do. And you know there are now eight churches in Newtonville: There is the Newtonville A-millennial,
Providence, Wait until Jesus Comes Resurrection Community Church and the
Newtonville Pre-millennial, Free Will, Immediate Resurrection Community
Church. Well you get the point without
me giving the names of all eight churches.
Each church now had eight members.
During the presidential election
year there were more splits over politics, which gave rise to eight new
churches, now a total of sixteen churches in Newtonville with each church
having four members, with no choirs, and no money to do mission. Can I give you the name of two of the
churches: The Newtonville
Pre-millennial, Free-will, Wait until Jesus Comes Resurrection, Democratic
Community Church, and the Newtonville Pre-millennial, Providence, Wait Until
Jesus Comes Resurrection, Republican Community Church.
Once people start to split, it’s
hard to stop. About a year later there
were people in the churches who said the only way to interpret the Bible was to
be literal, and others who wanted to leave room for deeper study of the various
forms of literature in the Bible. You
can only guess how difficult that debate was.
But the debate led to folks leaving their churches and starting new
churches.
Now in Newtonville there were 32
churches with two members in each church.
Actually, most of the churches consisted of a husband and his wife. All
was well until the husbands read in First Timothy 2: “I
Do not permit a woman to teach or to assume authority over a man; she must be
quiet.”
Whew, 64 churches with one member
in each church, no choir, no community mission, but 64 different people who all
believe they are the one perfect church.
Everybody in each of the 64 churches now had a church that believed
exactly the way they believed, and the church practice was exactly the way they
wanted it. They sang only the hymns they
liked and celebrated Communion as often as it pleased them. Each of the one-member church’s requirements
for ordination was exactly as all the members believe it should be; that is, as
the one-member wanted it. Some like
going to church for two hours and they could do so now, I think only 2 of the
64 one member churches worshipped for two hours; the other 62 one-member
churches took advantage of the church-of-one concept and kept worship down to
ten minutes.
So which church are you going to
join, The Newtonville Amillennial, Free Will, Wait Until Jesus Comes
Resurrection, Democratic, Literal Bible, Quiet Women Community Church. Or the Newtonville, Pre-millennial,
Providence, Wait Until Jesus Comes Resurrection, Republican, Bible Study, Let
the Women Talk Community Church. Or the
imperfect church of which you are a member, that has other members with whom
you may disagree, but you do everything in your power together to honor Jesus
Church through worship and participating in his mission and upholding the unity
of this diverse church. Jesus’ only
recorded prayer for today’s church is this, “I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, 21 that
all of them may be one,” which church will you join? Amen.
I have
a dear cousin who in some ways has a different theological perspective than my
own. We are both Christian, no doubt
about that; however she is not a Presbyterian.
This is not to say that Presbyterians are right and her church is wrong,
it’s just we have different understandings.
I hope that neither one of us is so presumptuous as to think that we are
always right and other denominations are wrong.
It would be an expression of elitism for us to believe that of the
thousands of Christian denominations that my church says it best. My church’s theology is right – always right.
The practice of my church is the only one truly based upon the teachings of the
Apostles.
Some
churches worship on Saturday, most on Sunday.
Some churches only baptize by immersion, others pouring, and still
others by sprinkling, and then there are those who will baptize by any of these
modes for what matters to them is that water is used. Some churches baptize children and others
only baptize those who make a personal profession of faith. Some churches celebrate the Sacrament of
Communion every time they meet others only four times per year. Some churches welcome the leadership of women
and others will not allow women to even speak in church. Some churches allow leadership to gay and
lesbian Christians and others consider the sin of homosexuality such a sin that
all gay and lesbian people are condemned to hell. Some churches believe the Bible is literal
throughout, thus for example the world was created in six twenty-four hour
periods. While other churches understand
that the Bible is an ancient book written by ancient people to an ancient
church, thus the Bible must be studied within this context, all the while
understanding that the Bible is inspired by God and through its pages God still
speaks to the church. There are Pre-millennial
believers, Post-millennial believers and A-millennial believers. I could go on.
I think
we have to admit that the church of Jesus Christ is very diverse, and rather
than condemn what would be most of the church to hell, or believe they are in
some way inferior because they do not believe the way we do, does great damage
to our ability as the church to spread the good news that God has come into the
world in the person of Jesus Christ.
Maybe a better way is to never stop the discussions. Never stop listening to what others
understand to be the truth and maybe we can learn from each other.
I know
the temptation to say, “The Bible says it, I believe it and that settles it.” But, the problem is that the ancient book we
call the Bible is interpreted in so many different ways. Who is right?
Only God knows, and the best way for us to know is to discuss and learn
from each other rather than argue.
