Division

I mean unwarranted division, in my opinion, of the different sects of Christianity. There are so many different parts of Christianity such as Catholic, Lutheran, Methodist, Baptist, etc...and I feel that is why Christianity seems to be losing the worldwide battle. The worldwide battle against secularism, atheism, Islam, and all other religions or beliefs that in some way deny Jesus as the Son of God, our Savior, our Christ.

We are losing because we are divided. Catholics were divided even before the reformation was started by Martin Luther. And ever since, there are splits, from splits from splits that the family tree of Christ's Church should not have any branches, but has hundreds. This is distressing to me.

When Martin Luther started the reformation one of his biggest problems with the Catholic Church was "indulgences". An indulgence is when a person would give money to have their sins absolved. Many denominations today do not do this anymore, not even the Catholic Church, Lutheran, Methodist, and so on. But many are now doing the exact same thing. I hear of many preachers saying that if you want to win God's affection, or win his grace, that you must do all kinds of good deeds including giving all your money to that preacher (I use the term preacher loosely for these people) and God will give you fame, glory and riches. I really cannot name one person that gave all their money to one of these preachers that became rich and famous, they just became poor. They use the story of Job for justification, in error. They completely miss and bastardize the story of Job for their own personal financial gain. This creates great division within Christianity. Greed.

Before I continue, let me address exactly why we should do good. Some people will say "Why should I do something good if I don't get anything in return." To those, I will call selfish. We should do good for goods sake. It is simply the right thing to do. We do things unselfishly, not expecting anything in return, to honor God. If you do good expecting something in return, you are making yourself your own god. Which, I assure you that you are not. There is absolutely nothing you can do to earn God's love. You already and always have had God's love.

Another issue I want to address are these churches that call themselves "bible based" churches. Seriously? I do not understand this concept. All Christian churches are Bible based. They say that anything that is not written in the Bible should not be done. Again, seriously? If this is the case then you are denying all traditions before the Bible was actually written. Do they really think the Bible was written immediately after Jesus died? NO! So, what did the early Christians do? Sit around waiting for the Bible to be written? Of course not. I say, that if you deny tradition then you deny part of Christian heritage. If you deny many writings of the early Church, you deny wisdom and knowledge. And this is where division comes from.

What should we do as Christians? Become educated about our religion and not only spread the word of Jesus Christ, but spread the education. If we do not. We fail again.

We failed God when Adam and Eve sinned. We fail God every time we sin. God never will quit loving us even though we continue to fail God. But if we keep the divisions, we will keep failing God. We are one body in Christ.

These division greatly distress and saddens me.