My Thoughts On Christianity

My Search For TRUE Christian Faith

19. Now, therefore, you are no longer strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, 20. having been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the chief cornerstone, 21. in whom the whole building, being fitted together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord, 22. in whom you also are being built together for a dwelling place of God in the Spirit.

Ephesians 2: 19-22

Now, for those who are reading this and havnt’t been following my podcast, I have mentioned several times that I consider myself a Christian but I have never really gone into too much detail on the fact. That is what I plan to do with this blog post is to kind of explain where my mind is at, a little backstory of my faith and to inform people of where my research has led me. For an explanation for the bible verses that I quoted at the beginning, one of my biggest problems with Christianity is the endless denominations within Christianity and I think this is also something that troubles others who are trying to understand. For along time I had heard things like “the church is within the Christian” or “churches are meant to build communities” and to me, that gave me the thought that the physical church wasn’t all that important. Now I realize that is not the case. I am no theologian or a person that can recite several points of scripture from the top of my head but it is clear to me, from scripture that I have read, that Jesus clearly set up the first church but did He intend for the separations and multiple denominations? That has been my question and that is the purpose of this post.

17.Now I urge you, brethren, note those who cause divisions and offenses, contrary to the doctrine which you learned, and avoid them.

Romans 16:17

Most of my childhood, I was going to church but I never really understood what a church was or the different denominations but looking back I would say that the churches that I attended were either non-denominational or Evangelical churches. I was never baptized and that was another thing that confused me about the churches I attended. Baptism didn’t seem to be a big deal to these churches. Yet clearly reading through scripture you can see that baptism was clearly an important issue, even Jesus was baptized by John the Baptist. So, why did the churches I had attended not put much focus on it. All of these questions made these churches seem to contradict what the bible was saying and that eventually led me to abandoning my faith. Now I will say that I was never fully atheistic. I could never convince myself that there was absolutely nothing out there that put this world together and still today it puzzles me on how some get to that illogical conclusion. There is just so much evidence when you look at the world that there is a system that clearly makes this world go round. One thing that I tend to think of when it comes to this system is pregnant women. Think about it, when a woman becomes pregnant and the baby begins developing, as the baby grows in size, the belly stretches and her organs move out of the way to make room for the baby. Clearly, at least to me, this is done by design. Also, on the topic of pregnancy, the only way to create human life is with the combination of a sperm and an egg. Regardless of how it happens, that is still the only way that you can create human life. Now I know it is not a convincing argument for everyone but it was at least enough for me to start thinking more critically on the topic of God. But still, even when I returned to my faith, the question still remained. Why are there so many different churches and which one is the right one? Clearly, catholics and baptist are different and both of those are different to the non-denominational churches but why is this? They are all reading the same Bible, right? To figure this out we need to look back through history.

49.“I came to send fire on the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled! 50.But I have a baptism to be baptized with, and how distressed I am till it is accomplished! 51.Do you suppose that I came to give peace on earth? I tell you, not at all, but rather division. 52.For from now on five in one house will be divided: three against two, and two against three. 53.Father will be divided against son and son against father, mother against daughter and daughter against mother, mother-in-law against her daughter-in-law and daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law.”

Luke 12:49-53

It is obvious, from reading scripture, that Jesus and his apostles set up the first church. So why is there so much division throughout Christianity? Why are there so many different Christian churches? Maybe it was always meant to be. Let’s take a look back through history. The main point that we need to start is the year 1054 known as the Great Schism which was the dividing point between the Western Catholic church and the Eastern Orthodox church. Now, there were a lot of disagreements that led to this point and when you really look into it, most was caused by the Catholic church, one of the main reasons was the Catholic church setting up the pope and giving him the name “the vicar of Christ”. Why this is problematic is because according to scripture and the Orthodox church, Christ doesn’t need a vicar because He is still in the church and at the head of the church. Jesus IS the pope. (Now, I want to reinstate that I am not a historian or a theologian, so this is just my understanding of this. I am still reading into this and if someone knows more on this situation, please enlighten me.) So you have the first division in the church because before then, all churches were following the same doctrine and beliefs. The next great division in Christianity, which I would say devastated Christianity the most, The Protestant Reformation which began in the year 1517. This was started by a man by the name of Martin Luther, who was a monk in Germany who ended up having many disagreements with the Western Catholic church, some of which I can understand. He began to see a lot of things that the church was doing was unbiblical, one of which being the indulgence system, which allowed people to purchase a certificate of pardon for the punishment of their sins. Now while I agree that Martin had some valid points, what came as a result of the Reformation was the several different denominations. How this happened was before Protestantism, there was a hierarchy in Christianity where if the was a question or dispute about scripture, they would go to the church to resolve it but now it has been left to people’s own private interpretations of scripture. The problem with this is that multiple people can read the same verse but come away with a different understanding. Another thing that came from the Protestant Reformation was the Five Solas, which when carefully examined hold no logical weight. The Five Solas being Sola Scriptura (scripture alone), Sola Fide (faith alone), Sola Gratia (grace alone), Solus Christus (Christ alone) and Soli Deo Gloria (God's glory alone). Let’s take the first one into consideration. First, Sola Scriptura, or scripture alone. This is essentially the idea that all one needs to reach salvation is the scripture and like I have already stated, there are several different interpretations of scripture and when left to private interpretations there is no way for disagreements to be solved. Also, let’s look back in a historical context. The New Testament wasn’t written until, I believe the 7th century. *EDIT* My previous statement was wrong and this is the correction. No, the New Testament wasn’t written in the 7th century. I had misread that somewhere and am late to correcting it, my apologies. What I had intended on saying but wrote out wrong was that the Canon of the Bible wasn’t laid out until, not the 7th century but the 4th century at the Third Council of Carthage. Another thing about that is originally the canon had included the Apocrypha but was later removed by Protestants in 1885. Now the Orthodox still holds the original canon and Catholics hold some of the canon so in regards to Sola Scriptura, which is the correct Bible to read? Also the printing press wasn’t available until the 1400s so nobody had their own bibles and had to rely on the interpretation from the church, which is another thing that led to the Reformation. So does that mean that the people who came before that were unable to reach salvation? Also, there are people who can’t read, whether it be because of blindness or a reading disability. If they are unable to read the scripture for themselves, are they unable reach salvation? I don’t think this is the case. Next, we have Sola Fide, or faith alone but all you have to do is go to scripture (James 2:17. Thus also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead.) So that right there would indicate that faith alone cannot be enough to reach salvation. I am not well versed on the rest but I can say that if we can find logical errors in the first two Solas, there are probably errors with the rest. I have to repeat this once again that I am no theologian and I don’t claim to know everything but this is just where I have landed and I am not trying to say that the people who follow these doctrine are destined for hell because that is only for God to determine and I can’t say what is in someone’s heart. I am merely pointing things out and showing what I have learned through my research of Christianity and I hope others can look at this as a tool to help them on their journey.

If you have been reading this and haven’t guessed it, I am leaning towards the Eastern Orthodox church as the true church of Christ. When you look into their history, they don’t have all of the faults that you see throughout the Western Catholic church, the Protestant churches and the non-denominational churches. Now I am not a member of any Orthodox church at the time but I am looking into a few churches nearby and am hoping to join one soon. Again, I need to stress this point that I do not claim to know everything and I am just writing about what I have learned and if there is anything that I have gotten wrong, I have no problem with someone correcting me as it will only educate me more into the things that are important to me. I just hope that others can use this to help them in their journey. Also I will probably start making more post like this as I try to gain a better understanding of things, so if you enjoyed this be sure to subscribe so you can follow me on this journey. I would also like to add a great book that helped me to understand more of this, Orthodoxy and Heterodoxy: Finding the Way to Christ in a Complicated Religious Landscape by Andrew Stephen Damick. It is a really good book with a lot of great information in it. Have a blessed day.