Back to "The Miracle of Damascus" » | Back to Main Page »
CHAPTER TWO - TESTING THE SPIRITS | CHAPTER THREE - THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN | CHAPTER FOUR - ANALYZING THE MESSAGES CHAPTER 5 History of Divisions There have always been those who have tried to divide the Kingdom of God, in spite of Christ's prayer: "that they also may be sanctified in TRUTH. Yet not for these only do I pray, but for those also who through their word are to believe in me, that ALL MAY BE ONE. ..that they may be perfected in UNITY, and that THE WORLD MAY KNOW that You have sent me.. ." Without these divisions we, as one mind and one faith, would have already converted the world. These divisions came about in two ways: by teaching a different Christ than the Apostles taught, a false Christ, a false Word of God; and by not showing love for each other. Almost all the false Christs of the first 200 years were concerning the understanding of the Trinity of God. These false teachings were even at the time of the Apostles. The Apostles did not take lightly a teaching that was not exactly as they taught. You would think that slight differences wouldn't be a big thing, but this wasn't the case. This understanding of the Trinity was not easy. Unity of faith demanded that all believe the same, especially regarding God, Himself. The second major reason for divisions was not showing compassion and love, which is forgiveness and understanding. Love comes from humility, which places all others' feelings before your own. You must hate error but love those who err. If the two sides of the divisions had only looked at their own mistakes, divisions would have faded away. My personal belief is that unity will never be achieved unless we forget the past. Therefore, I am hard-pressed not even to mention the mistakes of the past. However, I recognize that most people, whether Catholics or Orthodox, don't know (or care about) the reasons for divisions. All they know is that they are Catholic or Orthodox because their fathers were. It may seem prudent to forget the reasons. I have decided not to forget them for this one last time. Let me explain why. As you, the people, work towards unity, this Catholic or that Orthodox or this Protestant will say, "But they did this" or "They did that." It will be better if we, the people, can say, "Yes, I know, and I don't care. Those were the mistakes of our fathers, not ours." If we don't know the mistakes of our fathers, they will come up sooner or later. I don't want us to be surprised, and I don't want us to make the same mistakes. The great thing about history is to learn from the mistakes. If we don't learn, we will repeat them. So let us look at these mistakes of our fathers for the last time, and then forget them. There is plenty of blame to go around. As we look at it, let us remember the Lord's prayer, "forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us." . Divisions are from pride and power. Power is the goal of the dividers. A priest or a bishop has a new idea. The idea itself isn't so important as the pride that goes with it. People admire the man's idea, his head gets puffed up, he defends it against his superiors, and finally he breaks his oath of obedience. He becomes his own judge in the matter because he doesn't want to be told he is wrong. It is pride, pride and power. Of course, he needs political support for the power. And so most all divisions end up political or national in origin. Political in that whenever a King or an Emperor gained enough power he decided he should have control over the spiritual lives of people as well as the physical. National because people of different backgrounds and languages wanted local control over their churches. Communication wasn't so good in those days anyway. Sometimes disputes took years to resolve. Nationalism became more of a religion than the Church. People started to think of themselves as Italian or Greek before being Christian. This nationalistic spirit gave power to political leaders, power over the souls of people as well as the body. If you want to see if you are in a truly Universal Church, look around the next time you are there. Do you see Chinese, Philippinos, Africans, Spaniards, Greeks, Italians all praying together? If not, why not? If you are more concerned with what color your future son-in-law is than what faith he has, you are not Christian. Dividing the Faith Paul constantly had this problem as he went about teaching the Word. He warned the bishops, "and from among your own selves men will rise speaking perverse things, to draw away the disciples after them." Every person who taught different from the Apostles, he condemned. He condemned the teachings of Demetrius, Phigelus, Hermogenes, Hymeneus, Philetus and Alexander. And these people were Christians. He warned us to avoid those who opposed the teaching of the Apostles. (2 Tim. 4:15). The Apostles had to call together the first Council of Jerusalem to condemn Judaizers, who taught that Christians had to obey the Mosaic Law. This was only the first of many who taught a different Christ or Word of God. Then came Gnosticism, the secret knowledge principle; Modalism, a denial of the Trinity; Marclonism, a denial of the Old Testament; Montanism, a denial of the divine nature of the Church; Novatianism, a denial of confession after baptism; Subordinationism; Arianism; Macedonianism; Nestorianism; Monophysitism; Monothelitism; Donatism; and Pelagianism; all these in the first four hundred years of the Kingdom. They were all put down and condemned. They faded away, but parts of these ideas still exist today. Many of the new splits, new ideas, new faiths are nothing but repeats of these old ideas that were put to rest in the first years of the Kingdom. If people would study the early Church (most of these writings still exist), the mistakes of the past would not repeat themselves. Some divisions were not a matter of faith but of Church discipline: fasting or not fasting, marriage or not marriage, beards or no beards, etc. These disciplines in themselves aren't important, but the breakdown of authority in these matters is important. When disobedience in small things is allowed, it will grow to larger things. Iconoclasm The real lasting splits came with political power and not from the religious leaders themselves. Mohammed came into the world and tied his religion to government law. His was a religion of the state, a religion by force. Leo the Isaurian became Emperor of the East. Driven by the taunts of the Moslems, who accused the Christians of being idolaters for having images, he made up his mind that it was wrong to have statues and pictures in the Church. First he ordered the Pope to have the images placed very high so that they would be out of the reach of the faithful. The Pope refused to obey him. Leo ordered the Synod of Hieria in 754, which issued a decree forbidding the veneration of images, relics, and the intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary. He ordered that all images be destroyed. During these persecutions, Leo took the lands of Sicily, South Italy and the Balkans from the Roman Emperor. The Holy See at Rome condemned him; the people rose up in rebellion, and there were riots everywhere when the images were destroyed. John of Damascus came to the defense of the veneration of images. The Iconoclasts were excommunicated by a council at Rome and at the Council of Nicaea II in 787 A.D. under the leadership of Patriarch Tarasius. The Council of Nicaea clarified the theology of the Blessed Virgin, the saints and Icons. Rome was happy, but wanted the Balkans returned. Constantinople was happy and never mentioned the Balkans. The Monarch However, the Emperors who followed Leo continued to attack the veneration of images. They persecuted those who opposed them, demolished monasteries, destroyed libraries, and resorted to every form of violence. The Pope, unable to control the Eastern Monarch, declared Pepin the Holy Roman Emperor. From then on the East would be at odds with the West for Political power of the Empire. This, more than the Icons, made a lasting division. As a result of the opposition of the Pope to the Emperor, the Eastern Church (which had become more and more a state church) had become further separated from the Western Church. Other reasons were language (the East used Greek and the West used Latin) and the Pope's alliance with the Frankish Emperor, Pepin, and then Charlemagne. Constantinople was the most powerful city in the world, and yet, the Pope made another man Holy Roman Emperor. To make matters worse, Ignatius, the Patriarch of Constantinople, upbraided the Eastern Emperor for his deeds of violence and his unworthy life and refused him Holy Communion. Angered, the Emperor exiled Ignatius and put Photius in his place. Photius went from a layman to a bishop in one day. He was consecrated bishop by a suspended bishop, Gregory Asbestas. Photius charged that the Church of Rome was spreading false doctrines among the Bulgarians. What he called false doctrines (fasts of Saturday, shortening Lent by one week, allowing people to drink milk on fast day, and forbidding priests to marry) were really Church practices, not doctrine. One of Photius' charges was doctrine, however. He charged Rome with teaching the false doctrine of "Filioque," that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son, and not from the Father only. Mistakes of Rome All this would have come to nothing in the long run, but Rome made a bad mistake. In 880 A.D., Pope John VIII, in order to appease the Eastern Church, recognized the consecration of Photius as bishop. This almost destroyed those who had resisted the Emperor and who had so many friends and relatives who died for their faith. This was the start of the drift away from the Pope of Rome. All this came to nothing in the end. Photius was excommunicated and died in exile in 891 A.D. In 899 a Synod of Union was signed by Rome and Patriarch Anthony II Cauleas. This would have been the end of the division, except Rome made another major mistake. In 913 Emperor Leo took his mistress, Zoe, as his fourth wife and had a son. Patriarch Nicholas I Mysticus baptized the infant with the condition that Leo and Zoe separate at once. However, Leo crowned her queen, and they were married by a priest. Nicholas forbade them the Sacraments. Leo appealed to Rome. Pope Sergius III stated that a fourth marriage was against Byzantine Canon Law and propriety; however, the dispensation was granted out of consideration for the good of the state. From then on the Orthodox of the East lost all respect for Rome, especially amongst the people. To make matters worse in the relation between the Pope and the people of the East, Emperor Romanus requested that his 16 year old son, Theophylactus, be made patriarch of Constantinople. Believe it or not, the Pope allowed this, over much opposition in the East. This incident was the final break between the people of the East and the Roman Pontiff. After this incident, any excuse to make a break would have been okay with the people. Within the next 75 years, the excuse came. The Bulgarian Question In 1054, Leo, the Byzantine Archbishop of Bulgaria, wrote to Rome and stated that only Constantinople had the true faith and the true sacrifice of the altar (because Rome used unleavened bread) and that being Orthodox was equivalent to being infallible. Patriarch Michael Cerularius repeated the old charges of Photius against the Roman Church. He closed all the Latin churches in Constantinople and desecrated all the hosts in the tabernacles to demonstrate that they were invalidly consecrated. The Pope sent Cardinal Humbert to Constantinople to negotiate with the Patriarch. Cerularius refused to meet them, except in the patriarchal place surrounded by the synod. Humbert laid a document of excommunication on the high altar of Hagia Sophia. Michael Cerularius excommunicated the Pope, and the final break came, and there has been no reunion to this day. In 1176 Emperor Manuel Comnenus tried to get the primacy of the pope acknowledged again, but Patriarch Michael III of Anchialus replied that "it was impossible to have communion with heretics. The primacy had been lost to Rome when the pope had become a heretic [Filoque!] and had been transferred to Constantinople; the pope is nothing but a layman." The First Crusade Then came the Crusades. Peter the Hermit looted his way across Europe and the East. Bohemund seized Antioch and established the Normans (the deadliest enemies of the Byzantines) as rulers. In the second and third crusades, the Venicians took Hagia Sophia and the patriarchate. A Roman was put in the place of the Greek Patriarch. This angered the Byzantines even more. In the fourth crusade, Constantinople was sacked. A decree went out that only Latin rite bishops would be consecrated in the future. The Byzantine Hierarchy would be doomed to die out at the end of the generation. This made no new friends with Rome. The Byzantines negotiated with Rome, and Pope Innocent III sent a new legate, Cardinal Pelagius, to Constantinople in 1212. Instead of negotiating as the Pope wanted, Pelagius persecuted, menaced and imprisoned those who refused an oath of obedience. As you can see by this review of history, there are no innocent parties. The Council of Lyons In 1244 Patriarch Manuel II suggested a compromise formula: "The Holy Spirit, who proceeds from the Father through the Son;' instead of "and the Son:' This was acceptable to the Latins. He won over the Greek Church. He made the following compromise: If the Pope yielded the throne of Constantinople to the Greek emperor and its see to the Greek patriarch, the Greek Church would acknowledge the primacy by restoring his name to the diptyches and would take the oath of canonical obedience. Innocent accepted these terms and also consented to a general council on Greek territory to ratify the agreement. But all the principal personalities died-Innocent IV; John III Vatatzes, and Patriarch Manuel. John's successor, Theodore II Lascaris, rejected the whole plan and it died. In 1274 Patriarch John XI Beccus converted to the Latin position on "through the Son" and a new Council was called in Lyons. Union was sealed between the two churches on July 6, 1274. This would have been the end of the split, but Michael VIII blinded the legitimate ruler, John IV Lascaris. Patriarch Arsenius Autorianus rightfully excommunicated him. Michael VIII was a main figure in the Union of 1274, and his excommunication was disastrous, but Pope Martin IV could do nothing else but follow the Patriarch in his excommunication for it was the proper thing to do. The Pope excommunicated him also. The Union of Lyons died. The Council of Florence In 1369 a new opportunity came with the conversion of Byzantine Emperor, John V Palaeologus. Gregory XI, a true friend of the Greeks, made a ringing appeal to Europe to come to the aid of Orthodox people against the Turks. His plea fell on deaf ears. The Byzantine people became convinced that even if they changed their religion they would get no effective military help from the West. Had the West helped the East at this point, the division would have been over. They did not. In 1448 John VIII Palaeologus and Pope Eugene IV met at the Council of Florence. Agreement was reached on filioque, azymes, purgatory, the enjoyment of the beatific vision, the primacy, and the order of the patriarches, Constantinople being named second after Rome. Almost everyone signed the agreement. Patriarch Joseph II died before the end of the Council, but his dying statement helped a great deal. On the night of his death he left a note professing his faith in the filioque, purgatory and the primacy of the pope. Upon their return to Constantinople, many of the prelates, who had agreed to the union, revoked their assent due to the hostile atmosphere of the people. Nevertheless, it was proclaimed in Hagia Sophia on Dec. 12, 1452. But six months later, on May 29, 1453, Constantinople fell to Mohammed, the Conqueror. The West did not come to their aid. Communism Again when the Catholic world of France, Italy, Spain, South America, etc., and the Protestant world of Germany, England and America had the opportunity to show their Christian love by protecting Eastern Europe from the anti-Christian Communists, they turned their backs. When we face the final judgment (Matt. 25), what will Christ say? What will we say? "They were not my problem, not my nationality." Only one man stood up for all Eastern Christians, Catholic, Orthodox and Protestant, and he was Charles von Habsburg. How was he rewarded by us good Catholics? We jailed him on an island and starved him to death. Now, we want the Orthodox people to love us. Well! They will, because Christ commanded them to love even those who persecute them. They will love me, even though I turned my back on them. Now, it's my turn to make it up to them. We have faced up to the faults on both sides of the question. We have seen that a lack of love prevailed on both sides. We have seen vacillation of faith. Now let us give all these hatreds a good and final burial. Say a good prayer over them and forgive and forget the mistakes of the past. Let us hold hands and pray together as one. State-Church Religion There is one other mistake the Kingdom has made in the past and still makes today that we must face in order to not repeat them. That is the idea of a Kingdom of God composed of a union of Church and State. The Empire which Charlemagne dreamed would have had to be universal and include all the peoples of the world. But no king has ever been strong enough or good enough after Charlemagne. Every King and every Emperor since him has tried to become a part of the Church. If he didn't get his way, he fought the Church. Probably nothing the Church ever did in history caused more damage to unity than her acceptance of State control or pressure in Church matters. Maybe because of the state controlled Moslems, or maybe because she felt she needed a sword against outside enemies. I don't know. But from the time of Photius in 890 A.D. until Martin Luther, both the Orthodox and the Catholic Churches became entangled in State controls. The Emperors of the West, particularly if they were strong men, were unwilling to admit that their authority came from the Church, and they were anxious to establish a system like that which had existed in the East under the Emperor of Constantinople where the Emperor controlled the Church instead of the Church controlling the Emperor. The result was years of conflict between the Western Church and the Emperors. No one questioned the authority of the Church in spiritual affairs. The point at issue was how much authority the Church had in temporal affairs, and how much authority the Emperor had in Church affairs. These battles went on for hundreds of years. Many a bad bishop was put in power simply to appease some King or to gain the King's favor. The East and the West were' equally at fault. And as kingdoms became smaller and smaller and developed into nations, this became a bigger and bigger problem because there were more and more Kings to appease. The Decree of Union signed between the Orthodox and Catholic Churches is an example of Church-State problems. The Turks were threatening Constantinople and soon the West. They needed a united kingdom. But the Patriarch of Constantinople died in Rome. The Emperor of Constantinople refused to tell the people of the union. Constantinople fell to the Turks, and they appointed their own Patriarch. Rome wouldn't admit it at the time, but they needed Constantinople. They would find out later as the Turks moved west. Something was saved out of the wreckage of this Decree of Union, though. Many of the Slavonic Catholics who belonged to the Greek rite accepted the Decree, and some union began. This battle of Church and State exists today more than ever before, both in the East and the West. In the East no Patriarch in Russia can exist without the approval of the State. In Constantinople no Patriarch can be appointed without the approval of the Moslem government. It is a remarkable gift of the Holy Spirit that in spite of these handicaps very good Patriarches have emerged. They play the game of existence and have done a remarkable job. In the West it is even worse. The law of the State has become the moral absolute instead of the law of God. The law of the State has become the primary teacher. Whatever is legal is assumed to be morally good. Abortion and homosexuality are legal in many countries, and therefore assumed to be moral. The philosophy of pragmatism (good is whatever works) has replaced the law of God. People who were once loyal to their Church are now loyal to their party, the party of their fathers, no matter what the party stands for. The poor bishops are so overwhelmed by this outside pressure from the State, the Television, the Press, that sometimes they fall back into being administrators instead of the teachers they were called to be. They give over their teaching office to the so-called professional. Theologians in many areas have taken over the role as teachers instead of the quiet realm of research they were called to do. Since they do not have the guidance of the Holy Spirit (except in few cases), the Western sheep have no idea what the teachings of the Church is anymore. The Western Catholics don't know whom to believe-the State, the theologian, the traditionalists, the psychologist, or the Magistrate. Often they fall back on themselves and become their own teacher of the law of God. Hence, we have disunity within the different Churches, disunity in disunity. As you can see, the union of Church and State caused and still causes problems in both the East and the West. A precedent was set in the East by Kings appointing Bishops, and in the West by Popes appointing Kings. The Western Church became so closely associated with the Kings of the past that the people looked upon her as an enemy of liberty. They were afraid to allow her to have anything to say in matters of secular government. They preached the doctrine of "separation of Church and State" by which they meant that the State was supreme and that the Church had no rights except those which the government was inclined to give her. In the name of liberty, all respect for authority would disappear. The mistake in the West was being closely lined up with the Kings, and this would be the cause of the future State Religions. The East was already splitting into many ethnic or national religions, since they were already controlled by the governments. This atmosphere shaped the minds of people like John Wickliff, who held that religion should be subject to the temporal government. Religion became mixed up with nationality, and Kings claimed the right to rule the consciences of their people. Nationalism has done more to divide the Kingdom of Heaven on Earth than anything else. Nationalism isn't patriotism. It isn't that feeling of kinship that we all feel for those who live in the same country with us, speak the same language, sing the same songs, and love the same literature and art. It is something beyond all this. It is that kind of loyalty to our nation which would make us think that our nation is better than any other. Nationalism demands that the citizens obey their government in everything and never question its authority. It gives the State the right to control everything-religion, education, charity, and even business and finance. It builds high tariff walls around the country and interferes with the freedom of international trade. It is suspicious of every other nation and spends great sums of money on standing armies and navys, and is always preparing for war. It is along these national lines that most divisions of the Kingdom of Heaven on Earth have come. Martin Luther Everywhere and in every age people came along who felt they knew the truth more than the Fathers of the Kingdom. Berengarianism popped up and was condemned; then came Waldensinsism, and Albigensanism. The fight against Kings, who were constantly trying to take control of the Kingdom, was a never ending battle. Wycliff was condemned. Hus was declared a heretic. Then came Martin Luther. Had there not already been a division in the Kingdom, new and lasting divisions would never have come. Luther had a new "ism" just like all the other "isms," but a precedent had been shown, and he would get the support of the state, just as the East had done. There was good reason for a reform, which came to be known as the "Reformation." Alexander VI, who is generally conceded to be the worst pope in history, was Pope in Luther's time. The bishops of Rome had spent 65 years in Avignon. To support the luxuries of the Church taxes were imposed. Relatives to popes and bishops were placed in high positions without merit. Ecclesiastical positions were sold. Bishops lived like lords instead of spiritual leaders. The clergy, in many cases, lost all ideals of celibacy and exacted large sums of money for their services. The sacrament of extreme unction became the sacrament of the rich, too expensive for the dying poor. (SELL MY BLOOD) The upper clergy was composed largely of the sons of royalty. Monasteries became wealthy and lax. The laity were filled with infidelity, illegitimacy and superstition. Luther came into this world trying to be good by his own will and merit without the help of grace. He could not. He decided that man could not be good, and that it didn't matter. He developed the idea of "justification by faith alone." It became the key to interpreting the rest of the Bible. Any parts of the Bible that didn't agree with this was ."straw." He decided that the Ten Commandments were given by God to humble man and that man could not keep them and wasn't meant to keep them. He rebelled against the Church and got many Kings and Princes to follow him. His new religion became a state religion in many parts of Europe. This opened the door. From his ideas would come new ideas, and in his own lifetime many new religions would pop up from his own. In 1517 Luther nailed his 95 theses to a church door in Wittenberg. 200 years later in 1717 Freemasonry was born in England. 200 years later in 1917 Communism was born in Russia and Our Lady appeared at Fatima. In the same year, 1531 A.D., that Luther was dividing the Kingdom in Europe, Our Lady of Guadalupe was uniting the Kingdom in the New Americas. See the pattern? King Henry VIII King Henry VIII of England defended the Church against Luther. He fought every attempt of the new protestors from entering England. He gained from the Pope the title of "Defender of the Faith." He was the Pope's friend, and now he needed a favor. He asked the Pope for an annulment to his marriage, and he had most of the bishops of England on his side pleading his case. The Pope refused. The Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Cranmer, took it upon himself to declare the marriage invalid against the rule of the Pope. Henry announced himself to be the head of the Church in England. All the English bishops except one, John Fisher, bowed to the King's decree. Sir Thomas More, the Lord Chancellor, lost his head by refusing to go along with the King. A new state religion was born. The King was Pope. These four people, right or wrong, Mohammed, Photius, Luther and King Henry VIII, all got their support from the state and had become state-controlled religions. From these religions have come six hundred more religions. Divisions Among the Divided Islam, called Moslems, Muslims, Mohammedans, split into two religions the day Mohammed died and has since divided many more times. Amongst the Greek religions, splits came mostly for geographical and political reasons. Amongst the Romans, it was mostly a power struggle. The Protestants had no theological authority, so they split on theological grounds. Today in the Eastern Churches we have Greek Orthodox, Russian Orthodox, African Orthodox, Syrian Orthodox, Serbian Orthodox, Rumanian Orthodox, Bulgarian Orthodox, Katholikates, Ukrainian Byzantines, Armenian Apostolics, Armenians, Coptics, Ethiopians (Abyssinians), Jacobites and Assyrians (Nestorians). There are also different Catholic rites. We have the Alexandrian Rites: the Copts, the Ethiopians; the Antiochene Rites; the Malankarese, the Maronites, the Syrians; the Armenian Rite; the Byzantine Rites, the Albanians, the Bulgarians, the Byelorussians, Georgiaus, Greeks, Hungarians, Italo-Albanians, Melkites, Romanians, Russians, Rutheneans, Slovaks, Ukrainians, Yugoslavians, Serbians, Croatians; the Chaldean Rites: Chaldeans and Syro.,-Malabarese. All of these Christian Churches have either different dogmas (beliefs) or different Canon Laws (Church rules and regulations). In the Western Churches we now have Roman Catholic, Lutheran, Lutheran Church of America, Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod, American Lutheran Church, Evangelical Lutheran Churches, Apostolic Lutheran Church, Church of the Lutheran Confession, Evangelical Lutheran Synod, Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran, Free Lutheran, Latvian Evangelical, Presbyterians, United Presbyterians, Cumberland Presbyterians, Reformed Presbyterians, World Alliance of Reformed Churches, Puritans, Second Cumberland Church, Orthodox Presbyterian, Huguenots, Separationists, Episcopalians, Reformed Episcopals, Philippine Independents, Church of Sweden, Diocese of the Holy Trinity, Methodists, Methodist Episcopal Church, Methodist Protestant Church, Methodist Episcopal Church-South, United Methodist Church, Wesleyan, Evangelical United Brethren Church, United Brethren in Christ, African Methodist Episcopal Church, Christian Methodist Episcopal, African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church, Free Methodist, Wesleyan Church, Baptists, American Baptists, Southern Baptists, National Baptists, Anabaptists, General Association of Regular Baptists, Free-Will Baptists, United.Free-Will Baptists, Baptist Missionary Association of America, Primitive Baptists, Progressive National Baptists, Separate Baptists, Bible Way Churches of Our Lord Jesus, Disciples of Christ, Church of Christ, Christian Church, Church of God, Church of God in Christ, Church of God and Saints of Christ, Church of God of Prophecy, Church of Our Lord Jesus Christ of the Apostolic Faith, Church of the Nazarene, Churches of Christ in Christian Union, Church of the Living God, Community Churches, Congregational, Conservative Congregational Christian, Coptic Orthodox, Evangelical Friends, Friends United Meeting, Friends General Conference, Grace Brethren, Independent Fundamental, International Church of the Foursquare Gospel, Jehovahs Witnesses, Jewish Congregations, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, General Conference Mennonites, Mennonite Brethren, Mennonite Church, Old Order Amish, Old Order Wisler Mennonite, Moravian Church, Unity of the Brethren, National Spiritualist Association of Churches, New Apostolic Church ofN.A., North American Old Roman Catholic, Elim Fellowship, International Pentecostal Assemblies, Pentecostal Church of God, Pentecostal Free Will Baptist, Pentecostal Holiness, United Pentecostal, Plymouth Brethren, Polish National Catholic, Unitarian Universalist, United Brethren in Christ, United Church of Christ, United Holy Church of America, Volunteers of America, Pius X Society, and over 20 more not listed because they have a membership under 25,000. Many of these Churches divided not from theological reasons but from ethnic or nationalistic reasons. Paul warned against this as being against the unity of Christ.. "Here there is not Gentile and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, Barbarian and Scythian, slave and freeman, but Christ is all things and in all:' (Col. 3:11). Today these divisions maintain themselves by suppressing information. No one in one Church is permitted to read the information given out by another Church. Free information of religion was once tried at Oxford, and they lost so many students and teachers that it was never tried again. Christian bookstores will not carry Catholic or Orthodox books. Catholic bookstores will not carry Protestant or Orthodox books. Orthodox bookstores will not carry Catholic or Protestant books. What are we afraid of? The truth? These are our brothers and sisters in Christ. Let us learn from each other. Let us share and share and share until the light outshines the darkness. "If, therefore, there is any comfort in Christ, any encouragement from charity, any fellowship in the Spirit, any feelings of mercy, fill up my joy by THINKING ALIKE, having the same charity, with ONE SOUL AND ONE MIND." (Phil. 2:1-2). "JESUS CHRIST IS THE SAME, YESTERDAY AND TODAY, YES, AND FOREVER. DO NOT BE LED AWAY BY VARIOUS AND STRANGE DOCTRINES. ..WE HAVE AN ALTAR, FROM WHICH THEY HAVE NO RIGHT TO EAT..:' (Heb. 13:8-10). One Christ, one altar, one faith, one doctrine, always the same now and forever. Come on Christians, think! Put yourselves in Christ's mind. What must He be thinking? |