dear picnic
i'm late for work already but they're cool and i just had to respond to your question before i go to work as it is one of those questions that is driving me nuts right now - why so many denominations when we all serve the same Lord?
by the way i just posted this really desperate and needy post called "Rebuilding Jerusalem" and i inadvertantly broke the ruls and post my email address so i might be out of here before i'm started - that'll explain it if you don't see me around! Ha!
back to the denominations thing. this phenomena had already began in the first century AD and it was driving Paul nuts - Now I plead with you brethern by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ that you all speak the same thing, and that there be no divisions among you - I Cor. 1:11.
Read a bunch more in I Cor chapter one and you'll really get a feel for Paul's frustration which I think reflected the Lord's frustration.
By the time the "Catacomb Years" were over and Emperor Constantine made it legal to be a Christian in 313 AD in the Roman Empire there were all kinds of what we today would call denominations. Once upon a time Marcionism (Which containes the beliefe that the God who created the world has a evil streak and is not the same God who sent Jesus) may have had more followers than the version of Christianity that we have today.
All these denominations are frustrating and confusing - I wish we could all agree - but I guess they are still better than what the official state church tried to do starting in about in about 381 AD when it began, with help from the Empire, to kill off and systematically try to convert thru torture all those who held opposing views. Such a thing would never have happened amongst those who called themselves Christians before it became the "in" thing to do in Rome but, once Constantine popularized it, millions joined who didn't really agree with the non-violence that Christ demonstrated and preached. But for all practical purposes, we had one church for one thousand years and then Martin Luther reintroduced differing denominations when he nailed his 95 thesis to the door and now we have a bazillion denominations and, while we're not always understanding and nice to each other as Christians sghould be, we are at least not cutting off each other's heads anymore so I'd say things are getting better. Don't you agree?
Gotta get to work,
rebuildjerusalem
So, it was a
