What if we did away with hierarchies and traditions in Christianity, and just started over with “Jesus only”. Is “one church & one faith” possible or are we just too embedded and divided... and will our penchant for control, together with individual problems and situations, always necessitate groups and sects?
Severe persecution will eliminate the differences in the insignificant stuff separating a lot of denominations and the truth will prevail.
I have for years now been involved with the underground Church in China (being in the USA, I cannot do much directly).
40 years ago Christianity was virtually wiped out in China, all full time ministers were sent to concentration camps never to be seen again, except for the government approved “churches” that were very restricted. All religious books were burned and outlawed. We all assumed there were no native Christians left in China. The news today is that there might be as many as 100 million Christians in the underground churches in China and it is growing fast.
These Chinese Christian are lucky to have a complete Bible, yet they all seem to be teaching the exact same doctrine. From what I heard the Government established their “creed”, by publicly listing out what Christians “could not teach”, which became the list for what they taught: Christ the son of God, crucified, buried three days and rose, communion, forgiveness of sin, heaven and hell. They all seem to practice: believer emersion baptism to show a commitment to Christ, count the cost is very much emphasized, sacrificially helping other, and training everyone to teach since they are limited in size to groups of 20 or so they have to keep splitting up as they grow (they do not just make converts, but make disciples.
For years the Communist Government toned down their hard line opposition to Christianity to appease the international governments while they were economically growing, but with a down turn in their economy they have stepped up persecution and still wants to have some “control” over the underground Christian Church. They have acknowledged verbally that they cannot stop these Christian and in some ways are envious of their commitment and morals.
PS. there is no hierarchies system in the Chinese underground church, since the high position is the unpaid house church leader of 20 people. There are unpaid elders which might be for a community of 3-4 house churches, but one of the qualifications they gave me for being an elder was: they had to spend at least 18 months in prison for the way and come back stronger.