Why can't Christianity be a simple religion? Why must there be so many variants, or denominations, of the religion? Why do Christians always have to argue on what is right and wrong in theology? Why is this even important? What is the purpose of having so many different interpretative traditions? Why not just have one set of beliefs, traditions, and practices that unite all Christians? Wouldn't it be better if Christianity would be nice and simple where everything is laid out neatly on what you should do and do not do, believe and not believe, in order to attain justification instead of having so many roads to God? To me, Christian theology is mind-boggling, because so many Christians here like to give different responses, giving the impression that there is no right answer. Rather, there seems to be a bazillion answers. More than that, Christianity seems to be more of an internal faith than an external faith, which means theology is all about exercising your noggin to exhaustion. If the Christian faith is so complicated and convoluted, then why not just reject the faith altogether and become an irreligious atheist or choose some other religion that is more "spiritual than religious" or theologically much more simple to digest than Christianity?
The reasons there are so many denominations and disagreements are:
1. People put their own personal beliefs over what the Bible teaches, which leads to 2 and 3...
2. People misinterpret scripture based on their personal bias, and they are unable to see the clear truth.
3. Cherrypicking. Instead of believing in the whole of scripture, people pick and choose which portions of it to believe in. Of course, in their choosing, the only reason they are able to do so is because of 2.
4. Language and cultural barriers. One of the few legitimate reasons for disagreement is the simple fact that we're not reading the Bible in the languages or the cultural contexts in which it was originally written. But then again, we have so many resources available to the laymen these days (especially thanks to the Internet) that no one who teaches scripture for a living has an excuse to not do their research.
5. Even when the evidence is clear, people do not like to admit they're wrong. Instead, they have a tendency to protect their beliefs all-the-more when presented with such opposition. Some will even go so far as to ignore the facts and claim that the Holy Spirit has led them to their conclusion. And yes, I have sadly seen this happen many times. People seem to confuse personal opinion with divine inspiration quite often.
6. In some cases, the Bible has been altered. In fact, if you look in some Bibles you'll see [some verses in brackets, which means that it is highly doubtful that those verses who in the original documents.] But again, as our resources improve, this is ceasing to be a problem. By comparing recent manuscripts with older ones, and by comparing the whole together and seeing where they line up, we've weeded out most if not all of the things that don't belong.
7. In some rare cases, such as the verse stating that the "sons of God and daughters of men" were marrying and having offspring called Nephilim, we really have no idea what scripture says. But disagreements over these details do not typically spawn new denominations.
If you don't believe me, look at the "debates" concerning predestination and speaking in tongues. For both, there's one side who is clearly right and one side that is stupidly wrong. Why do the "debates" continue? Because the side that is wrong is too braindead/brainwashed to see the obvious.
But having said all that, most denominations really aren't that different. We pretty much all agree on all of the important stuff. It only gets complicated when you start getting into the nitty gritty details, which BTW are not required for salvation. Christianity is a simple religion.
