While we have the never-ending conflict among the various world religions, it’s just as bad within the confines of the “Christian” religions. Presbyterians can’t agree with Baptists can’t agree with Lutherans can’t agree with Methodists. And Lord knows, none of us could ever agree with the Catholics!
I recently read that there are over 33,000 denominations of Christianity in the world and most of them came through a split. There are more than 100 varieties of Baptist Churches, and there is even the Church of God, True Church of God and the Only True Church of God. The story goes, if you don’t get along with your current church, move to a new one, or better yet, form your own, so you don’t have to worry about getting along with those whose beliefs differ from your own.
So if at such a high level, we all can’t agree, why should my little microcosm of life be any different? I’ve gone from northern, liberal Presbyterian church life to southern, conservative Methodist church life over the past several years. While I love and embrace my brothers and sisters from both spectrums of the country and denominations, I have to say in so many ways, I feel like Switzerland, I feel like I’m in the middle and don’t always feel comfortable in either pew.
On one hand, those who are of more the conservative ilk will condemn me to Hell if I don’t believe and think the way that they do. On the other hand, those of the liberal persuasion will roll their eyes at me and find my simplistic view of religion to be less than cerebral. I guess I’d prefer to have people roll their eyes at me than to burn in Hell forever, but neither is desirable. OK, no doubt, I’m exaggerating a bit here, maybe even more than a bit, but at times, this is the way it feels. So rather than say what I don’t believe or what I don’t agree with on either side of the pew, I decided to write, or re-write, what I believe.
In no particular order:
• I believe in Jesus Christ, I believe He is our risen savior
• I believe in Heaven and Hell, and I believe that the only way to Heaven is through the Grace of Jesus Christ. While I know that universalists believe that everyone goes to Heaven, I really don’t see any way to Heaven other than through accepting Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior.
• Having said that, I don’t believe Muslim’s, Hindu’s or anyone else are the enemy, I believe we all need to learn how to exist together and respect each other’s beliefs. If there is an “enemy”, I believe the enemy lies within, it is lukewarm Christianity.
• I believe in the Bible, I believe it is the living word of God, written by man, God-breathed. I am by no means an expert on the Bible, but it amazes me each time I read certain parts of the Bible how it speaks to me completely differently than it did before.
• I believe Jesus did perform miracles, I don’t believe they were just parables told by the disciples. I would just find it hard to believe that these guys would subject themselves to persecution and ultimately painful deaths for a guy that they just made up stories of miracles about.
• I believe Creationism is as plausible or more plausible than any other theories of creation. I know there is a lot of support for evolution, and maybe it is the way everything evolved, but I still believe, somehow, God was at the core or source of it all.
• I support and respect the rights of the gay and lesbian community. I don’t believe they are all going to Hell. Quite frankly, I have no idea who is going to Hell and who isn’t, but if I break 6-10 of the 10 Commandments daily, and I don’t believe I’m going to Hell, how can I believe someone who is homosexual is going to Hell?
• I believe that God sends us messages every day, probably continually, but we could have burning bushes ablaze all around us, and we would be too busy, calling, texting, tweeting, messaging to hear or see them.
• I believe in the separation of church and state. I know some believe we should have the 10 commandments on our courthouse, and prayer in the schools, but I think the more critical question would be do we know the 10 commandments, do we follow the 10 commandments, do we pray, do we pray with our children and teach them how to pray?
• I also believe the separation of church and state goes both ways. I don’t want politics to invade the church, the pulpit, Sunday schools or small groups. If we’re serious about this separation, it goes both ways.
Of course, I could be wrong, I could be incredibly wrong, and I’m sure in many ways, I am. I will never know, we will never know until we graduate from this world and move on to the kingdom of God. I accept that I may be wrong, and I accept that you may be right. I’m OK with that. The beauty of it all is that it all comes down to faith, and there is no clear truth to any of this, and as our faith evolves, some of our beliefs evolve with it. So as we meet on our journey of faith through our lives, I commit to you that I won’t doom you to Hell, and I commit that I won’t roll my eyes at you. Even if you are a member of the Only True Church of God.
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