Loving Church History

I am definitely not a scholar of Theology, which is the module I started this week, but I love learning about it. Church History was my favorite class at Summit Semester, and I am already incredibly interested in it here at Rivendell.

At the beginning of this week, our class read and discussed The Westminster Confession of Faith, The Ninety Five Theses, Excerpts from the Council of Trent, The Augsburg Confession, and the Puritan Catechism. It was so intriguing to compare the different traditions, customs, and beliefs of the church throughout the years. However, as I listened to the discussion, I began to realize something. The church is so divided. Look at the hundreds of different denominations of the Protestant church. Look at all the beliefs and traditions that the church disagrees on. I know that beliefs are very important to people, beliefs about baptism, salvation, mass, sacraments, etc. However, I kept asking myself, why can’t we be humble? Why do we have to be so stuck in our ways that we can’t come to a mutual agreement? All these confessions were written in order to form a unified church. But the church has never been unified. The church has had disagreements since it began. Are some of the beliefs we have even important? Take eschatology for example. Why argue and fight over it when we will never know what’s going to happen to us in the end times? What’s the point? And transubstantiation. Does it matter if Jesus’ body becomes alive in us? Why can’t we just do what the disciples did by taking the bread and wine to represent Jesus’ body and continue to do it in remembrance of Christ? And again baptism. Why does it matter if you are dipped, sprinkled, or dunked three times for baptism? The Bible does not say that Christ was put in the water three times, so why should we? Why can’t we just go back to Christ and the way he did things?

Then I was struck with another thought. I wondered, would I ever give up the beliefs that I think are true and biblical in order to come to a unified agreement with other churches? My beliefs are important to me. And every other Christian's beliefs are important to them. So how can I ask them to do something that I wouldn't even do? I know of course, that many things we disagree with today are not mentioned in the gospels from Jesus’ words, which is why we have disagreements. Although I may not agree with them, the beliefs I critiqued above are valuable to other people. Other Christians may look at my traditions and belief and think of mine just like I'm thinking of theirs.

Therefore, what I've come to understand this week is that we are weak, proud human beings, myself included. I doubt the church will ever solve all of the disagreements it has, but hopefully we will learn to love and work with each other to further God's kingdom by coming to a middle ground on beliefs all of us hold. In the mean time, I will continue to read, study, discuss, and learn as much as I can and formulate the beliefs I hold most dear to my heart.