Let’s Dig A Little Deeper

Division is so interwoven into the fabric of how we do church that it appears impossible to cut it out without ruining the whole garment.  And so it must be if the Lord deems it necessary.  Corrupt systems need to be sacked; not only to save what is redeemable before it is to late, but to restore what is right.  Jesus told the Pharisees, “No one sews a piece of unshrunk cloth on an old garment; or else the new piece pulls away from the old, and the tear is made worse.  And no one puts new wine into old wineskins; or else the new wine bursts the wineskins, the wine is spilled, and the wineskins are ruined. But new wine must be put into new wineskins” (Mk.2:21-22).  How does this relate to what we are talking about?  Please follow me here as I explain this.  This parable of Christ has been misinterpreted in so many ways.  Jesus was a revelator.  Pioneering a transition from Old Testament law to New Testament righteousness through what would soon be his own sacrifice.  The truth and life He was promising was completely outside the bounds of what the Law and especially the legalistic Pharisaism of His day could even begin to support.  He was ushering in a whole new kind of righteousness (symbolized by the new cloth) and a whole new dispensation of the Spirit (symbolized by the new wine).  The religious leaders of His day were trying to fit His plan of righteousness and power into their dead legalistic system of law (represented by the “old wineskin”), which wasn’t possible ( examine the context leading to Christ’s statement Mk.2:1-20).  In explanation of this situation Christ gave this now famous parable to underscore the foolishness of their endeavor.  New Testament righteousness could not be sown into the Old Testament system without a serious tear resulting and the Old Testament system of law could not possibly contain the way of the Spirit without stretching that brittle and staunch system beyond the breaking point.  It was absolutely futile for the Pharisees to try and mesh the two systems together and the harder they tried the greater the threat became to their whole way of doing things.

     By the same token there is no possible way that New Testament unity can be comfortably meshed with our very Protestant system of sectarianism.  The two systems are mutually exclusive and the more the Holy Spirit begins to restore New Testament apostolic unity to the church, the more sectarianism will be threatened.  Those who are married to it will suffer the most.  The stale and rigid pharisees of sectarianism will look down their narrow noses at a system that threatens their existence but to no avail.  Once again Christ’s system will prove superior to man’s way.

     It is extremely sad but interesting to watch the current church system struggle with the fruits of its mindless attachment to division.  It’s like whipping a jackass down the track at the Kentucky Derby expecting to come out a winner.  The outcome is certain but we continue to do it anyway.  We have developed a whole system of justifications and methods to convince ourselves that our half-breed animal is actually a noble steed worthy of the race.  We’ve dressed up our jackass to look like a winner– pardon all that braying.  Thus our constant attachment to beautiful facilities, hi-tech, plush sanctuaries, elaborate sound systems etc.  It all looks so impressive but underneath is still a jackass– does anyone here that braying?  People are moved with the splendor of it all.  It’s like having arrived without really going anywhere.  Being a winner without a true race.  We sit back comfortably in our pew or sipping a latte’ convinced that we’re part of the winning team because it all looks so impressive– anyone for a game of pin the tail on the donkey?  The heavens must be smiling on us we think.  Size equals the anointing, numbers mean success.  We count heads, hire so-called church growth experts, and introduce little touches of Hollywood here and there.  Worship becomes beat driven rather than message centered, the preaching becomes social rather than spiritual, program replaces the Spirit, the seeker-friendly gospel replaces the Word and surprise, surprise all of it replaces Christ.  Does all this sound too strong?  Unfortunately it probably isn’t strong enough!!  We have become like Israel of old; turning our backs on the heavenly manna we now have quail coming out of our nostrils.  There’s flesh everywhere.    

~Sectarianism is a disease that infects the soul with a lust for recognition and power.  It thrives on insecurity, addicting hapless souls to its sham sense of significance.  It’s the driving force behind all the cliquishness, racism and intolerance of man and it is the toxin that contaminates far too much of what the western Christian church has become.  Given an inch it takes a mile and given a mile it takes over the entire landscape.  Its roots go clear back to the Protestant Reformation and actually far beyond that.  Once this partisan spirit was let loose its politics remained the same: divide and conquer~ LC

There are currently over 33,820 different Christian denominations worldwide.  Yes there is debate on that number as there is on so many issues.  The point is the Christian church is the most divided organization on the face of the earth.  Though this statistic should be an embarrassment to an organization that ought to be a hallmark of unity and harmony in a fractured world, it is actually applauded and promoted as a demonstration of the churches liberty, tolerance, and variety.  It reminds one of the 1st century Corinthian church’s boasting over their seemingly gracious ability to tolerate incest in their midst, for which the apostle Paul rebuked them (see 1Cor.5).  So much for warped ideas of grace and so much for equally warped ideas about unity.  Such is the power of deception.  Diversification in the form of division is not a trump card for the Christian church.  It is a joker with no value at all.  Can we honestly believe before God that with such an astounding number of divisions our effectiveness hasn’t been significantly undermined?  Christ’s words that the gates of hell would not prevail against His “church”, were referring to the “church” singular not the plurality of divisions we have today.  Only when our understanding of the church returns to a singular definition and theology will we see the power of what Jesus was implying.

     So whose responsible for all this?  From whence cometh our problem?  It’s a conspiracy right?  The Rockefeller’s did it?  Islamic Jihad?  Bullwinkle?  Not really.  We have done this to ourselves by playing ball with the big-leagues of darkness and our star player Jesus just wasn’t there for the starting line up.  He simply doesn’t play games with that league!  Dr. Merle D’ Aubigne in his classic books, The Reformation of the Sixteenth Century, gives this insightful comment,

“The history of the reformation is distinct from that of Protestantism.  In the former everything bears the mark of a regeneration of the human race, of a religious and social change emanating from God Himself.  In the latter we too often witness a glaring degeneracy from first principles, the struggles of parties, a sectarian spirit, and the traces of petty individualities.” 

     Our enemy Satan is never without a strategy to sidetrack the work of God.  While few have had equal perspicuity to discern the difference between the Reformation and Protestantism such insight is clearly authenticated by church history since that period.  What Mr. D’ Aubigne so aptly describes as “struggles of parties, a sectarian spirit, and the traces of petty individualities” couldn’t be more graphically illustrated than by the current condition of the church.  Since the inception of Protestantism this sectarian spirit has become so strong through centuries of sanction its fortifications are practically impregnable.  And it’s nearly impossible to avoid its influence no matter how amiable ones motives may be for the work of God.  The Word of God is almost always obfuscated or marginalized in some way to protect some personal viewpoint or other and maintain the system as it is.  And that’s the primary problem.  It’s not really just the enemy who has compromised us on this issue, but it is we the church who have become so intoxicated with the drug of sectarianism that we can hardly imagine life without it.  Throughout the years we have faithfully brought its luggage onto the train and before long everyone was sitting apart.  As we shimmy up to the front lines of this conflict and poke up our noses for a moment to view the situation, there to our astonishment is the church waging war against itself!  And there in the distance is the devil supplying both sides.  Wake Up, Wake Up Church!  It’s time to return to the Word of God!  More next article.

Luther Canon

Sola Scriptura