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Something my pastor said, MLK, and denominatioanlism
(Written on Martin Luter King Jr. Day, 2011)

I didn't plan to write a messege of equality on MLK day,  it just seems to have happened that way.  But I do find it fitting.  I am reminded that, while Dr. King's focus was racial equality, he extended his mission to included religious equality.  And not necessarily religious equality in the eyes of the law, but rather among the differing faiths themselves.  In his famous "I Have A Dream" speech, he spoke about ushering in that day when "...black men and white men, jews and gentiles, Protestants and Catholics will be able to join hands..."  And my pastor said something in her sermon yesterday that I found very refreshing to hear from the pulpit.  She said that we Christians needed to stop focusing on our differences and just agree on Christ and him crucified.  Amen, sister.  She went on to talk about how each person had a different gifting and a different sphere of influence, using Paul's metaphors of eyes and nose each having a purpose the other cannot accomplish, and both being necessary.  I'd like to pan out from the individual and apply her words more broadly: to denominations.
Over the past several years I have been involved both in orthodox movements, and the evangelical movements.  Two extremes if you will. And I have heard accusations from both sides of the isles.  I've heard the orthodoxy claim that loud emotional worship is not Godly or proper, and I've heard evangelicals claim that anybody who worships formally doesn't love Jesus as much as they do.  Having served on both sides I can say with authority that niether side is correct.  I have seen people in both churches look at thier watches, and I have seen people in both churches almost literally glowing with the ecstasy of the devine all around them.  Part of the problem is that a person who grows up in one of these two camps and is bored or hurt or unfulfilled in it, tends to ascribe what they felt to everybody else who was there.  If somebody grew up as a bored Methodist, they seem to think that all Methodists are bored and would leave if they were only brave enough.  But not everybody has the same feelings or experiences that we do and we can't make those assumptions.
We need to always keep in mind that God has deemed it necessary for his church to be denominational.  Now, before you stone me for saying that lets look at scripture. Rabbi Gamaliel, one of the most learned and highly esteemed Rabbis in Jewish history, tells us in Acts 5:38-39 "...if this plan or this undertaking is of men, it will fail; but if it is of God you will not be able to overthrow them. You might even be found opposing God!"  490 years after the Protestant reformation, and 106 years after the pentacostal revivals at Azuza Street began, the Catholics, mainline protestants and evangelicals are all still here as much as they've all tried to destroy each other.  Why would God deem a split in his church necessary?  Maybe we're the only ones who see it as a split.  Maybe he sees it as an expansion or a diversification of his forces.  For denominationalism to cease to exist is for us all to be the same. 
We'd say it was rediculous for someone to suggest that we all had to listen to the same music.  But denominationalism is like music.  Some groups are a little bit country, some are a little bit rock n roll, others a little bit rap and others a little Mozart.  Should we all listen to the same music?
We are taught in scripture that the body of Christ is an army.  God diversified his army through denominationalism.  Some are foot soldiers, some are armored divisions, others special forces, still others are artillary batteries.  An army needs all these pieces to win.  To tell the traditionalists, for example, that they need to get away from all that, is like saying our soldiers don't need air or naval support.
Another thing my pastor talked about was how each person had people that they could reach and others could not.  This is just as true for denominations.  Catholics (among many other things) spend billions annually building state of the art hospitals here and abroad.  Almost everyone has used one of these at sometime or another without even realizing it.  Take away this denomination, and these hospitals along with many benefits of research, never existed.  The Baptists are great missionaries, take them away and you lose souls.  Evangelicals are great at the nitty gritty in the back allys and places no one else wants to go.  These are only examples, and very narrow ones at that.
There has been a move at many churches lately to examine themselves.  This is always good, but it can be dangerous.  Many times the conversation focuses on how the body of Christ as a whole needs to change.  What it should or shouldn't be doing that it is or is not.  The danger there is that most of the time these conversations, started with pure-hearted, ecumenical intentions, subtley become a forum for people to vent, one more time, thier old hurts, frustrations, and boredomes with thier old churchs or denominations (you just don't know what they did to me).  The process of healing needs to take place, but thats rarely what is actually going on.  The real word for this is gossip.  We can gossip about institutions as much as we can about individuals.  And unless we're going to take our conclusions from these discussions and go prosylatize at the doors of these other churches, than its gossip, plain and simple.  And we all know what Proverbs 6 says about gossip.  And this places a congregation out of the word; just thier little toe, maybe, but out of the word nonetheless, and it can seriously hinder the life of a church.  I get so excited about the call of God on my life and have so many things I want to do at my church.  But sometimes, when I hear all the trash talk form all the different parts of the body,  I want to quit.  I don't even want to bother talking to my pastor about this or that idea.  I want to tell God to find someone else.  But that's what the devil wants, isn’t? That would be obeying man and not God. 
A better examination for churches to make would be to forget the rest of the body.  Talk about THIER church.  What should THEIR church be doing or not doing?  How would they change THEIR church?  There can be great power and efficency in denominationalism if we would stop cutting our own flesh, and marking it with stereotypes, as leviticus 19:28 warns us against doing.  We are commanded to forgive and that applies to institutions as much as to individuals.  Each group has doctrinal errors to work through. And each group has attitudes to work through.  We are not going to further that with trash-talk, but we can further it with prayer for one another.  Only God can change the heart.  As my Pastor also pointed out, we are all one family.  That means that the Pope is as much my pastors brother, as the president of the Southern Baptist Covention is mine. There is blood on ALL sides, but we can heal from that and begin to work together as we are meant to.  But it is an intentional thing.  We have to DECIDE to forgive, to accept, to love.  Lets make that decision and stop opposing God.  For this is truely one way that we can show that we love Jesus. 

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