Reminders: What is Your Religion?

There is a humorous story about two men on a bridge.  One of them is about the jump.  The gist of the story is that they are both Christians, from the same denomination, and the man asking the questions of the jumper gets down to the finer details, such as which subdivision of the subdivision of the denomination the would-be jumper belongs to.  Everything was exactly the same up until then.  It was clear that they had identical religious backgrounds, but on the final detail they differed, and the man asking the questions calls the jumper a heretic and pushes him off the bridge.

It seems funny, because it is so ridiculous, yet many wars have been fought, denominations split, families divided and whole new religious groups formed over what to outsiders seem like trivial differences. What defines a religious group is unity within a community of believers who share the same faith.  It is too easy for differences to become so entrenched that it becomes impossible to establish unity because no one wants to compromise.  In most religious groups either you believe the dogma of the group or you don’t.  The result often leads to divisions and spinoff groups.

John Wesley put it well when he spoke about differences within the denomination he helped establish while trying to reform the denomination to which he belonged.  He said, “In essentials, unity; in non-essentials, liberty; in all things love.”  In other words, there are many points upon which most Christians agree.  However, there are fine points where we disagree.  It appears that Wesley thought people should be free (at liberty) to disagree, but to always do so with love.

“Whoever believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God, and whoever loves the Father loves the child born of Him” 1 John 5:1   We are all God’s children, and as such, we all deserve respect.  As Paul wrote to his followers in the early church in Corinth: “I appeal to you, brothers, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree, and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be united in the same mind and the same judgment.” 1 Corinthians 1:10   “Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for brothers to dwell together in unity!” Psalm 133:1