Do you think that the church needs to be unified once again or are you fine with all the denominations that do exist today?

What wasn’t mentioned is all the heartfelt work going on at reconciliation between some major communions. And there is also the World Day of Prayer for Christian Unity.

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To some degree, I agree. Bible does not tell about everything, it mentions some things so shortly that it leaves a lot of space for interpretation, it includes historical parts that describe what happened, rather than telling in detail what was right or wrong. It also includes passages that can be interpreted as cultural rather than core teaching - for example, what should women wear when praying in the congregation? (Paul had an opinion about that)

Also, I believe that we can learn about God through the two books of God - Bible and creation (= the nature and universe around us, created by God). Bible tells about God and His will, I don’t use Bible as a science book. The science book is the other book of God, the creation.

Yet, when there is a disagreement between what is written in the Bible and what a group of influential persons or a ‘prophet’ says about the will of God, my choice is to believe what is written in the Bible, a collection of writings that Christians have judged as reliable from the first century onward. Canonization happened a bit later but I believe that NT includes the most reliable writings circulating at that time among Christians, written by those who either were apostles sent by Jesus or who wrote using information they had personally learned from the original witnesses.

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I relate to pretty much everything you are saying but the problem is “what is written in the Bible” is the problem at times. I mean there can be some clear heresy “out there” but Christian theology varies widely and I believe there are also competing theologies found within the Bible. From my perspective, the reason we have predestination vs free will, Arminianism vs Calvinism, etc., is because the Bible teaches both. It’s theology is not perfectly harmonious. I stress going for the forest over the trees in my theology. It often ends in a lot of non liquet type judgments but there is nothing inherently wrong with that, even if the modern mind finds it unsatisfying.

I attend a nondenominational church, yet I feel unity with believers in other groups.

Anyone who follows Jesus and has a few core beliefs in common with me (e.g., the Apostles’ Creed) is my brother or sister in Christ.

Having full agreement on all the peripheral points of Christianity would be nice but is a bridge too far.

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I would not say that there are competing theologies within the Bible. There are a lot of verses that could be interpreted in different ways. In my opinion, the main problem with these is that we search for support to our (= me or my church) opinions, rather than try to truly learn what was the original message. We read the texts with selective eyes, picking verses that could be used to support my view and give less attention to verses that do not seem to give as clear support. I admit that I’m also guilty to this error, more in the past than today. We may call this error ‘apologetics’ to whitewash the habit but I believe that this kind of selective picking is not what the writers hoped.

Going for the forest over the trees sounds as a good choice, assuming it means looking at the teaching of a book as a whole, rather than picking verses or interpreting texts in ‘my way’ instead of the original message.

Our brother Peter wrote: “as also our beloved brother Paul, according to the wisdom given him, wrote to you, as also in all his letters, speaking in them of these things, in which there are some things that are hard to understand, which the untaught and unstable distort, as they do also the rest of Scriptures, to their own destruction.” (2 Peter 3:15-16)

There is already only one Church, whose foundation is Jesus Christ. God seems to love diversity. Look at the seven billion plus people on earth, no two alike. There is so much diversity in nature. Why so many kinds of birds? Why so many different stars and galaxies, no two alike?

I think He celebrates the diversity of churches as well. Some are staid; others are jubilant. Some are extravagant in their facilities, others very plain and simple. Why should they all be the same? How can they all be the same, when all people are wonderfully different?

(And of course, not every local “church” is a part of the Church Universal–there are also heretical groups that we cannot embrace. Don’t argue with me about that. Just read the epistles, and see that it is so–Paul warns us of false teachers. So the Church will never be “unified” in the sense that it embraces all who say they are a part of the church.)

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