Denominations

Are denominations helpful or harmful to God's church?

For the sake of discussion, we can define a denomination as a group or fellowship

• within Christendom at large;
• spread over various geographic areas;
• having its own unique name;
• having its own unique set of beliefs/creeds/doctrines/practices
• with the above generally recognized by its own believers; and
• with the above genearlly recognized by believers of other groups or fellowships.

For example, Southern Baptists can travel from city to city and find other like-named congregations and have a reasonable expection that doctrine and practice are going to be pretty much the same as their home congregation. The same is true of Lutheran, Calvary Chapel, Church of Christ, and Vineyard congregations, to name but a few.

In Christendom at large, most believers worship with some kind of denominational group. By comoparison, very few believers belong to the truly non-denominational community churches (since you can visit different community churches from place to place and NOT be assured that they will possess the same general characteristics).

If we search the scriptures, we find several admonitions AGAINST divisions:

• John 17:20-21
• 1 Corinthians 1:10-17
• 1 Corinthians 3 (whole chapter)

In addition, we find that in the first century there were Christians in each city, all considered to belong to the one true body of Christ. There were no denominations at that time, nor were any approved or commanded. You just won't find it anywhere in scripture.

As time passed, however, the church evolved through several stages, in which were several major splits. First the Orienatal Orthodox churches (Coptic, Egyptian, Syrian, etc.) split from the Western Church (which eventually became the Roman Catholic Church), and later the Eastern Orthodox churches split from the Roman Catholic Church. After that, the Renaissance and Reformation brought about other divisions, causing the formation of groups such as the Lutheran and Anglican Churches. And in the Restoration in America of the early to middle 1800s, we find that it didn't take long for even those churches to divide over doctrinal matters. To exaggerate for emphasis, church history demonstrates that you have to be alone in the room to get any kind of agreement on doctrine at all. And even then, it's a sketchy thing.

So we accept denominationalism as a necessary evil? You can't count the number of groups claiming to have the corner on doctrinal purity. That in itself should give us pause and make us realize that there is something terribly wrong.

Maybe we're stuck. Maybe the act of re-establishing a non-denominational church is the very thing that will cause divisions later on. Maybe we can't help it. But if we can't help it, then why would God give us the solution in Philippians 2:1-4 and Ephesians 4:1-8?

And then what do we do with 1 Corinthians 11:17-19, which says divisions show which group has God's approval?

Could denominations actually be helpful to believers who just want a doctrinally or ritualistically comfortable place to worship and serve?