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A House Divided Against Itself
Can Ecumenism Heal Christianity? Should It?
“Jesus knew their thoughts and said to them, “Every kingdom divided against itself will be ruined, and every city or household divided against itself will not stand.”
— Matthew 12:25
I have to wonder if Jesus had any idea how many denominations would spring up from the church he was building upon Simon Peter. As of 2019, we were looking at roughly a staggering 45,000 denominations of Christianity, with an estimated 49,000 by this year.
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The main branches are Protestantism, Catholicism, Eastern Orthodoxy, and Restorationism; within each are ever-splintering denominational schisms over the nature of Jesus Christ, baptismal rites, speaking in tongues, communion, economics, racial inequalities, acceptable behaviors and habits — you name it, Christians have found a way to argue amongst themselves over it.
Catholicism is nearly as foreign to me as Eastern Orthodox, and neither do I find particularly compelling or appealing. Maybe this is just because I was raised as a “non-denominational” Protestant, and while I acknowledge all too viscerally that truth does not necessarily have to be palatable, it does have to be transparently honest, which…
