I participate fairly often on a Christian chat server, (www.Christian-Chat.net) and there are a variety of users on at any given time who hold to widely differing doctrinal positions. A number of them are people who are friends from the net whom I've come to know over a period of several years.
In most cases, we share common beliefs. We believe there is one God, eternally existent in three persons: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. We believe in the Deity of our Lord, Jesus Christ; in His virgin birth; in His sinless life; in the fact that He atoned for our sins through His death and shed blood; in His bodily resurrection; in His ascension to Heaven to sit at the Father's right hand.
So that's pretty much it right? All of my friends and I are in complete and total doctrinal agreement. Not so. Not so at all.
I have Christian friends on chat, and Christian friends I see in person, and there are a number of Biblical principles I could present to some of them for their acceptance as a belief, and I know they would be rejected. Why? I can think of several reasons, but I'd like to concentrate on just two, so this little post will be far from comprehensive. I'll get to them in a little bit, and they may help to answer a question that we've probably all heard at one time or another. "There are so many different denominations, and if Christianity is true, why do they disagree?"
There are some fairly sharp disagreements between some of the mainstream denominations on doctrinal issues, and we're human beings. Different things can influence what we believe. Not all of those influences are necessarily wise, or even intelligent. Some are just evil. Christians are human too. We believe something because our pastor said so, because our trusted friends said so, or because a gifted Christian author said so, and she sells a lot of really popular Christian books, so surely, she must be correct.
Before I get to the reasons I believe that there are so many ways and things upon which we believers can disagree, let me just make a statement that goes hand in hand with that reason. The book I believe to be the best commentary on the Bible is, the Bible itself. My statement will seem to some as though it were a type of circular logic, but nothing could be further from the truth. Let me explain.
Acts 17:11 Now these were more noble than those in Thessalonica, in that they received the word with all readiness of the mind, examining the Scriptures daily, whether these things were so. ASV
As a Christian, I personally believe in the absolute trustworthiness and inerrancy of the Bible as the inspired word of God. I believe that it is the final authority in all matters of truth and doctrine. Some Christians do not. That is reason number one. If you don't believe that the Bible is the the Book that I've described, but only a book that has collectively recorded the ideas and philosophies of a number of men who share some common righteous notions, from which we can learn some good things, you're going to disagree about a great many things with other Christians. The Bible has consistently been proven right over time whenever anybody has attacked it. It's enemies have fallen one after another along the way and will continue to do so. It has total integrity.
The second reason for the many doctrinal disagreements Christians have, that I want to state, is that many Christians fail miserably when it comes to spending regular time in the Word. I have been in that category. When you don't read the Word, how can you know it? People will drift to one denomination or another because they were raised in it, or because they like what they hear doctrinally expressed, without bothering to look into the Word and see if what they espouse as their belief even matches up with scripture. Many times the answer is plain. It is simple. But unfortunately, the answer is ignored.
Like I said before, this post is not comprehensive. I won't even get into how people, using the same hermeneutic principles for study and interpretation can reach diametrically opposed positions.
The nice thing is, that among my friends, even those who hold that some of the doctrinal beliefs I adhere to might actually be heretical in their eyes, we also share a belief that the only true basis of Christian fellowship is His (Agape) love, which is greater than any differences we possess and without which we have no right to claim ourselves Christians.