Why are there so many different denominations of the Christian Faith?

As someone who was pretty much born into the church, it goes without saying that I had no choice in what religion I would be, nor where I chose to worship. I cannot remember when I first met my pastor or the other members of the congregation. Everyone just seemed to automatically know who I was. The truth is I was in church before I was in school. I was sitting in church pews before I ever sat in a classroom. I was singing church hymns before I knew how to tie my shoes, and I was bowing my head in prayer before I even knew how to write my own name.

I think this is true for many who come up in religious families. From the time of our christening or first anointing as a young newborn baby into the church, we are just kind of…“there”. Inducted into something we couldn’t possibly understand at that age. Then we grow up pretending to grasp it all. We do this in order to fit in and keep from offending others who claim to believe and have it all figured out. 

To be honest, at a certain point, I myself was also one of these people who thought they had it all figured out. This however was due more to beliefs than actual knowledge and based more on faith than life experience. The truth is my faith was so strong and pure at a time where I was competently at my weakest. I was so young, so innocent, so impressionable, and so naïve. 

I said that to say this, up until a certain age, I never knew what a denomination was. I thought all Christians were simply just that…Christians! In my mind you either believed in Jesus and the resurrection, or you didn’t. No other distinctions mattered. However, that narrow-minded view didn’t last long. I ended up having friends and even girlfriends who were different types of Christians. Some believed in the trinity, some didn’t. Some believed in speaking in tongues, or receiving the holy spirit, others did not. Some believed that getting baptized meant you were “saved”, others would say getting baptized had nothing to do with being “born again”. Even still some would say that when you died, your soul would go to a place called “purgatory”, others did not subscribe to this notion at all.

Imagen my confusion when I first ran into groups like the Mormons, and the Amish! I never knew that all these groups were still considered to be Christians, despite how different their practices and cultures may be. In many ways this was harder for me to digest than someone being in a different religion altogether. At least with the other religions, it was obvious that they were praying to a different God completely. So it was easy for me to write off Buddhists, Muslims, Hindus, and so on, because they were obvious violators of the first commandment.

However, to have other so called Christians read the exact same bible I was reading, and praying to the same God that I was praying to under the son the father and the holy spirit, only to come up with drastically different interpretations and versions of the same faith was baffling to me! How was this possible? I had never experienced such a thing. In all my life what a book said, was what everyone understood it to be. Stories were “always” taken literally no matter how fantastical it may hay have been or whether you agreed with them or not, that’s just the way it was.

However, somehow with Christianity and the bible, this wasn’t the case. It may just be my perspective, but it seemed that depending on your denomination, your church may have chosen to interpret, omit, enhance, embellish, disregard or even add to certain scriptures to achieve the meaning they desired. Somethings were labeled as “metaphors”, while others were listed as “parables”, and by the time they finished picking and choosing what the scriptures really meant, they ended up with their own version of Christianity. 

Now how did this happen? If we read something else such as Greek mythology for instance, we don’t twist the interpretations of it. We take the stories literally as they are written, no matter how fantastical the tales may have been. Yet it’s different with our own faith. If you were to ask different Christians a simple question such as “How does the holy spirit work?”, or “What is it like in heaven?” Watch and see how many different answers you get that may or may not be in scripture. So why do we do that? Is the phrase “I don’t know” illegal in our religion? It seems to be, because in it’s place everyone says just “pray to God” about it instead.

After researching I was able to find that there are literally tens of thousands of different denominations of the Christian religion worldwide. The majority of which all stem from the protestant split from the catholic church. At first it started out as something that was strictly religious, however it became obvious that there are also several denominations that arose based on race and culture as well. This I feel is sad within itself. How good is the Christian message of “Love thy Neighbor,” when there are those among us, who are afraid to worship, praise, and fellowship with others who look differently from us?  

So, my question to all is, how should we feel about these other denominations of our faith? Do we consider them to be sinners in the same way that we do for those who worship other gods such as Muslims or Buddhists? For instance, If I am Lutheran, should I avoid going to a Pentecostal church? If I am Baptist, do I avoid the Jehovah Witnesses? If I am a member of a “Non-Denominational” Church, does that mean it’s ok for us to break bread with the Amish? Or as a Catholic, do I look down upon the Mormons and their church of Latter-Day Saints? 

I mean seriously how should this work? These are things that I have never truly understood. Things that my church either never fully addressed or simply blew me off when I asked. Remember, as I have said before it was a classic tactic to try and “redirect” me into focusing on issues that pertained to my own salvation, rather than contemplate things I couldn’t control, and for the most part I did. I recognized the wisdom in that. Besides, I had always been an overthinker, so I understood that perhaps this wasn’t an issue that I needed to be concerning myself with…at least not at that point in my life anyway. 

However, years later and with the spirit and mind that I was blessed with, these questions never disappeared. In fact, they only intensified with experience. Therefore, I cannot simply ignore these “elephants in the room”. Especially when there seems to be so many of them in my faith. I would be remiss in my duty as a Christian to let these things go unchallenged. I am aware that I may never get a satisfactory answer for much of this stuff, but who knows, perhaps my purpose is to simply bring about a greater sense of awareness to some of these issues so that a change can begin to formulate on how things are done. Either way, here I am. Speaking on my faith and how I see it. If there are other perspectives out there, as always, I would love to hear them!

-J.G. Robinson