Sep/Oct 2004
COMMON GROUND
by Joseph Tkach
“Dad, what’s a backslider?” the boy asked.
“Well, Son, that’s a man who leaves our church and goes to another.”
“But Dad, then what do you call a man who leaves his church and joins ours?”
“He’s a convert, Son, a convert!”
Baptist. Presbyterian. Methodist. Church of Christ. Lutheran. Pentecostal. Catholic.
There’s a supermarket of religion out there! What’s a person to believe?
At last count there were over 500 Christian denominations in the United States. Non-Christians often point to this hodgepodge of competing churches as an excuse for not becoming Christians. They feel that Christians themselves can’t even agree on the teachings of Jesus Christ!
They regard bickering between denominations— and doctrinal battles within denominations— as proof that Christianity doesn’t function as advertised.
And in some respects, they’re right. Christians are imperfect humans, and— lamentably— we’ve often been prone to resolving conflicts by division rather than by patience, open-mindedness and tolerance.
But before you dismiss Christianity on that account, you need to understand that most of these denominations recognize the others as just as Christian as themselves. They’re united by one common, overriding conviction: The belief that Jesus Christ is the Son of God who died for our sins!