by Zakary Venturo

Created on: May 13, 2009   Last Updated: May 15, 2009

Christianity has been a battlefield of hills being taken by the same sort of grudging senselessness that characterized Vietnam. Most believers could never imagine this scenario in their own relationships between denominations, but in the two millennia since the birth of Christ, it is very much this war like attitude that has helped shape the doctrines of today.

God is an absolute, never changing God. Man is in a constant state of flux. Any notion that doctrine, in the hands of man, is incapable of being misunderstood, or even wrong, has strayed so far from realizing the need of salvation it has become heresy.

Human wisdom has produced the logic of agreeing to disagree. This has the convenience of appearing to be a people who operate in love. Yet it also has the protection of being right while making the statement someone else is wrong. For a faith that, at its core, is responsible for sharing the truth with the world, it has a tremendous amount of hard fought divisions standing in the way.

Church splits still decorate the landscape. Lines get drawn, on each side is a Bible being funneled through interpretations demanding obedience and the threat of hell. Be it baptism, be it a post tribulation scenario, Christianity gains two more diametrically opposed truths and in the fall out there are those who simply reject it all.

Christianity is losing the ability to relate the truth today because there is no consensus on the truth. The message of scripture is one that admits sin and finds forgiveness. Sin, accidental mistakes and willful rebellion, and repentance, admission of those shortcomings and choosing to leave sin behind, this is the heart of the man who is realizing the heart of God.

Is it possible to set aside theology and scholarly zugzwang? Will it be the fear of not being right or the fear of being wrong that gets in the way?

"And there you will serve gods, the work of men's hands, wood and stone, which neither see nor hear nor eat nor smell. But from there you will seek the Lord your God, and you will find Him if you seek Him with all your heart and with all your soul." (Deuteronomy 4:28-29 NKJV)

It is feasible to leave behind the work of men's hands and cry out to the God who made us all. The only thing at risk is pride. All that there is to gain is the family of God, amongst ourselves and reaching into a world that desperately needs the truth.

The only doctrine still alive is repentance.

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