To Think About

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     We are made to wonder how many of the existing parties in religion stem from the vanity and ambition of men. Gifted men may think of themselves more highly than they ought to think (Rom. 12:3). They aspire to prominence and leadership. They develop a "Messiah complex" and court others who bask in their reputed wisdom. These "think of men above what is written" and "are puffed up for one against another" (1 Cor. 4:6). The one they idolize becomes their authoritative interpreter and expositor of God's word. They surrender their rights for the sense of inner security that comes from belonging to a dogmatic faction, whose members feed their ego with the thought that they occupy a special place in God's favor, and all others are outside the pale of grace, aliens and foreigners.

     Their procedures and explanations become traditional. The scriptures are no longer searched to see what they teach, but for isolated passages which may be wrested in defence of the party position. Champions develop in each fold, and endear themselves to delighted factionists by their cleverness and political maneuvers in the debating arena. The party fortunes rise and the star is on the ascendancy, until someone arises to challenge the interpretation of the recognized leader, generally an editor. The usurper is then attacked with venom and spite and branded as a traitor to God's word. He is abused, misrepresented and driven forth. Those who have grown weary of the dictatorial tactics to which they have been subjected also leave to follow this new voice, and produce a new faction built around him, and begin a repetition of the sorry, disgraceful mess.

     And all of this is done "in the name of Jesus." Each new party is started as "the true church of God"; each old party thrusts them forth to keep "the true church" pure. Thus have men acted for centuries, thus do they continue to act, motivated by pride, jealousy, envy and worldly ambition. And the land is filled with the discordant voices of the partisans, all proclaiming that they have found the key of knowledge, and the others are all fakes and counterfeits. Shall we continue to hack and chop sincere hearts to pieces in the vain hope we can thus save the world? What form of insanity possesses us that we suffer from visions of grandeur, and delude ourselves into thinking that the kingdom of heaven is limited by the party boundaries we have drawn? My brethren, these things ought not so to be!