Jenna Jones
Mr. Manies
Bible
6 November 2017
God Does Not Approve of Denominationalism History coined the term “denominationalism” as early as 1688 by Samuel Willard, minister of Old South Church in Boston. Denominationalism is simply a division due to doctrinal differences. Though this term was introduced hundreds of years ago, that was long after biblical times. God did not intend on many different denominations. In fact, He intended on all Christians to be part of one church, not thousands. In this paper, I am going to go into depth about what denominationalism is, why denominations exist, problems with denominationalism, and lastly, what the Bible says about it. The objective of this paper is to prove that God does not want us to have denominations in the Christian faith.
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According to Jerald C. Brauer, denominationalism is “The system and ideology founded on the division of the religious population into numerous ecclesiastical bodies, each stressing particular values or traditions and each competing with the other in the same community under substantial conditions of freedom.” Christianity alone has over 9.000 denominations throughout the world. How can there be such a difference of opinions between denominations when they all study the same book and follow the same God? All of these denominations claim to all claim to present God’s truth. So which denomination is correct?
Denominationalism exists because over time, people who shared a common faith were divided by issues of church government and worship. When you have a big group of people together, there is going to be a difference of opinion among them. When this has happened throughout the Christian history, people have branched off and came up with their own