We look around and we see that
there are so many different denominations, and it is confusing when you
just look at that. But there are historical reasons
for why various denominations came into existence, and there
are several different kinds of causes that resulted in that. One of the fundamental sources
of those denominational differences is the form of church government. Now church government really
is about who has responsibility under God to determine what is
the shape of the Word of God. That is, what does the Word of
God actually teach? What is theology, true theology?
And so these areas, theology, biblical interpretation, worship,
ordinances, fellowship, and governance are the areas that someone has
to take authority for and the different Protestants have had
three different answers for that. Some Protestants have said that
Christ has invested authority for those things, responsibility
for those things in the bishops, bishops who are pastors over
an entire array of churches within a region. So the Episcopal Church,
the Church of England, the Anglican Communion, invests authority
in bishops, though shared somewhat with lay people. The United Methodist
Church in North America, the Methodist churches generally,
historically, have invested that authority, that responsibility
in bishops. And Lutherans, in most cases,
have also done that. Another group of Protestants
have said, no, Christ has invested responsibility for these church
matters in the pastors jointly, the elders, in Greek presbyteros. And so the name Presbyterian
is the name that most commonly has been used to identify this
group of Protestants. And so it's the elders or the
pastors jointly who have responsibility for all those things. And then
finally, One group of Protestants said, no, according to the scriptures,
Christ has invested responsibility for those things in the congregation,
the local body of believers jointly administering that authority
and that responsibility. And these have been the Congregationalists,
sometimes called Independents, and the Baptists. Another fundamental
source of difference between Protestant denominations has
to do with who are the proper subjects of baptism. And most
of the early Protestants believed, as the Roman Catholic Church
believes, that infants should be baptized. That is part of
God's command, that Christian parents should have their children
baptized in the church, and therefore that they should become church
members through baptism. But even from the early days
of Protestantism, there were some who disagreed with that,
who held that the scriptures do not teach the baptism of infants. but rather teach that baptism
is for those who profess their faith. So believers' baptism
is what that's traditionally called. And today, we call this
group of churches who hold this view Baptists, although there
are many other denominations that have arisen, especially
in the last 100 years or so, who have accepted Baptist views.
For example, many of the Pentecostal churches practice believers'
baptism. Another important source of difference
among Protestants over the last hundred years has to do with
the nature of the supernatural gifts, the extraordinary gifts
or the sign gifts, speaking in tongues or working of miracles
and the like. Protestants traditionally with
Catholics have held that these were gifts given by Christ to
the apostles generally in the apostolic age in order for the
establishment of the Scriptures and of the Church of Jesus Christ,
but which he then no longer bestowed because the Church and the Word
of God were established. In the early 20th century, a
number of Protestants began to look for a renewal of these extraordinary
gifts in the Church. And as several different episodes
occurred, in the first 10 years of the 20th century in America,
in which people experienced what they believed was speaking in
tongues of one sort or another. They believed were gifts of healing
and gifts of working miracles. And this began what we now call
the Pentecostal movement. And the Pentecostal movement
originally held that Christ indeed had removed these signed gifts
from the church after the apostolic age. but that he had also promised
to renew them, to restore them to the church just before his
second coming. And so Pentecostals when they
believed they were experienced, the Christians who became Pentecostals,
when they began to experience these things, they believed that
this was the beginning of Christ's return. And so they spread not
just their views on the re-initiation, re-establishment of the signed
gifts in the churches, but also on the imminent second coming
of Christ. Some Pentecostals today have
rejected the connection between the gifts and the second coming.
And so there are many now who are Pentecostal one way or another
who believe that Christ never took away the extraordinary gifts,
the church merely refused to use them. One of the enduring
sources of differences among Protestants is based upon nationality
and language and this is natural and it's been this way at least
since the third century that as churches grew up, as people
became believers they tended to organize themselves into groups
of churches based upon the natural identities that they had of language
and society and politics. In the 16th and 17th century
as Protestantism became so prominent in many parts of Europe, many
of these Protestant churches became state churches. And so
the Lutheran Church was the state church of Germany. Anglicanism,
the Church of England, was the state church of England. Now,
these churches sometimes had other little differences, but
as they immigrated to the New World, to North America in particular,
they retained their identities as Lutherans or as as Anglicans
and so these differences upon national lines also help explain
why many Protestants who otherwise have very similar theology, Lutherans,
Methodists, Anglicans, yet still have tended to retain their separate
organizational identities. There's one other important difference
among the denominations within Protestantism, and that has to
do with the movement that began about 130 years ago in North
America, known now as Protestant liberalism. Fundamentally, liberal
thought put human reason in the seat of authority over scripture.
So scripture came under the judgment of human reason, and that caused
a reinterpretation of the Bible from beginning to end. And in
that reinterpretation, liberal thought did away with miracles,
did away with that which seemed harsh, that seemed somehow hard
to explain, that seemed like superstition, anything that was
offensive to reason could not be held to be true. And so by
putting reason first, liberal theology undid most of what the
scripture actually teaches. And this led in the early 20th
century to a fundamental division within most Protestant denominations
where many of those who held to the traditional evangelical
convictions were either forced out or withdrew to form new organizations
of churches, effectively new denominations. And so in the
20th century you have the rise of a movement that's sometimes
called fundamentalism, more broadly evangelicalism, that looks new
because you have many new denominations. But in fact it's not new, it's
a response to this new liberal theology. but it is actually
in continuity with the traditional faith of Protestantism and with
the early church. And so liberalism has introduced
a fundamental divide and in many respects the most fundamental
divide that now exists within Protestantism and it's a difference
that goes right to the heart of the gospel and how we're saved. And that helps explain why we
have this group that we now call evangelicals. It's important
to recognize that although Protestants have all of these different organizations,
they are not deeply divided on the fundamentals of the faith.
They in fact are agreed, those of them that we generally identify
as evangelicals. They are agreed that the Bible
is authoritative, that it is inspired, that it has no errors. They are agreed that salvation
comes through repentance and faith in Christ alone by his
shed blood. He suffered for our sins that
everyone who believes in him may be forgiven, may be redeemed,
and spend eternal blessedness with God in heaven. And so although
you have these different organizations, we call them by these different
denominational names, nevertheless, they recognize that they are
one, that they are brothers and sisters through faith in Christ
Jesus and share a blessed and joyful unity in the gospel. Thanks
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