Why are there so many churches and denominations?

What the Bible says

On the night before the cross, Jesus prayed not only for his disciples but for everyone who would come to believe through them.

that all of them may be one, as You, Father, are in Me, and I am in You. May they also be in Us, so that the world may believe that You sent Me.

John 17:21

The prayer has a purpose. The unity of believers is meant to be a sign by which the world recognises Jesus. So the church's divisions are not a matter of taste but of the gospel's witness. The apostles press the same point.

and with diligence to preserve the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace. There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to one hope when you were called;

Eph 4:3-4

Paul goes on, "one Lord, one faith, one baptism" (Eph 4:5).

Scripture also shows at once that this unity is hard. The New Testament churches had conflicts. In Corinth people were saying:

What I mean is this: Individuals among you are saying, "I follow Paul," "I follow Apollos," "I follow Cephas," or "I follow Christ."

1 Cor 1:12

Paul answers, "Is Christ divided?" (1 Cor 1:13). Paul and Barnabas disagreed over a companion, and "their disagreement was so sharp that they parted company" (Acts 15:39). In that case both went on preaching the gospel. So not every parting is plainly sin, though the pain remains.

Nor does Scripture say that unity means everyone being alike. Paul compares the church to a body.

The body is a unit, though it is composed of many parts. And although its parts are many, they all form one body. So it is with Christ.

1 Cor 12:12

He tells the church to "accept him whose faith is weak, without passing judgment on his opinions" (Rom 14:1). Unity is not uniformity. Yet not every difference is slight: some things are truths to guard and some are matters to bear with, and where to draw the line is what the church has always wrestled with.

The church's witness

The divisions came over a long history. A few turning points will do.

Early separations. After the councils of the fifth century some churches did not accept the decisions. After Ephesus (431) the church in Persia that became the Assyrian Church of the East gradually stood apart, and after Chalcedon (451) the Coptic, Ethiopian and Armenian churches among others went their own way. The argument was about how to speak of Christ's divine and human natures. Some modern dialogues judge that much of the difference was about terminology; not every theologian agrees.

1054, East and West. Legates of the pope and the patriarch of Constantinople excommunicated each other, and this year is often named as the point where the Orthodox and Catholic churches parted. Historians see it as the result of a long estrangement, not a sudden break. The issues included papal authority and the Western addition to the Nicene Creed that the Spirit proceeds "and from the Son" (the filioque). The excommunications were lifted in 1965, but the two churches still do not share the Lord's Supper.

The sixteenth-century Reformation. In 1517 Martin Luther protested against indulgences, and the reform moved on to questions such as justification and the authority of Scripture. The Lutherans stated their teaching in the Augsburg Confession (1530) The Augsburg Confession, and the Catholic Church answered at the Council of Trent Council of Trent, Decree on Justification. The reform soon divided into Lutheran, Reformed, Anglican, Anabaptist and other streams. Politics and power were tangled up in it with theology, so it cannot be told as a story of pure conviction.

Later branching. Baptist, Methodist and Pentecostal churches and others followed. They parted over baptism, church government and the gifts of the Spirit, with differences of language, culture and place added on. The number of denominations depends on what one counts, so figures in the tens of thousands are rough estimates and not exact statistics.

Yet what the divided churches confess together is a great deal. Catholic, Orthodox and most Protestant churches confess the triune God, the deity of Christ and his resurrection in the same Nicene Creed The Nicene Creed. In 1999 the Lutheran World Federation and the Catholic Church declared in the Joint Declaration that they shared basic truths about justification, and that the sixteenth-century condemnations do not apply to this common understanding Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification.

Matthew Henry, on John 17:21, writes, "The more they dispute about lesser things, the more they throw doubts upon Christianity" Matthew Henry. On 1 Corinthians 1:10 he urges, "In the great things of religion be of one mind; and where there is not unity of sentiment, still let there be union of affection" Matthew Henry. Augustine says that when Jesus adds "in Us," it is "to show, that our being made one by charity, is to be attributed to the grace of God, not to ourselves" Augustine.

In the original languages

The "divisions" of 1 Corinthians 1:10 is the plural of the Greek schisma (σχίσμα). It first meant a tear, as in cloth, and gives us the English "schism." Paul treats it as a rip in one body, not only a difference of doctrine.

The "one" of John 17:21 is heis (εἷς). Jesus describes the unity by the relation of the Father and the Son: not members made identical, but persons united in love who dwell in one another.

Common objections

"With so many divisions, can anyone know the truth? Hasn't Jesus' prayer failed?" This objection is not light. Jesus said unity would give the world a reason to believe, and quarrelling churches have often given the opposite evidence. That must be admitted. Two things may still be said. First, disagreement does not show there is no truth; scientists argue, yet nature has its laws. Second, the divided churches agree remarkably on the core the creeds state. None of this makes the sin of division small.

"Surely there should be one true church. Which is it?" Churches answer differently; this essay does not choose. The Catholic Church holds that Christ's church subsists in the church in communion with the pope, while recognising elements of the church elsewhere Lumen Gentium. The Orthodox understand themselves as the church that has kept the apostolic teaching and the councils' tradition unchanged. Protestants generally see the true church as the body of believers founded on Christ and the gospel, not limited to one visible organisation. All three long for visible unity but see different roads to it. The differences are taken up in How do Catholics and Protestants differ?

"If the differences are minor, why not merge? Or aren't they all the same anyway?" Most of those who divided did so for what they believed mattered. Who should be baptised, how Christ is present in the Lord's Supper, were not minor to those involved. Erasing the differences would honour nobody's convictions. But it would not be honest to say all divisions came from conviction either. Pride, appetite for power, partisanship, and walls of culture and race caused many. Telling conviction from sin is not easy, and the judgment calls for humility.

Going further

Division is a grief but not a cause for despair. Unity is not something we produce; the Spirit has already given it, and we are called to "preserve" it (Eph 4:3). A first step may be to hold the convictions of one's own tradition while treating Christians of other traditions as brothers and sisters. Unity lies in calling on the same Lord and loving one another. Jesus said, "By this everyone will know that you are My disciples, if you love one another" (John 13:35).

You might ask: Where did my picture of other denominations come from? What could I learn from another tradition?

To read further, see Why do we need the church?, How do Catholics and Protestants differ? and How can I tell a heresy or cult? Read John 17 slowly.