There's no end to the nonsense that's invaded the church. It's nothing new, that Apostles fought against it, the early church fathers fought against it. The enemy of our souls is always trying to tweak the Gospel just a little bit this way or that, knowing that with enough years, it will be so far off track that it's unrecognizable.
We could to talk about gold dust or feathers or freemasonry in the church. We could argue about whether gifts are real and for today or not. I saw a video the other day from a Church of Christ argue that you MUST gave communion out of one goblet and pass it around and that little cups are a heresy.
But you know, the one we seem to never talk about or even recognize is DIVISION. Jesus' last prayer before going to the Cross was that we would be ONE - because then the world would KNOW that God sent Him. The inverse of that argument must be that as long as we're NOT ONE the world is sure that Jesus is NOT who He said He was. We're impressing NO ONE with our ability to divide over every little thing. Jesus said that what would shock them, what would shake their belief systems, what would be the BIGGEST MIRACLE OF ALL - is when the Christians could play nice together! How horrible is that?! He knew us pretty well.
To me it's very simple, if Jesus is in you and Jesus is in me then you're my sister or brother and that's all there is to it. Now, how can we make Him smile and grow the Kingdom together?
If the City Church - one body per city, under Christ with local elders, autonomous and independent - is the proper model and we were never supposed to split up into teams (1 Corin 3), then how did it get this bad? And do you have any idea how horrifyingly difficult it is to break people OUT of their little self-imposed cages? Even though they say they love Jesus, and even though He COMMANDS us to be one, and even though it HURTS HIM to have His body divided - nobody seems to care.
Churchianity is THICK with doctrines of demons. There's no space here to make a LIST! But nothing gets better until we get the church on the proper foundation - and that's love and unity. It's not ecumenism. It's not getting denominations together - it's stripping it all away and knowing our brethren that live all around us. We've been practicing that for 20 years. We're pretty good at and we can show you how.
Musical Interlude - "Stop, Church. STOP! -