One faith, two faiths, three faiths four...Part One

Four faiths make a religion and so do many more?!?!? You probably won't get the reference unless you were a kid in the late sixties and watched "The Banana Splits".
Tip: scroll to the bottom of the page at the link and look at the theme song lyrics.

January 7, 2006 - The Wall Street Journal published an article by Daniel Golden that describes how Wheaton College was delighted to have assistant professor Joshua Hochschild teach students about medieval philosopher Thomas Aquinas, one of Roman Catholicism's foremost thinkers. But when the popular teacher converted to Catholicism, the prestigious evangelical college reacted differently. It fired him.

The article goes on to describe how

"...Mr. Hochschild's dismissal captures tensions coursing through many of America's religious colleges. At these institutions, which are mostly Protestant or Catholic, decisions about hiring and retaining faculty members are coming into conflict with a resurgence of religious identity. Historically, religious colleges mainly picked faculty of their own faith. In the last third of the 20th century, however, as enrollments soared and higher education boomed, many Catholic colleges enhanced their prestige by broadening their hiring, choosing professors on the basis of teaching and research. As animosities between Catholics and Protestants thawed, some evangelical Protestant colleges began hiring faculty from other Christian faiths." (emphasis added)

Now you may think that this post will discuss the differences between Protestants and Catholics but I'll table that for a future discussion. What I'd like to address is the last sentence regarding hiring faculty from "other Christian faiths". Why is this so curious to me? The first thing I thought of when I read the article was the words of Jude (no, not "hey Jude"), the new testament writer Jude):

"Beloved, while I was making every effort to write you about our common salvation, I felt the necessity to write to you appealing that you contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all handed down to the saints." (emphasis added)

Look at Paul's admonition to the Corinthians (2 Corinthians 13:5):

"Test yourselves to see if you are in the faith; examine yourselves! Or do you not recognize this about yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you--unless indeed you fail the test?" (emphasis added)

My point is this - that Biblical faith is singularly expressed, not in a plurality or variants of faith that in some way "add up" to Christianity. I'll cite one more example, again by Paul in Ephesians 4:4-6:

"For there is one body and one Spirit, just as you have been called to one glorious hope for the future. There is one Lord, one faith, one baptism, and one God and Father, who is over all and in all and living through all." (yes, once again emphasis added!)

Now, if I ask you to really really fast name as many Christian faiths as you could you might immediately say Catholics and Protestants. You might even start listing different Christian denominations. I like to write little jingles in my head, and to the chagrin of my colleagues sometimes even sing them! I might jingle out something like this -

Lutherans, Church of Christ and Quakers, what we all have in common is faith in our maker. Assemblies of God and Southern Baptists too - we all believe that Jesus died for you."

I should write commercials. Or maybe not. But lest I be charged with oversimplifying the issue let me be honest and admit that within Christianity, yes WITHIN CHRISTIANITY there is much difference in the expressions of faith and belief.

In the book Why I am not a Calvinist, Jerry Wells and Joseph Dongell write that

"The differences among evangelicals are not trivial, and we doubt the judgment of Carl Henry when he suggested that our differences amount to "disagreement...over a limited number of passages (Carl F.H. Henry, God, Revelation and Authority) We can point to numerous issues, spanning the entire scope of scripture that spark fervent debate and often separate us into distinct colonies of worship, ministry and witness"

How's that sound for "one" faith? Well, again in the interest of striving for some objectivity as I want to be fair and not mislead anyone into a uncritical Christian "party line" let's look at a list of these so called 'differences' that Wells and Dongell collected:

1. The eligibility of women for ordination in pastoral and teaching ministries without restriction.
2. The relationship between church and state, and the viability of a specifically Christian legislative agenda for a largely secular modern democracy.
3. The nature of a wife's submission to her husband.
4. The moral status of state-sponsored violence, whether in the form of declared war, restricted peacekeeping military action or capital punishment.
5. The intersection between modern science and the Bible, with focus on the prevailing theories of the Big Bang and biological evolution.
6. The fate of those who have never heard of the gospel and of those who have only seen or heard only a distorted presentation or modeling of it.
7. The theology of the sacraments, especially baptism - it's proper mode (immersion only?), its proper subjects (infants or believers?) and the sense in which it imparts grace.
8. The appropriateness of divorce and remarriage.
9. The scope and function of spiritual gifts.
10. The degree of corrective discipline administered by a congregation to its wayward members.
11. The normative spiritual profile of the Christian life with the possibility of a real moral transformation, victory over sin and genuine Christ-likeness.
12. The viability of a clergy/laity distinction.
13. God's end time program.
14. The role of Satan and the demonic as personal, intentional and particular forces in the experience of believers.
15. The nature and scope of exorcism.
16. The nature of eternal punishment and the doctrine of Hell.

Want more? Wells and Dongell go on to expose some other of the finer points of doctrinal disagreements within the church:

1. Are human beings so fallen that they must be saved exclusively through the unilateral and unconditional action of God?
2. Is it possible for human beings to resist (successfully) the saving approaches of God's grace?
3. Does God enable all persons to respond positively to the available light?
4. Can any who were truly once redeemed through faith in Christ fail to receive final salvation?

Now with my degree in theology and especially post degree studies on my own. I have an opinion on most of the above points in both lists. But the question is, should we (Christians) ultimately divide over these differences and opine that Christianity is a religion of many faiths? Stay tuned for more thoughts coming to a blog near you soon ....