I grew up in a fundamentalist, non-denominational, evangelical church. This was an interesting experience that left me with a firm grounding in what the Bible says. I also learned to appreciate what a good, exegisis of the Bible through a sermon could sound like. And I desperately miss the organ, played by the extremely talented Dr. Jerry Wright. Nothing in modern church music - I refuse to call music 'worship' as it oversimplifies and destroys the true meaning of what worship is - can match the sound of a well played organ. Thank you Dr. Wright!!!
The side-effect of this experience was that I had no idea of what a denomination was. I assumed that there were two (and only two) kinds of churches. What I went to, which I called "Christian" and then there were the other churches, which are called "Catholic". I had also assumed in my black and white child's mind that only the churches labelled "Christian" were the 'right' churches. Sorry, Mom, but that's only what the little me thought!
Then my Christian life became complicated by going to a Christian High School. Here's what a conversation in eighth grade went for me:
Other student: What kind of church you go to?
me: A Christian church.
Other student (laughs, rolls eyes): Yeah, but What KIND?
I'll save you the trouble of reading further and state that eventually I came to realize there were "little" differences like, Baptist, Presbyterian, and People Who Shout Alot But Were Still White and Black Churches. That's about what I had figured on my own. Through required Church History courses I learned about Luther and figured that the Lutherans came from him. Brilliant, wasn't I? I leaned a little about Calvin and nothing about Menno Simons that I can recall. But I didn't realize that Calvin inspired denominations of his own.
Then I went to Colombia and met my future wife, Ruth, who was a Mennonite and married into a Mennonite family. I now attend a Mennonite Brethren Church and don't forget the Brethren because there are different flavors of Mennonites. I am quite comfortable now with the MB's although religion does sometimes get in the way, as, I realize now, it does with all churches.
Then I was hired at a Christian School. I assumed it was a Christian School based on the pattern that I learned though High School and through my teaching experiences in Colombia. Nope, turns out there's another denominational flavor that I needed to discover: Christian Reformed, based on the teachings of that guy I only heard a little about in eighth grade, which is called grade 8 in Canada: John Calvin.
It took me a long time to figure out what 'reformed' meant and the definitions varied and straight answers are, apparently, non-existant. I struggled when I first encountered it, not really understanding why. It forced me to read voraciously, which is a good thing that probably would make John Calvin proud, but eventually led to me rejecting which probably wouldn't. I can't embrace TULIP. Maybe in another article I'll go into detail why I reject the 5 points of Calvinism, but let me sum it up here: Free Will is just too important to reject, which I see rejected in Calvinism. I believe the real key to understanding of what "made in God's image" means is to understand free will. The real highlight here, is that suddenly, after all my reading and prayer, I can see in other's writings were I agree or disagree. For example, I read a quote from a book called Heaven Is Not My Home, which says that "God created culture" and even implies that cars are from Him too. Nope, I don't believe that - the God Image gives us free will and imagination to create something and those are People creations which, I will concede, my have God's inspiration behind it, but are, in the end our own creation.
Does that mean I undermine other denominations? No - In fact I realize that even through the most greedy TV preacher, sometimes people come to a real, genuine knowledge of Christ despite the presentation. We must, as Christians in this post modern world, realize that there is no ONE Christian worldview. Just looking at how different cultures see things make it obvious.
Now, I wait for the other shoe to drop...
