I’ve just finished teaching a Sunday school series on comparative religion. I covered the biggies as well as some cults. As I revealed some of the stranger beliefs held by some of these groups, people wondered, “why would someone join them?” The answer, I believe is that the pendulum has swung in the other direction and people don’t seem to care about doctrine at all anymore. As long as they feel like they’re a part of something, as long as a group offers a support network of some kind, people will join. It’s similar to why kids join gangs or other people join a book club.
I would wager that most practicing Christians today have no idea what the history and doctrinal beliefs of their denomination are. In college, I was very passionate about debating over matters of doctrine, (back then I wouldn’t even consider dating a Calvinist) but I’ve since mellowed on some things. It’s true that many things like transubstantiation or pre/post/a millennialism are relatively unimportant, but that doesn’t mean that doctrine doesn’t matter at all.
When I lived in Nevada, I had a hard time finding a good church. I finally settled on a Methodist one that I was excited about. Until one day, the pastor, upon finishing a series on comparative religion, said that all religions are basically the same and we stick with Christianity because “it’s better to dig a 60 foot well than six 10 foot wells.” I almost cried right then and there in my pew, knowing I’d have to find a different church. All religions are not basically the same. Sure, we can find similarities, like they mostly all tend to be against murder and thievery, and we can further categorize them as Western or Eastern, but they are different on very important topics like the nature of God and how salvation works.
The problem is that we’ve bought into this idea of relativity, that “what’s true for you isn’t necessarily true for me.” That’s all fine and good if we’re talking about food allergies or tastes in music. But on important things, absolute truth exists and applies to everyone. While many religions offer some truth, they can’t all be the Truth. And a Christian pastor should know that. Jesus claimed, “I am the way and the truth and the life; no one comes to the Father except through me.” Either you believe him or you don’t, but there’s no room for “that’s true for some people and not others.” Therefore, if you claim to be a Jesus follower yet say there are other paths to heaven, you make Jesus into a liar and yourself into a fool for following a liar.
So while denominational differences about minor things don’t ultimately matter, if a group strays from the basic tenets of the Christian faith, it is not Christian. These tenets mostly have to do with who Jesus is, but also the authority of the Bible and the need for salvation and how it works. When people teach that the Bible has been corrupted or needs supplemental materials or that Jesus was just a good teacher or another of many prophets, you’ve got yourself a different religion from Christianity.
Why am I making a big deal out of this? Because Americans are religiously illiterate. Not just about Christianity (oh, they think they know about it, but most don’t really) but other religions as well. And it’s important to understand what religions teach so that when you hear some crackpot claiming their actions are based on a religion, you’ll know they’re a crackpot, not an accurate representative of the religion. In our society I think Christianity and Islam are the most important to study, but the rest should be studied as well.
Even worse than non-religious folk who don’t know about religions are religious folk who don’t. You know, the people who have been going to church for years because it makes them feel warm and fuzzy that they have that community and that they give money to starving people, but when asked some deeper questions about their faith community can’t give an answer. For example, when I was looking at churches in Nevada, one Sunday I attended a church that printed the names of its elders in its bulletin. I noticed they were all male so I asked a woman there who greeted me if that was because the church didn’t allow women to be elders or whether it was just how elections went. She had no idea. That kind of thing is important to me. I don’t mean to get on the women in ministry issue, it’s just a real life example of something I encountered and it speaks to a larger issue, because essentially this woman was telling me she didn’t know which ministry opportunities were open to her. Isn’t that something you should know about your church, especially if you’ve been going there for years? I know most people who visit your church aren’t going to ask what it teaches about baptism or eschatology, but if some troublemaker like me does, wouldn’t it be nice to be able to answer? After all, if you’re going to join a belief movement, shouldn’t you know what it believes? Shouldn’t church be more than a club?