What I learned about division from Christians

I learned division from Christians, and I found that it is very good.

Jan 19, 2025

It’s best to start at the beginning. I was born Jewish, to two Jewish parents, both of Ashkenazi heritage. Neither of my parents was particularly pious or observant, but both wanted to ensure I received a decent—and that means Orthodox—Jewish education. So from the time I was able to walk, I attended shul and Hebrew school at Ahabat Shalom on Ocean Street in Lynn, Massachusetts. I also spent several years in elementary school at a private Jewish parochial school in Swampscott, where we sang Hatikvah along with the Pledge of Allegiance every morning. My mother and father were divorced. My mother insisted on getting a Jewish divorce through a rabbi, and then went on to marry an Italian—Danny, my step-father, in his 50s, converted to Judaism (including getting circumcised, bless him) before the wedding.

When my mother and step-father went to synagogue at all, it was to a conservative congregation. I don’t think the Orthodox rabbi ever recognized Danny’s conversion, but I was young and my parents didn’t share personal things like that with me. My dad never went to a synagogue of any variety. Later, when I grew up, I asked him why. He told me a story of how he saw the Jewish mobsters in Revere give generous gifts to the shul, which the congregation and rabbi accepted with gratitude, knowing the money came from people whose living was made running rackets1, bribing politicians, loan sharking, and other things that mobsters do. My dad saw the shul take dirty money, proclaim it clean, and honor the crooks who gave it. He saw no reason to participate in that charade.

In the summers, I went to Jewish day camp, Camp Simchah, in Middleton2. A blue school bus I called the cracker box would come pick me up every morning. We’d swim, play games, and sing, and mostly keep me out of my mother’s hair in the summertime. This was all part of the North Shore Jewish Community Center (JCC). As far as I know, the JCC (and others like it all over America—there’s one in Dunwoody, Georgia as well) serves all Jews, from Orthodox, Conservative, and Reform congregations, or Jews who don’t attend any congregation. I don’t remember anyone asking me where I attended, or “what kind of Jew I am,” but I was a kid, and who asks that kind of question?

It wasn’t until I became a Christian that I learned the answer.

If you don’t know my story—how I became a Christian—I won’t tell it again in this post, but you can read it here. Once I knew that I believed in Christ as the Savior and Lord, I also believed I was part of a unity: a community of believers the Bible calls “the body of Christ.” Of course, I knew that believers have disagreements, and that there are lots of denominations of Christians. I wasn’t totally ignorant. I also knew that some schisms have been quite violent, like the Protestants and Catholics in Ireland. But as a “baby Christian,” I thought that Christ could overcome such things based on what we all should agree about.

Wrong, I was.

I was baptized during the revival in Pensacola, Florida, at Brownsville Assembly of God. That was a marvelous time in my Christian walk. The worship, the energy, and the absolute stone-cold truth of the Gospel preached by Steve Hill, the resident evangelist at that church, filled me with desire to know more about God, about the Bible, and about how to spread the goodness of God around the world. I learned about Pentecostal beliefs about the Holy Spirit and the gifts of the spirit; I experienced those gifts personally. Yes, some of those things were weird, but no weirder to outsiders than Jews wrapping Tefillin and davening. When done in a community of believers, it doesn’t seem so weird (as in all things, I suppose).

Later, at my home church in central Georgia, I wanted to help bring that kind of revival energy, and learned that Steve Hill and the Pensacola worship team were traveling around the country in an “Awake America” tour. I endeavored to create a committee to bring an event to Reaves Arena at the Georgia National Fairgrounds in Perry, which holds 5,000. Rather foolishly, the pastors on the committee made me a co-chair. I say foolishly, because it was unwise to put an immature baby Christian in charge of such a religious event.

I built a database of 300 pastors and churches in the central Georgia area. I tried to contact every one of them. Many just stared at me, cow-eyed, as I explained what I wanted to do. Some pointedly told me no—even pastors of Assembly of God churches. I probably “got saved” visiting more evangelical churches around middle Georgia than the most prolific sinner. I asked, and received permission, to set up a volunteer booth at a meeting of the Georgia Baptist Convention (of the Southern Baptist Convention) in Macon. I brought a crew of young men with me to man the booth and sign up volunteers to work at the “Awake America” revival. After a couple of hours, one of the host organizers of the meeting came to tell me he had to ask me to leave—there were just too many complaints.

Complaints? Well, yes. I was a Pentecostal signing up people for a Pentecostal revival event, featuring a well-known Charismatic Pentecostal preacher, who was from the Brownsville Revival. You’d have thought I invited Beelzebub himself to preach. Southern Baptists are cessationalists; they do not believe in the present power of the gifts of the Holy Spirit as detailed in Romans chapter 12 and other scriptures. They do not believe in the gift of speaking in tongues (particularly, that one), or interpretation. They believe that Christians who do such things are not acting Biblically (though those Christians are doing things specifically described in the New Testament). Pastors who teach these gifts and (publicly) act on them are generally removed from Southern Baptist pulpits.

In the end, I was kicked out of the SBC meeting in Macon, for the sin of signing up volunteers to man a revival meeting that was—we prayed—to bring in thousands of sinners to meet the Savior Jesus Christ. This, because the person leading them to Christ didn’t practice the kind of religion the SBC deemed proper.

Actually, in the end, Steve Hill canceled the “Awake America” tour halfway through, and I was unceremoniously informed in a phone call by the logistics chief, not by Hill himself. As an immature Christian, I was insulted. It took me years to forgive Steve Hill, who has now passed on to be with the Lord, after multiple battles with cancer. I remember once telling Steve’s wife Jeri how I struggled with forgiving the way I believed I was mistreated. “Are you over it?” she asked simply. Yes, I was. But it was foolish to put me in charge of that committee.

That’s only one kind of division I experienced in Christianity. There’s so many more: white Christians versus Black Christians. Politically liberal Christians versus conservatives. Educated Christians versus “rugged” self-made preachers. Foreign mission-oriented churches versus “home” ministries. Public school versus home school. And the theological implications of all those divisions as Christians take their own personal beliefs, then bespoke fit scripture to support and defend them.

What you end up with is a plate of spaghetti regarding theology and practice. And don’t mess with those beliefs, or you’ll get a reaction worse than if you walk into a church wielding a pitchfork and wearing a red suit with horns and a tail. I once had a church member tell me I would have to get rebaptized because my baptism at Brownsville Assembly (“wildfire!” they said) could not be recognized. I mean I have it on video, so I am not sure why it’s invalid, but to some church folks, it doesn’t count.

I had another church member tell me that a close friend of mine who was in sin—we should pray the Lord takes that person (i.e. they die!) so their sin would not be worse, and if they are saved, they’d be protected by eternal security. Meaning “once saved always saved, so go for the grave.” The flip side of that belief is that if they end up in hell, they were never really saved. I was appalled that people believe that.

And don’t ever try to tell someone who favors hymn-singing from a hymn-book that it’s okay to have an electric guitar and drums at church. Or concert lights and a haze machine. (I must make an admission: I am an amateur concert and theater light designer, and enjoy doing those kinds of projects—hopefully it won’t send me to hell.) Bending a guitar note or a syncopated rhythm—you’re gonna burn!

I suppose the only way a musician who likes rock’n’roll style music, or country music, or anything but hymns and classical music, can get to heaven is by giving up music entirely, to those people who say it’s all sinful. I understand that there’s a difference between “putting on a show” and worship. But just because you paid to get in to see For King and Country, doesn’t mean their worship is false—does it? See, division.

Many times, I’ve asked God why there’s so much division in the Church (not “churches” but the whole capital-C Church). I had always assumed that the Body of Christ is one body and we should all live in the same truth. I had lived with that assumption for a long time.

But I’ve come to believe it’s not true. Paul and Barnabus had such a sharp disagreement over John Mark that they separated, yet that’s not the kind of disagreement I’m talking about.

We are all witnesses to our own faith, and how it affects our own lives. In this, we are alone and unique. We experience time, faith, and life separate from every other human on the planet, yet God is the same, never changing, and all-knowing. This means we are all seeing the same truth, but experiencing it differently. In our minds, the truth is how we see it, not as it is. Only God knows the whole of the Truth. Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 13:12, “For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.”

When people say “that’s my truth, you have your truth,” there’s really something to that. This is why it’s so hard to get people who are committed to truth to know Christ. This is evident from the earliest times of the church, going back to the day the believers in the Upper Room received the Holy Spirit, and the events after that happened.

Peter and John went up to the Temple to pray, and Peter healed a lame man with a word. Peter seized the opportunity as a crowd gathered and preached a powerful sermon. “Repent therefore, and turn back, that your sins may be blotted out, that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord, and that he may send the Christ appointed for you, Jesus, whom heaven must receive until the time for restoring all the things about which God spoke by the mouth of his holy prophets long ago.” (Acts 3:19-21.)

This speech annoyed the Sadducees, who had Peter and John arrested. “But many of those who had heard the word believed, and the number of the men came to about five thousand.” (Acts 4:4.) It’s easy to believe that the Sadducees, who did not believe in an afterlife, angels, or many of miracles for their current day, were distressed by Peter’s preaching. I guess you could say they were the ancient Jewish version of today’s cessationalists. Yet, despite their annoyance, and their efforts to stop the preaching of the Gospel, many heard and believed.

Another speech in the book of Acts was described in chapter 7. Stephen was preaching and “doing great wonders and signs among the people.” (Acts 6:8.) Some who disagreed with Stephen argued with him, but they couldn’t persuade with words, so they had the authorities arrest Stephen, charging that he spoke against Moses and Jewish traditions. This led to one of the most complete and concise histories of Hebrew prophecy recorded in the Bible, as Stephen led his audience from Abraham through Solomon.

“You stiff-necked people, uncircumcised in heart and ears, you always resist the Holy Spirit. As your fathers did, so do you. Which of the prophets did your fathers not persecute? And they killed those who announced beforehand the coming of the Righteous One, whom you have now betrayed and murdered, you who received the law as delivered by angels and did not keep it.” (Acts 7:51-53.)

At this, the high priest and others rushed Stephen and stoned him to death. It was not 5,000 men who were added to the faith at Stephen’s speech. But one young man in particular was recorded as present, who heard Stephen and witnessed his death. That man was Saul, of Tarsus, who met the Lord on the road to Damascus, and became Paul, the man who wrote two thirds of the New Testament, and founded most of the churches outside of Jerusalem in what is now Turkey, Lebanon and Syria. Paul later went to Rome and met with Caesar, before being executed by Nero.

The Church has always been divided, and people have always had to reconcile their own truths about God with the capital-T Truth. To one who hasn’t found a relationship with God—the God of the Bible—the Truth of the Bible is lost in a plate of spaghetti of seemingly contradictory beliefs and stories.

I have come to understand that it’s on purpose that God had inspired those stories, for everyone comes to faith by their own path and their own understanding of experience and truth. If the Bible only offered one shaft of light to illuminate the Way to grace, very few would be saved. With the many lights the Bible shines, even now people don’t see it, but it’s also safe to say many people aren’t looking.

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