Schisms are the great crises of the church. Schisms lead to schisms that become the great crises of the churches. In Christianity alone we have seen numerous breakups, as the once all but monolithic Church split between east and west – between Constantinople and Rome – and leaving aside other minor breaks, we eventually saw the split in the west between Rome and Lutheranism, then Luther’s Protestantism splitting into many different factions, and the Roman Church then splitting off the Anglican persuasion. These are the great schisms. There have been many minor ones. Many evangelical churches have broken into house churches, which themselves have invariably broken into ‘rival’ factions or groups. Each split is invariably seen as a crisis for the ‘mother’ group. But as the churches fracture, two possibilities arise. The first is that co-religionists, even though adhering to rival factions, might begin to realise that the details of their beliefs are unimportant compared to how they actually live their lives in terms of the spiritual and moral teachings of Jesus the ultimate founder of their religion. Too often it is doctrine – the understanding of what various overly charged terms mean that lead to splits. It is rare for split to occur over issues of morality and ethics and life-styles. The second possibility that might at last arise is that the breaking of the churches, at one level, though not at the most important level of moral and ethical behaviour, diminishes the churches in term of their power. The greatest threat to all religions organisations is not the threat of rival teachings, or rival interpretations of teachings, it is the threat of the what the possession of power can do to the holders of power. Power does invariably corrupt, does invariably lead the adherents of a church away from the true core of Christ’s teach which had absolutely nothing to do with pomp and circumstance and everything to do with humility and love and compassion. Even a church of great pomp and circumstance and wealth can find its true or original heart when shaken by schisms of its own making.
