Churches are as varied as are the individuals and cultures that comprise them. Clearly, they’re not all the same. Difference does not necessarily reflect deficiency though. However, the determination of the validity of a church’s doctrines, practices and culture depends what one sees as the basis of the truth of church itself.

The first generation church was an organic structure of loosely affiliated believers under the direct guidance of inspired apostles and prophets. The original Scripture itself forecast the deterioration of true doctrine into myths. This was said to come about due to people gathering teachers to say what they wanted to hear rather than to tell them the truth. The letters of the New Testament address many of the departures from truth. Many of these same departures are perpetuated in today’s churches.

You see, most of the differences originate in one of four things—the perpetuation of past errors through human tradition, an interpretation of the Bible that allows significant human device in belief and practice, plain ignorance, and self-centered bias.

There are thousands of factions of Christians—to the shame of all Christians. Admittedly, most churches share much more in common though than in how they differ. However, if the Bible is to be the objective guide there are simply lots of things churches do that are at least patently made up if not totally a misappropriation of the message of Christ altogether.