“What should we think of the different Christian denominations and movements or families? Is one of them ‘right’ and the others ‘wrong?'”
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Christ’s universal church has lived through many centuries, utilizing different cultures, forms and styles in pursuit of its mission and goals. The church also consists of sinful humans, and its progress has been tainted with human weakness and sin. Church history includes the admirable and the abominable, but the head of the Church does not forsake his own, and the Church continues despite its adversaries and its afflictions.
In time, I believe, we will discover that God is forming a Church which combines and incorporates the best of the major Christian traditions: (1) the Catholic/Orthodox/Anglican liturgical tradition — with its mysterious and transcendent Father; (2) the Protestant or Evangelical gospel tradition — with its message of Jesus Christ, God’s Son, who fully accomplished the work which set sinners right with God; and (3) the Pentecostal/Charismatic renewal tradition — with God’s immanence through his personal, powerful presence in the Spirit.
Each of these historical manifestations of the Church, as indeed all others, has something from God which the whole Church needs, as well as certain errors, abuses and extremes, which the larger Church needs to correct. Through it all, Christ’s people are being built into a holy habitation for God through the Spirit. Together, we anticipate the time when God will sum up all things in Christ, there will come new heavens and earth, and God will be “all in all.”
