3/13/2025 | By Jay Ashbaucher
Growing up, I did not know much about the church, only that my parents thought it was important that every week we all attend, and we did. I can’t say I learned much from the church, but the habit of going every week must have instilled in me an attitude of belief in God and the Bible. Because of that attitude, I think God knew I was interested in Him, and as I grew older, God knew I would be open to receive what He wanted to say to me. I remember saying my prayers as a kid. I don’t remember much about them except that they were almost always about things I wanted God to do for me, like “Don’t let it rain, I want to play in the ball game tonight.” Because of parents and church, I also knew there was a right and wrong in life. I did have a conscience that wanted to do what was right, although I did not always practice it. Looking back, I can see how I was a very selfish person. Also, I was a very fearful person. (still working on those things, but thanks be to God I am much better than I used to be) Around the age of 11, I had a great fear of dying. My mother calmed my panic attack by telling me that “Jesus is the resurrection and the life and those who believe in Him would never die.” I believed Jesus’ words and a new relationship with Him began. After college, God’s Spirit spoke into my spirit and told me He wanted me to be in the church. I obeyed that voice and went from college to a seminary where I was introduced to the Bible. That school created in me a love for God’s word and I’ve developed a lifelong habit of reading and studying the Bible.
Now, being older, and retired from over 45 years as a church’s pastor, I have learned much about God, myself, the church, the Bible, and unity. Pastoring a church in a small town, I experienced working together with pastors from other churches, enjoying good relationships with them, and working together for the good of the community. Even though we had a wide variety of differing beliefs, I sensed a spirit of love and unity among pastors and churches. I felt and thought that this was how things were supposed to be. After retiring, my wife and I moved to a big city where I was introduced to a different church experience. Jesus prayed to his Father in heaven that we, as his church, would be one. But I have come to see the church to be different from the one Jesus prayed for. Don’t get me wrong, there is unity in Christ’s church, but there is also much division in Christ’s church. Without pointing fingers at any specific individuals or churches, let me simply share what I have observed. You may agree or not. God is the final judge of all things and I leave what I have observed with Him. But I’m always checking the Bible and my own heart to find God’s truth for myself, and for the church, to be more like Jesus. I will always love Christ’s church, trying to help it to be in line with its job description in scripture.
I realize most pastors believe what I do. They love the church and want it to be as God’s word teaches. In fact, one movement in the church is to try to restore the church to New Testament spiritual values. What I want to share now is what I have seen about the church and its leadership, and how we and our views of the Bible help to create division and not unity. When I think of what God wants His church to be like, I must start with myself. Who am I? Am I the person God wants me to be? As a Christ-centered person, am I growing in becoming more like Him in love, wisdom, sharing his message, and doing his good works? Only God knows us perfectly. I cannot perfectly judge another’s motives, but I can name motivations that often lead us humans down a wrong path. As leaders in the church, we need to guard against the self-centeredness of having to be in control due to fears, or due to a personal desire for power, or popularity, or success, or self-fulfillment. I have observed among many church leaders a need to be in control. Usually, it is based on unresolved fears and lack of trust in God. Such control leads to a lack of God’s love, or to legalistic ways of running the church. The world is full of anger and harsh-sounding voices seeking control, all resulting in hurts and division. Churches and leaders need to be aware of Satan’s voice, making them think that what they are doing is Godly and God glorifying, when in truth, it only aids in self-protective, “us versus them” divisive mentality.
Besides issues of control, differing interpretations of the Bible also divide the church. From its beginning, the church has always been involved in a process of developing a correct understanding of the Bible and the Christian faith. Some progress in achieving a unifying identity of who we are and what the Bible teaches has been made in church history by certain factions meeting together. More coming together is needed. Division among churches and individual believers in today’s church is a long way from Jesus’ prayer and desire for unity in His body. My appeal is for “I am right, you are wrong” factions to come together to discover, through peaceful communication, a Biblically correct understanding of church doctrines. I have noticed that individuals and church groups build doctrines on certain parts of the Bible without seeing the teachings of the whole Bible. In large part, this happens because we grow up in churches that teach certain doctrines, and then, when some potential leaders of those churches go away to a school to learn the Bible in preparation for ministry in the church, those schools teach the same doctrines as the church in which they grew up. When that happens, division is inevitable because the teaching of one doctrine over another continues to promote a “we versus them” mentality.
What I have observed is that believers learn a doctrine based on certain truths from scripture, and when they come across verses that seem to oppose that doctrine, they work to make them fit in with the doctrine they believe to be true. I am talking about doctrines in the church that have been around for hundreds of years, teachings of the Bible that have long been taken for granted as the absolute truth. What doctrines am I talking about? You may not recognize most of these names, but the church continues to be divided over them. Here are some: the sovereignty of God and the free will of humans; Calvinism and Arminianism; various views of eschatology (the end times); male headship (traditionalism) and women’s roles in the church (egalitarianism); original sin (that from Adam and Eve, all humans are inherently born in sin); etc. In reading the Bible, many of these can be confusing to people. A science professor studying God’s book of nature noticed that some things, like properties of light, have two sides: particles and waves. He concluded that “the truth lies simultaneously at both ends”. This may result in many questions, but both things are true. The Bible we accept as God’s truth includes similar two-sidedness. If conflicting sides of a doctrine are both true, would taking one side over another create an imbalance in our psychological, social, and spiritual development as humans, causing our lives to be errant, resulting in unhealthy and hurtful ways of living? Would it help us to base doctrines on the whole Bible, rather than ignoring parts that don’t seem to fit, or that we don’t understand, and explaining them away?
I am not saying we all need to believe the same things. Romans 14 teaches us how to accept one another with differing beliefs and practices. We will believe what we will. But could we not be open to others who believe differently, appreciate one another, increase in truth from each other, and serve Christ together in his Spirit of love? Jesus prayed to his Father in heaven that we, as his church, would be one. How do you think he meant for us to be able to achieve that and make our oneness evident to the world around us?
