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Category: Faith, Religion & Spirituality / Topics: Beliefs Religion

Many Varieties

by Dan Seagren

Posted: August 16, 2009

God foresaw the great variety in religion today…

Even though many believe in a Omniscient, Omnipotent and Omnipresent God which roughly interpreted means All-knowing, All-powerful and Ever-Present, many have doubts. Even believers as well as skeptics. If God is All-knowing, He not only has to have a phenomenal memory, He also has to know the future.

When God created Adam and Eve, He did give them an ultimatum: Do whatever you want except do not eat any fruit from that special tree in the garden. Guess what? They did eat from the forbidden tree. Folk tale you say. Pure fiction. Uncharacteristic. Hmmmm.

Reading on in the Good Book we have all kinds of writing such as history, poetry, prophecy with lots of stories, biographies, admonitions and revelations. There was an elaborate religious system which was replaced by Jesus, the promised Messiah and introduced to mankind by Peter, Paul and others. What we now call Christianity was born and has no doubt reached countless people everywhere imaginable.

Like so many ideas, philosophies and religions, Christianity has many varieties. Basically it includes today three major shall we call them branches? Orthodoxy, Roman Catholicism and Protestantism. Within each of these are many sub-branches which does complicate matters considerably. Then there are sects or cults which have hitch-hiked on Christianity and in certain instances seem to be fairly close to the real thing. In short, there are many varieties.

Since God has pronounced Himself through the Holy Scriptures as Omniscient, He no doubt saw this coming. However, he realized that mankind would be a very diversified group of people, with various traditions, ideologies and beliefs. Many others would commingle with the Christian faith. Compromises would be made and at times recognizance would be difficult if not impossible.

God also foresaw that there would be strong personalities who would sway people their way, not always God's way. He also gave us a glimpse of his own people, the Hebrews in the Old Testament, who often deserted their God for the gods surrounding them and some of the tribes never did return. But He saw that coming too.

If we are concerned about so many different religions and denominations that is understandable. There are good and not so good reasons for them. Since God is Omniscient, Omnipotent and Omnipresent, He is capable not only to fully assess each fragment of the faith, He is also capable of evaluating the lives of individuals within these splinter groups as well as outside.

The moral of the story: whether you are a believer or not, rigid or relaxed, complacent or committed, God, who is so maligned today, is in control. For some this is nice to know; for others it may be convenient but hazardous to not care.



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Dan Seagren is an active retiree whose writings reflect his life as a Pastor, author of several books, and service as a Chaplain in a Covenant Retirement Community.

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Posted: August 16, 2009   Accessed 175 times

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