The Patriarch's Niche

Denominationalism and sectarianism are commonly perceived by many to be forensic evidence of division and strife within the Body-of-Christ. Such perception of a denomination and/or a sect is culturally codified and defined within the American Heritage® College Dictionary as "a large group of religious congregations united under a common faith and name and administratively organized." Whereas, denominationalism is described as "the tendency to divide into religious denominations," a sect is expressed as "a group of people formed as a distinct unit within a larger group (a.k.a. denomination) by virtue of certain refinements or distinctions of belief or practice. A sect is a smaller organized group of believers who are a part of a denomination that acts and functions independent of the greater organization through exercise of their common administrative interests and beliefs."

Popular sentiments often express a sense of frustration and confusion regarding the plethora of denominations and sects within Christianity. How frequently is it said that there are "too many denominations" and "people should learn to get along . . . especially when they claim to be serving the same God." However, systemic strife, division, and declension within the institutional church are not without legitimacy. Historically, the Reformation itself evolved from popular discontent and disaffection with papal fiscalism, which generated oppressive taxes, fees, and fines upon parish constituency because of administrative venality, clerical avarice, and papal inability to budget and thrive within its fiscal means. Martin Luther's Ninety-five Theses, written in Latin and intended for academic debate bore witness against clerical practices such as simony, nepotism, pluralism, absenteeism, and concubinage. Luther also questioned papal authority concerning monastic vows, pilgrimages, works of merit, transubstantiation, confirmation, matrimony, clerical orders, and extreme unction as whether such matters possessed Scriptural authority.

Methodism itself, an international ecclesiastical movement of numerous organizations which evolved from the vibrant ministries of John and Charles Wesley who utilized the theological system of Jacobus Arminius is inundated with the histories of the Protestant Reformation, the colonization of America, the First Great Awakening (ca. 1735-1743), the American Revolution (1775-1783), the Second Great Awakening (ca. 1795-1830), the War of 1812, Atlantic Slave Trade (ca. 1516-1865) and it proponents and anti-proponents within the American Methodist church (1786-1865); the Reconstruction era ( ca. 1865-1877), and the civil rights and human rights movements. Ethnic ecclesiastical heirs of Arminianism and Methodism include the African Methodist Episcopal Church (1787), African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church (1820), Christian Methodist Episcopal Church (1870), and the United Holy Church of America, Incorporated (1886); all of which manifest their own particular ideologies, were molded and/or at least affected by the aforementioned religious, theological, socio-economic, and political milieu.

During the era of the Atlantic Slave Trade, the Free African Society was formed in 1787 by black representatives from five predominantly white Methodist congregations who were discontent concerning segregationist treatment within the Methodist Episcopal Church. The Free African Society evolved into an ecclesiastical institution which later dedicated itself as Bethel A.M.E. Church in 1794. Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church was legally recognized as an independent institution April 9, 1816. Another significant black church organization entitled the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church was created August 11, 1820 when two black congregations: the African Methodist Zion Church and the Asbury African Methodist Church, both constituent congregations of the Methodist Episcopal Church, established a separate colored conference which decried the institution of slavery and resolved that slavery would not exist within its membership. Following the American Civil War, the Christian Methodist Episcopal Church was organized primarily because of its racial composition of persons possessing African heritage. It was constituted by ex-slaves who claimed allegiance to Methodist doctrine and polity and who under authority, legal action, and ecclesiastical tradition of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South; was organized into a general conference December 15, 1870.

Accordingly, the United Holy Church of America, Incorporated, came into existence May 2, 1886 following the Reverend Isaac Cheshier's Second Great Awakening revival meetings conducted in Method, North Carolina (a suburd of Raleigh, North Carolina), amidst intradenominational theological controversy concerning doctrines and practice of personal holiness and sanctification within the church. Charles C. and Emma E. Collins Craig, adherents to such theological movements, were members of a more sedate, middle-class African American congregation - Saint Joseph African Methodist Episcopal Church located in Durham, North Carolina. The Craig's membership within the AME Church was no longer revered, sanctioned, nor tolerated by that body and was therefore declined and terminated. Along with other Christians of similar testimony who were evicted from denominational churches in the state of North Carolina, Charles and Emma Craig united with them for mutual support through spiritual fellowship during 1884. Ecclesiastical fellowships similar to the original Gospel Tabernacle (later renamed Fisher Memorial) which the Craigs co-founded in their home during 1884, gradually evolved into numerous independent congregations and associations. Those associations, led in part by the Craigs, organized their first convocation, discipline, and district October 13, 1894 in the city of Durham, North Carolina. L. M. Mason of Method, North Carolina was elected the first president of the Holy Church of North Carolina, which by September 25, 1918 became legally recognized as the United Holy Church of America, Incorporated. The irony regarding expulsion of the saints of God from denominational churches was that the modern holiness movement began with John Wesley's teaching concerning entire sanctification and Christian perfection.

Black churches within the Calvinistic tradition also experienced similar controversies and dissatisfactions. One such Pentecostal-Holiness body, the Church of God in Christ, which had its origins from a revival conducted by Reverend Charles Harrison Mason and others in Jackson, Mississippi in 1896, evolved from within the General Association of Baptist Churches. The Association eventually rescinded Reverend Mason's and his associates' membership because of his dogmatic expository preaching on the doctrine of entire sanctification through the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. Moreover, the organization he helped to establish in 1897 as a consequent of his eviction from the Baptist association, subsequently in 1907 withdrew its "right hand of fellowship" from C.H. Mason due to dogmatic differences of opinion regarding the spiritual experience and practice of glossolalia (speaking in tongues). Within the same year in the city of Memphis, Tennessee, Mason then organized the first Pentecostal General Assembly of the "Church of God in Christ." He was elected its general overseer and chief apostle.

Church history attest how small groups have genuinely grown into larger administrative units with multiple locations, whose adherents attempt to practice their faith in time and space within cultural, philosophic, and social environments; and who through well-defined faith-based expressions have purposely sought to transmit and guard their interpretation of the authentic apostolic tradition. Having once attained institutional maturity new denominations become vulnerable through cultural assimilation into socio-political environments in which they are established. Assimilation often initiates institutional growth, social prestige, political enablement, increased wealth, along with possible corruption of administrative systems and core values. Their religious leaders frequently become doctrinally attenuated, liturgically dependent, and spiritually emaciated who seem primarily concerned with holding on to their waning authority and dwindling constituencies in environments that are so familiar and contemptuous of their assimilated religious traditions that they no longer embrace the transcendent truth and goodness of God. Coupled with such cultural compromise and deprivation, prerequisites for ministerial commission and doctrinal practice are commonly enabled through social pressure, political correctness, institutional politics, and administrative chicanery. Such practice marginizes and subsequently compels authentic adherents of Christian doctrine and discipline to establish new sects within the spiritual wasteland in order to resurrect the compromised faith from the periphery of social interest toward authentic central worship of the Holy One of Israel.

Many people of good will attend churches and various religious societies weekly, biweekly, or monthly as persons who constantly experience moral, spiritual, emotional, and personal challenges in their attempt to discover answers for what plagues them. Outwardly, they appear to be spiritual people, but inwardly their religious ideals and beliefs seem to make little difference in the way they actually feel about themselves, communicate with others, and conduct their social-economic realities, cultural identities, and private lives. As spiritual pilgrims, they seem cadenced in a state of suspended desire, which through the powers of darkness, personal fallenness, and societal norms are hampered during their journey toward spiritual fulfillment. Because of entanglements with contemporary culture, wherein the Lord God is psychologically excluded from their private thoughts, conversations, and daily routines; the people, like their preachers, attend religious assemblies which mirror contemporary society, that lacks Biblical-spiritual definition, seems non-relevant, too ritualistic, devoid of good moral and ethical teaching, not very helpful, and prove distant regarding the dynamic and personal growth producing fellowships they were intended to be.

Jesus of Nazareth however, authorized his church to fulfill the Great Commission by making disciples through evangelism and teaching. Initiated by the Holy Spirit and conducted through apostolic witness, the church within the context of community relationship, fellowship, and partnership actively promoted the gospel and built up believers who mutually shared their insights, experiences, worship, needs, and material possessions with one another. Community fellowships directed their attention and activities upward through worship of God, outward through evangelism, and inward through teaching, fellowship, and burden bearing.

Shekhinah Christian Life Ministries is a beneficiary of the apostolic tradition. It endeavors to recapture the profession and practice of evangelical faith that was once delivered to the saints and seeks to abandon the mentality of a foster care divinity whereby the Lord God is treated more like a child who has been relegated to the home of a family whom he does not know, accorded a place at the dinner table, provided a bed to retire upon, and allotted a forty square foot area that inculcates closet space and furniture for storage of personal items; but is not included nor reciprocated within the hearts, minds, conversations and social activities of those assembled around the table. Whereas, outwardly all seem picturesque and familial, inwardly however, this illustrative setting is indicative of pseudomorphic Christian communions, which appear to be composed of quality spiritual materials that are assembled upon solid constructs of rationalist, experientialist and Biblicist foundations of Epistemology that reveal no outward signs of deterioration. Internally however, such communions are unaware that the decadence of unbelief, like mold and termites, have rendered their joists, studs, and rafters structurally unsound. Shekhinah Christian Life Ministries network of churches, missions, and specialized ministries accept the mantle of Jesus Christ to authenticate and enrich disciples of the "BOOK" among all ethnic groups, cultures, and denominations as well as provide congregational support through ministerial supplements and institutional extensions. Division one of our Official Doctrine and Discipline explains our core values and what we believe. Division two delineates our vision, mission, and form of ministry, and division three denotes our ecclesiastical order, polity, and procedure.

According to the law of apperception, all learning is predicated upon foundational and preparatory knowledge and skills that are acquired through physical, intellectual, emotional, and spiritual experiences. Such experiences produce a "readiness" within a convert so that he/she can become a disciplined learner of Jesus Christ that is thoroughly equipped for challenges and competitions throughout ones Christian life and ministry. Competencies required for a readiness to learn include training facilitated by habits and a consequent lifestyle of obedience, organization, structure, and self-control. It should be remembered that it only takes thirty days of disciplined consistency in a thing to create a habit and ninety days of the same to establish a lifestyle. One's Lifestyle manifests a person's temporal and spiritual destiny. All of this is accomplished through discipline.

Discipline is a vigorous process that provides both proactive training and teaching coupled with a process that is reactionary, correctional, and restorative. The purpose of discipline is to cultivate the human psychic and morals, and curb soulish passions through intimate, group, and corporate instruction utilizing various resources with intent towards a personal virtue of holiness and authentic worship of the Son of God. Discipline is something that one does in preparation to receive that which an individual cannot do or provide for oneself. Richard J. Foster's Celebration of Discipline: The Path to Spiritual Growth exegetes Apostle Paul's analogy of Galatians 6:8 to illustrate this principle:

A farmer is helpless to grow grain; all he can do is provide the right conditions for the growing of grain. He cultivates the ground, he plants the seed, he waters the plants, and then the natural forces of the earth take over and up comes the grain. This is the way it is with the Spiritual Disciplines-they are a way of sowing to the Spirit. The Disciplines are God's way of getting us into the ground; they put us where he can work within us and transform us. By themselves, the Spiritual Disciplines can do nothing; they can only get us to the place where something can be done.

Again, discipline as a process does not create spiritual transformation; it only positions the learner of Christ where change can occur toward producing mature Christian spirituality, holiness, and abundant life through prayer and other Biblical practices.

Prayer is the most common discipline practiced by all adherents of the Great Commission. The second most popular discipline areas are celebration, confession, sacrifice, and solitude. Thirdly: fasting, service, silence, study, submission, and worship. Disciplines within the fourth place category include fellowship, secrecy, and simplicity. The least popular categories are chastity, frugality, guidance, humility, intimacy, meditation, reflection, self-control, servanthood, endurance, and surrender. It is therefore expected of all who desire to engage the process of discipleship in fellowship with Shekhinah Christian Life Ministries that they consider our Lord's conditions of discipleship which include the following:

A) Self-denial: (Matthew 10:38, 16:24; Mark 8:34; Luke 9:23, 14:27),
B) Renunciation: (Matthew 19:21; Mark 10:21, 28; Luke 14:26, 18:22),
C) Leaving All: (Matthew 8:22; Luke 9:59, 9:61, 14:33),
D) Steadfastness: (John 8:31, 12:26),
E) Fruitfulness: (15:8), and
F) Love: (13:35; 1 Corinthians 14:1).

Perhaps it would be wise to consider the words of Richard Taylor who penned the following in his work entitled, The Disciplined Mind:

In the battle of ideas the disciplined mind has the advantage over the scatter brain. A trained mind can evaluate evidence, think logically, select ends, and devise means; it can concentrate on essentials and discard the irrelevant. A trained mind can think more rapidly and also more accurately. At the same time, the man with the ready mind is more apt to express himself coherently and persuasively. Consequently, the man whose mind is undisciplined will soon be outclassed and out distanced by others in whatever field he enters. . . .The undisciplined mind is always an easy prey for the demagogue and the charlatan. Out of such mass intellectual dullness and inertia, dictatorships are spawned. . . .many a young person would like to be a doctor or a top-flight scientist but never will, simply because he will not buckle down to the demanding years of hard study. Many young people would like to achieve artistry and mastery in music but they never will, simply because they will not face the long hours of monotonous practice year after year. . .The world is full of naturally brilliant people who never rise above mediocrity because they will not make the sacrifice which superiority requires.

Ministers of the gospel and professional business persons who desire to associate with Shekhinah Christian Life Ministries, International ecumenically should have an attested personal experience and relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ, resulting in acceptance of Jesus of Nazareth as Son of God, Lord and personal redeemer; 2) persevere to demonstrate a lifestyle of spiritual authority, vocational responsibility, and professional accountability that is consistent with the disciplined example portrayed by Jesus Christ within Holy Scripture; 3) be a certified resident of the State and municipality in which membership is established; 4) be a loyal member of an accepted and approved Christian church or denomination; and 5) maintain a consistent record and witness as a dedicated practitioner of biblical Christian faith within such local congregation of said denomination.