Serious Confusion

Imagine that someone hears that he has cancer. He wants to live and visits a medical specialist. The physician tells him that his kind of cancer can successfully be treated with a certain kind of medicine. His family doctor thinks it a good idea to get a second opinion and sends him to another hospital. The cancer-specialist of the other hospital tells him that the medicine that the first specialist was going to prescribe is totally wrong. It will only lead to his death. He also advocates a treatment with medicine, but a completely different kind of medicine. A few days later the patient hears from his neighbor that there is a hospital in a neighboring town where they never treat his kind of cancer with medicine, but where they operate on such cases. And the neighbor has heard from many people that the operations are very successful. He decides to consult also this third medical specialist and indeed: he does not believe in medicine at all and promises a quick recovery through an operation. Confused by all the contradictory opinions the patient decides to find out whether there are still other forms of therapy for his disease. And he finds a physician who does not believe in medicine or in an operation, but thinks that the tumor should be tackled through radiation. And he finds still another specialist who thinks both medicine and an operation and radiation are wrong and is sure that he can only be cured through a special diet.

Everybody will understand that all the contradictory opinions will drive the poor man into a state of complete confusion. He will get extremely insecure, scared and desperate and he will not be able to make a responsible choice. In addition his trust in the medical world as such will be seriously affected. He may decide to entrust his life to just any, random, specialist and just any, random, therapy. He may make the right choice. But he may also decide to turn his back on the entire medical world and let nature run its course. Or he may resort to faith healers or quacks

Unfortunately, every person who has come to know the Bible and Christianity and who realizes that his relationship with God is a matter of life and death, gets into the situation of the patient described above. Particularly when he realizes that the Bible calls on all followers of JHWH and of Jesus Christ to come together regularly and to found organizations or congregations for that purpose. Christianity has fallen apart into hundreds of Church-organizations and each of them has its own teachings and doctrines. These do not agree with each other, but contradict each other. The result is obvious: anybody who wants to obey JHWH’s commandment in this field and starts looking for the true organization of the true believers finds himself in a world full of contradictions, chaos and confusion. The leaders of the various Churches do not agree with each other, contradict each other, fight each other and make an extremely unprofessional and untrustworthy impression. No wonder that many people of good will cannot make a choice. No wonder that many people turn their backs on the entire world of religious professionals and do not take the priests and ministers seriously any more. No wonder that many people resort to religious quacks or start their own Church with a couple of friends.