Schism Makers – Words As a Weapon

Dr. Michael L. Ford

            One of the things I do as a student of Last Things is follow the Great Falling Away predicted to occur at the End of the Age. It is the decline of the ability of the Holy Spirit working through the churches that will allow the Man of Sin to come into prominence. Recently I was reading an article on schism in one of the denominations I view as a bellwether for the decline of American Christianity. People bringing in compromises of faith and acceptance of immorality charged those clinging to the authority of Scripture and traditional church polity were the cause of schism. How can it be that those who have not changed are the cause of the problem? Reason tells you that those unsettling the denomination with their new evil practices would be the cause of separation between the people.

            When Pentecostalism and Spiritualism went through a growth spurt in the United States going into the twentieth century, people who embraced such practices in mainline denominations moved out and founded their own assemblies. But, with the next wave a spiritual upheaval, the Charismatic Movement, people who embraced it within the traditional churches chose rather to try to subvert congregations and then drive those who had not changed out of the churches. This way they gained the property and finances generations had invested their lives in and used them for purposes the founders would not have agreed with. The charged levied against those who had not gone with the compromise was they were resisting the Holy Spirit.

            The same was true with the introduction of modern perversions of Scripture. People who would not move away from the King James Bible to embrace anything else but the KJV was accused of causing confusion. But any sane person listening to conflicting versions being read and watching the puzzlement appearing on faces of people trying to follow along in another version would have realized those bringing in the diversity was the one creating the problem. But we are not talking about the kind of clear thinking that goes along with an orderly and sound mind.

            I think the Great Accuser has a new line of attack. Accuse the innocent of the sin of the subversives he sends amongst them.