Skip to content

Add your phone number?

Optional. Nothing is sent unless you choose it.
The Historic Faith
Sign in

Jumpstarter 8 of 10

Ideas to help restart your discussion
Radical Christian Living  /  The Spirit of Sectarianism  /  Discussion Questions
All Questions
Question 8
Bercot claims churches create division both by nullifying New Testament commandments (his examples: divorce/remarriage, war) and by adding new commandments or overly precise definitions (his examples: icon veneration historically; modern modesty lines turning from voluntary agreement into law); what practices or “applications” in your church context have drifted from helpful agreement into binding law that distances you from other believers?
Another way to ask: What church practices or “rules” in your context have changed from a helpful agreement into a must-follow law that pushes other believers away? How has that created distance or division?

Direct Answer The transcript doesn’t name your church’s specific practices, but it gives a clear test: when an “application” becomes a law and leads you to cut off fellowship, label others “bad associations,” or refuse normal brotherly greeting, it has drifted into divisive sectarianism.

Support from Transcript:

  • Bercot says nullifying commands (like allowing divorce/remarriage or approving war) creates an “unhealthy spiritual atmosphere” and pressures serious Christians to leave, so the church becomes “responsible for causing division.”
  • He warns that adding commands can also force division, using the 8th-century command to venerate icons: it forces a choice between “institutional church” and “Jesus Christ.”
  • He says modern Christians often define commandments “more specifically than the Holy Spirit chose,” which produces “dissensions and arguments and church splits.”
  • His modesty example: boundaries can be “okay” as “voluntary agreements,” but “so often… voluntary agreement becomes a law.”
  • The danger signs: dividing from others, refusing communion, “might not even greet them as a brother”—and then “we are committing serious sin… we will not inherit the kingdom of God.”
Discussion Follow-ups Where have you seen a practice move from “this helps us avoid conflicts” to “this proves who is faithful”? What would it take to return it to voluntary agreement?

Jumpstarter 8 of 10
Back Questions Next