Modern Christianity is mindbogglingly diverse: 45,000 denominations, by one recent estimate. Christian history teaches us this is not new. From the beginning, Christians understood Jesus differently.
In the United States of 2025, though, this diversity is on the wane — and this concerns me deeply.
Christian diversity is not new
Diversity marked early Christianity. In the first few centuries of our faith, the Ebionites practiced voluntary poverty and strictly followed the Old Testament law to be saved. At the other end of the Christian spectrum, the Carpocratians believed biblical laws were evil; it was not just permissible but actually imperative to break the commandment against adultery and to swap spouses. These two sects could hardly have been more different, yet both considered themselves “Christian.”
Andrew Garnett
The diversity was real, but with two important qualifications.
First, it is too simplistic to see our present concerns acted out among the first Christians. Our chief worries include tribalism, polarization and political division between “conservatives” and “liberals.” Placing the Ebionites and Carpocratians side-by-side, it is tempting to see the strict Ebionites as conservatives and the freewheeling Carpocratians as liberals — but ultimately, this is anachronistic. Parallels may exist, but in antiquity, no one conceptualized faith on a conservative/liberal spectrum.
Second, Christian consensus still was more important than Christian diversity. Christianity reflected a broad spectrum of opinion. Yet by the third century, even non-Christians began to recognize the bulk of Christians fell into one stream of thought. The pagan critic Celsus, one of the fiercest opponents of the Christian faith, spoke about this emerging consensus as “the Great Church.” Plenty of outliers notwithstanding, most Christians clustered around one general position. Most churches that exist today are the spiritual heirs of this “Great Church.”
An early Christian consensus
In a faith characterized by — and at times even racked by — theological division, the mass of Christians occupied a mediating position in most debates. To take the Ebionite/Carpocratian example, the Ebionites with their voluntary poverty avoided bodily pleasure, while the Carpocratians embraced bodily pleasure. The bulk of Christians fell somewhere in the middle, neither completely comfortable with embracing pleasure nor at peace with denying it.
“On most questions, the majority of Christians took a middle-of-the-road approach to faith.”
On most questions, the majority of Christians took a middle-of-the-road approach to faith. This moderate Christian movement increasingly gained traction throughout the wider Roman world.
The response to two similar crises reflects this moderating tendency.
In the mid-third century and again in the early fourth century, some Roman emperors attempted a systematic, large-scale suppression of Christianity. In both cases, many clergy and lay Christians denied their faith to escape the persecution. When the persecutions ended, many of these lapsed Christians wanted to be readmitted to their churches. Fallen Christians thought they should be welcomed back into a faith supposedly marked by forgiveness.
But not everyone agreed. In the third century, a rigorist sect argued lapsed Christians could not be forgiven on Earth. In hindsight, we call them the Novatians after their chief spokesperson, but at the time, they labeled themselves with the Greek word katharoi — “the pure” who separated themselves from the weak believers who had denied their faith.
A similar movement called Donatism sprang up after the fourth century persecution. In that case, Donatists particularly expressed concern about sacraments performed by lapsed clergy. The Donatists argued baptisms, weddings or other rites led by lapsed clergy were all invalid; these sacraments were useless if a morally defective leader performed them.
In these types of quarrels, the Great Church majority almost always represented the middle-of-the-road approach to faith. The Donatist controversy is a perfect example: The majority response said church leaders who had fallen away needed a period of repentance before returning. But at the same time, baptisms by fallen church leaders still were valid. Baptisms depended on God’s power rather than human power, so no one needed to fret over the validity of their baptism, regardless of which human performed them.
When history doesn’t rhyme
“It has been said that history repeats itself. This is perhaps not quite correct; it merely rhymes.” This quote by Theodor Reik is one of my favorites, because it so often proves true. As history rolls on, the names always change, but the themes seem to recur with surprising regularity.
I consider myself a moderate Christian who most closely aligns with the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship, and like many in the CBF orbit, I’m fascinated with the work of Ryan Burge, a political scientist who studies the impact of religion on American life. Like most researchers, Burge draws a distinction between “evangelical” Christians, such as Southern Baptists and many nondenominational Christians, who represent the conservative wing of American Christianity, and “mainline” Christians, such as moderate to liberal Christians like United Methodists and Cooperative Baptists.
“Organized religion as a whole is struggling in the United States, but conservative forms of Christianity are fairing best.”
Organized religion as a whole is struggling in the United States, but conservative forms of Christianity are fairing best. After reviewing the demographics, Burge has rightly called Mainline Christians “a species headed for extinction.” In the past 50 years, Mainline Christianity has seen a dramatic collapse, while evangelicals have held steadier. In fact, conservative Christians make up a greater percentage of the U.S. population today than they did 50 years ago.
This demographic research suggests something about conservative Christianity is more compelling — better able to gain and hold sustained, long-term attention from a human life — than moderate or liberal Christianity.
I suspect another of Burge’s surprising findings also illustrates this: The more people go to church, the less liberal they are. This is true even for people attending liberal churches. Frequent attendance at a Mainline church doesn’t tend to make Christians more liberal, but rather to push them to the more conservative end of the mainline.
What we are seeing is a case in which history is not rhyming. This conservatizing tendency in contemporary American Christianity is quite different from what happened in the early church. In ancient terms, this would be the equivalent of the Ebionites, Novatians and Donatists winning the day.
Does the middle offer any hope?
Self-identifying as a moderate probably colors my hope for our future. But I still believe a moderate Baptist faith offers one of the most promising ways to follow Jesus in our context.
I will not deny it feels almost hopeless to stand in the middle at this time in our public life. To my conservative friends, I am neither strict enough nor dogmatic enough, too wishy-washy on the big theological questions. For my liberal friends, I am too dogmatic and too reluctant to move forward, an obstacle on the path to progress.
Yet the middle is where the bridge can be built between both sides, a work more necessary than ever in our polarized times. A middle-of-the-road perspective also can be eclectic, embracing the best aspects of conservative and liberal faith.
From my perspective, moderate Christian thought can most easily hold to the historic Baptist idea of the separation of church and state by shunning any one political party. I am frightened by the way conservative Christianity often is inseparable from the Republican Party, but I’m also uncomfortable with the Democratic Party as the bailiwick of liberal Christians. In the middle, it’s easier to maintain a consistent witness that no political party has an exclusive claim on Jesus.
This path still seems vital to me, and I still believe it can offer us hope in our hurting country. I believe this most of all because the Great Church once found it to be true. If we are faithful for long enough to this path of following Jesus, we may see history rhyme once again.
Andrew Garnett serves as pastor of Hampton Baptist Church in Hampton, Va. He is the author of Christians and the Roman Army: Lessons for Today.
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