The great Protestant
reformers, and many men since that time, knowing that the original church
organized by Christ had been corrupted by apostasy and changes made in
doctrines, took it upon themselves to try to reform the theology of the church
and in the process, without divine authority or direction, organized churches
of their own called them by their own names, and taught their own doctrines.
These reformers were themselves frequently in error for two conflicting
statements cannot be correct. As a result of the work of the protesters, the
Christian world had many man-made churches. They did more to introduce
confusion into the minds of people than they did to purify the apostasy that
they recognized in the mother church. Because teaching false doctrine is such a
serious sin, it naturally follows that to identify with such a group makes one
an accessory to evil. The Lord condemned this very fault as he found it being
practiced in his own day by splinter groups known as the pharisees, sadduccees,
and essenes, and the other conflicting groups. He said to them, “ . . . ye shut
up the kingdom of heaven against men: for ye neither go in yourselves, neither
suffer ye them that are entering to go in.” (Matthew 23:13.)
Many people in these
unauthorized Christian churches frankly and honestly admit that their church
has no authority or power to minister the ordinances of the gospel, and yet by
their influence they draw other people into the same error. (Sterling W. Sill, Thy
Kingdom Come [Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1975], 6-7)
