[soc.religion.christian] What's the difference?

MARK@ucf1vm.cc.ucf.edu (Mark Woodruff) (07/02/90)

What's the difference between the various denominations of the
Christianity?  I'm curious as to why there are so many splinter
groups in the body of Christ?

mark

howard@53iss6.waterloo.ncr.com (Howard Steel) (07/05/90)

In article <Jul.2.01.32.39.1990.12006@athos.rutgers.edu> MARK@ucf1vm.cc.ucf.edu (Mark Woodruff) writes:
>What's the difference between the various denominations of the
>Christianity?  I'm curious as to why there are so many splinter
>groups in the body of Christ?

It is certainly entertaining to try and figure out how the mind of man works.
Someone will no doubt follow-up your article with names and dates to tell
you why their particular version of Christianity is the "right" one, so I will
just provide some musings.

Since the first major split in Christianity (Romans vs Gnostics; final score
1 - 0 Romans, Gostic writings were removed from the bible) the reasons have in
most cases been an attempt to gain power by specific individuals. This
statement is often upsetting to people, who feel that their sect was formed on
the basis of deep spiritual insite, but the fact is that certain individuals
who wanted change within the system, weren't getting it fast enough to meet
their needs and so were forced for political reasons to break away and head
(ever here of the founder of a new group becoming a follower :-)) their own
group. Whether or not you accept this reasoning is entirely your own business,
but the point is that most changes in the church have been political, rather
than spiritual. This is not to say that a spiritual component did not exist, it
many times did, but the change was either to slow or not well enough received
politically and that demanded segmentation. The prime example that comes to
mind is the Anglican (Episcopalian in the US) Church, (Romans vs Anglicans;
2 - 1 Romans kept the papacy and most of Europe, Anglicans gained a monarch).
On the whim of a monarch a whole segment of the church hierarchy went off
trying to come up with ways to justify his divorce of one woman over another.
Those that would allow it also had cotempuous views of the papacy and some
areas of disagreement in dogma.

	The problem is, if you as an individual disbelieve segments of dogma
you are in the least, misguided and at at worst a heretic. If you were a priest
or minister you would be removed from office. If you were a bishop then the
possibility arose that you could influence many others to your way of thinking,
and if you were a group of bishops, well you had the basis for a new religion.
You see these are political actions; the individual, the priest, the bishop,
all had a common denominator of dissatisfaction, but only the bishops were
well place enough to make a significant difference.

	By the way, it doesn't make them right. What keeps the churchs apart
today is habit. If you were born and raised in the United Church, then that is
way to do things and all the Catholic mumbo jumbo about saints and Virgins is
alien to you...you wouldn't mind them coming around to your way of thinking
but YOU certainly won't change. The other problem is that the Catholic church
still has its well defined papacy and the heads and power figures in other
sects wouldn't fit too well into the structure, and they aren't prepared to
make the sacrifice of becoming less significant. All the dogmatic difficulties
in the world aren't nearly as tough to overcome as the idea that you may
become sublimated and appear less powerful. If that issue is ever resolved,
then unity is just around the corner.



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[This seems like a pretty jaundiced view of inter-church relations.  I
think many Christians do not consider the lines between churches as
being as important as all that.  The Catholics are of course an
exception, since they believe that the unity of the body of Christ is
manifested in an organization.  However Protestants (particularly
American) have seen the body of Christ as something that transcends
organizational boundaries.  I feel no less communion with members of
other churches than my own.  My experience with bureacracies -- church
and otherwise -- does not suggest that a single church containing 90%
of the population of the U.S. would necessarily be a better witness to
Christ than the current situation.  Before people talk about how
terrible it is that we have so many churches, I'd like them to think
carefully about what it would mean to have a single church that
included almost the entire population.  Indeed I think such a
situation would be far more likely to lead to excessive confusion
between church and state, and it would tend to encourage leaders of
the organization to confuse their own decisions with God's.  --clh]

stq@cbnewsi.att.com (Scott T Questad) (07/05/90)

In article <Jul.2.01.32.39.1990.12006@athos.rutgers.edu>, MARK@ucf1vm.cc.ucf.edu (Mark Woodruff) writes:
> What's the difference between the various denominations of the
> Christianity?  I'm curious as to why there are so many splinter
> groups in the body of Christ?


The basic difference in Christian denominations is that different people
interpret scripture differently.  One example is baptism.  Some people
believe that only those who have professed faith in Jesus Christ should be
baptized.  Others believe that infants can be baptized.  That's just
one example.  Unfortunately, this sometimes degrades into an "I'm right and
you're wrong" situation.  All it really boils down to is a difference of
interpretation.  A true Christian is the brother of any other Christian
no matter what denomination they belong to; and they should act accordingly.
I have been blessed with the church I currently attend.  It's a Southern
Baptist Church, I'm from a Reformed (Reformed Episcopalian exactly) background
and I don't know of all that many real Southern Baptists in the church.  It's
great, though.  We have some VERY ineresting discussions, but two things we
keep in mind are that 1) we are not God and 2) we are brothers.  I think
that should be our attitude whenever we meet or talk with another Christian.


Scott Q

mmh@cs.qmw.ac.uk (Matthew Huntbach) (07/08/90)

In article <Jul.5.01.52.00.1990.177@athos.rutgers.edu> howard@53iss6.waterloo.ncr.com (Howard Steel) writes:
>Since the first major split in Christianity (Romans vs Gnostics; final score
>1 - 0 Romans, Gnostic
>writings were removed from the bible) the reasons have in
>most cases been an attempt to gain power by specific individuals.

There has been a lot of this recently. Since little is known
about the Gnostics, they have been idealised by modern writers.
What people say about the Gnostics usually has more to do with
themselves than what the Gnostics actually were.

The Gnostic writings are much later than the standard canonical
parts of the Bible, and do not reflect the Jesus we know
through the Bible. They are an attempt to graft various ideas
current at the time onto Christianity. They were not removed
from the Bible, they were never added to it because it was
obvious at the time that they weren't genuinely Christian, but
attempts to work Gnosticism into Christianity by putting
Gnostic words into Jesus' mouth.

Matthew Huntbach

jhpb@granjon.garage.att.com (07/13/90)

> What's the difference between the various denominations of
> Christianity?  I'm curious as to why there are so many splinter groups
> in the body of Christ?
>
> mark

One poster answered your question by saying that the reason for the
diversity is that there are different interpretations of Scripture.

Historically, though, that is only the explanation of the splits within
Protestantism, and does not address the original split between the
Reformers and the Roman Catholic Church.

That was not due to disagreement over Scripture interpretation, but over
the sources of Christian doctrine.  Schisms over varying interpretations
of Scripture are only possibly when there is no one authority with the
divine mandate to interpret Scripture.

The Reformers, during their attempt to correct the problems in the Roman
Catholic Church, ended up adopting a different model of the sources of
revealed truth.  The Reformers couldn't say that an infallible Church
fell into error; they stopped believing that the Church is infallible.

They adopted the Bible as their source of doctrine, but this is not an
objective source, as an infallible Church is.  So Protestantism has had
a lot of splintering.

The other major split, of little importance in daily life in this
country, is that between the Orthodox and the Catholics.  This dates, in
its final form, from 1054.  It was mainly for non-dogmatic reasons, so
the differences between Orthodox and Catholics are few.  Primarily two:
Papal jurisdiction over the whole Church, and the procession of the Holy
Ghost from the Father and the Son.  Liturgically and doctrinally, one
would have a hard time telling Orthodox from eastern rite Catholic
without knowing what to look for.

Joe Buehler

johnw@sag4.ssl.berkeley.edu (John Warren) (07/26/90)

In article <Jul.13.04.05.56.1990.11616@athos.rutgers.edu> jhpb@granjon.garage.att.com writes:
>
>The Reformers, during their attempt to correct the problems in the Roman
>Catholic Church, ended up adopting a different model of the sources of
>revealed truth.  The Reformers couldn't say that an infallible Church
>fell into error; they stopped believing that the Church is infallible.
>
>They adopted the Bible as their source of doctrine, but this is not an
>objective source, as an infallible Church is.  So Protestantism has had
>a lot of splintering.
>
>Joe Buehler

An infallible Church is an objective source?  It seems to me that something
written down once for all is much more objective than a bunch of archbishops
and popes whose ideas change over the centuries.  "But the Church  and 
Tradition are the living, breathing Word of God, more relevant for us
today," you might say.  Then again you might say, "The Church and Tradition 
are just ways to justify abuse and greed and power."  Now I'm not saying
that, and I for one don't like to question authority just because it
is authority.  I think the truth is somewhere in the middle, but I am
not convinced that a body of fallible humans is more infallible than
words written down.  Then you might say, "Who wrote these words?  Out of 
what context did they spring?  They came out of a Tradition of their own,
out of a community of their own.  What came first, the chicken or the egg?"

And now I see that my own thoughts have opened up a can of worms worth 
reams of paper and many hours on the net, so I'll stop for now.

[I think what Joe meant is that in practice the Bible alone has been
interpreted in many different ways.  If you want absolute truth, you
need some way to find the correct interpretation.  The infallible
Church is claimed to provide that.  Without it the Bible becomes
subjective because it becomes subject to everybody's private
interpretation.  --clh]

jhpb@granjon.garage.att.com (08/08/90)

    An infallible Church is an objective source?  It seems to me that something
    written down once for all is much more objective than a bunch of archbishops
    and popes whose ideas change over the centuries.  "But the Church  and 

Since the Church is infallible, once it decides something, the decision
can't be changed.  Clerics, no matter how highly placed, are only
allowed to argue about things that haven't been decided.

The canons of Vatican I, Trent, and the definitions of the Assumption
and the Immaculate Conception have been written down once for all, as
you point out that the Bible has.  They can't be changed any more than
the Bible can.

A principal difference between Reformation theology and Catholic
theology is that there is a way in the Catholic Church to decide, once
and for all, what the meaning of a particular part of the Bible is.

The system of the Reformers, on the other hand, has no way to reach
unanimous agreement on the meaning of any given verse.

That's all I was talking about.

Joe Buehler