OK. Explain what the hell is the different between each Christian practice

[Hawkeye-X]

such as what the hell is the difference between:

Lutherans
Episcopalians
Catholic
Baptist
UU
Unification Church


You know what I'm talking about. I'm Jewish, and I can't even tell what church to look at in disdain...

Hawkeye-X

[efhmc]

1. As a Lutheran, I can tell you that there is a HUGE difference between

the Missouri Synod Lutheran (still doesn't "ALLOW" women pastors) and the ELC (has had Gay churches for quite a spell and now is set to officially recognize them.). That's the only one I have real info about.

[FlashHarry]

2. Well, since you've already made up your mind...

...I don't really see the point of your finding out the difference: ..I can't even tell what church to look at in disdain

If you're serious, why not try to do a little research. You could start by Googling each denomination; that might turn something up...

[Hawkeye-X]

9. Oh. I already know what to look in disdain..

Ultra-Orthodox and Hasdic sects. Most of them act like they own the world and probably voted for *.

I am an modern Orthodox which allows for flexibility in the laws of the Torah. My parents are the same way.

However, my uncle is a Conservative (and is a Republican himself), BUT, most Conservatives allows for women and men to sit together and read both English and Hebrew, which I accept. This is needed for the deaf as well.

Reform allows for women to become rabbis, which I have no problem accepting as well. I've actually met one while i was in Hebrew school, and she's very nice.

Messanic Judasim is false Judasim - they preach "Jews for Jesus", which is against the Torah (you may not serve other gods than Hashem). I see them all the time on campus, and I've had frequent fights with them to stop lying about being Jewish and for Jesus too. My parents has warned me about them -- they are trying to lure Jewish deaf to this, and I've had warnings from Our-Way NCSY about them as well, so I heed on them as well as my wife. I recently kicked out a signing Jehovah's Witness from my abode because of this and asked her not to return.

What I mean, by looking at churches in disdain -- I'm talking about fundamentalist churches -- we have Fundy Colorado Springs which seem to be heavily Baptist.

Hawkeye-X

[FlashHarry]

20. Well, speaking as an Episcopalian...

...I can say we're anything but fundamentalist. The Episcopal Church is part of the Worldwide Anglican Communion, which emanates from the Church of England and Canterbury. As such, it tends to be somewhat traditionalistic and conservative (by which, I mean that their churches look like churches and their priests look like priests), but hardly fundamentalist. In fact, they ordained women into the priesthood thirty years ago; they allow priests to marry; and they accept birth control and homosexuality--in most cases; some apparently have a problem with gay bishops; most do not).

[TrogL]

33. In terms of dogma

Anglicans tend to "stop the clock" earlier than most other Christian derivatives. This is generally thought to be around the time of the Second council of Nicaea in 787. Hence Anglicans consider most of the "improvements" of the Roman Catholic Church (insultingly called the Romish church) to be heresy and Luther to be a newbie.

[FlashHarry]

37. Hence this quote from Richard Hooker

(Referring to the schism with Rome): "We differ only in that Rome is in error."

[Bake]

45. That's interesting, given the historical/political origin

of the Church of England. Henry VIII and all. I'm not putting the Anglicans down, by any stretch. We all have our little idiosyncrasies (and hey, I'm a SOUTHERN BAPTIST -- though you wouldn't know it if I didn't tell you! The truth is, I was raised and educated as a Baptist, and I'm too Baptist to be anything else but too liberal to be Baptist anymore.).

Bake

[Rowdyboy]

66. You might be surprised...

Our priest was a Baptist minister until he and his first wife divorced. He was expelled from his church, went to seminary and has been an Episcopal priest for 20 years now. Bringing the best of other religions to the Episcopal church through converts has kept us vibrant.

[Cheswick2.0]

3. since you are Jewish

why not just examine the differences between the jewish sects and start a thread about that? Surely there are some jews you could look at with disdain. Since you already have some knowledge about jews your brain wouldn't be as highly taxed.

[Dookus]

4. Unitarians...

knock on your door on sunday mornings for no particular reason.

;)

[ulysses]

8. that's a Unitarian crossed with a Jehovah's Witness

:)

[Bake]

18. Good one!

Bake

[LynneSin]

5. You have to look at the major sects

Which the main 2 would be Catholics and Protestants. From those 2 major sect come the minor divsions such as the ones you've listed.

Catholic Church is filled with much Dogma and of course, the fact that you cannot speak directly to God, but through someone who will intervene for you whether it's a priest or a saint that you pray to. Protestants do not have much of the dogma associated with Catholism and you can pray directly to God/Jesus.

As for the various protestant groups, it's just a different method of how they worship. I was born and raised a Methodist and we got our name because of the "Method" of how the founders of our religion worshiped. It seemed that Methodists (Founded by John Wesley) had set ways of how to worship, how to pray, how to run a service and hence the nickname of the "Methodists". Ironically, even though that idiot in the White House himself calls himself a Methodist, our religion is one of the more progressive ones out there. We're not talking Quakers or Unitarians, but the Methodist Church as a whole including the leaders did oppose the War.

However, Methodists were not liberal enough for my tastes which is why I have been attending Quaker meetings.

[Hawkeye-X]

10. Thanks LynneSin

That was what I was looking for - great differences!

As I remember, Nixon was a Quaker himself....

:evilgrin:

Hawkeye-X

[bloom]

58. Actually - within Quakerism...

There are three branches:

* Friends General Conference
* Friends United Meeting
* Evangelical Friends International

http://quaker.info/links.html#qo


The Friends General Conference is the liberal one. I've heard a wiccan is the clerk of at least one meeting. It can be THAT liberal.

The other two are rather conservative (more Biblically based - Christ centered - have problems with homosexuals in the church - that sort of thing).

P.S. I meant to add: there are also independents that may vary in whatever direction.

[bookman]

15. Not true

I'm can't believe I'm defending the Catholic Church, but the statement about the fact that you cannot speak directly to God, but through someone who will intervene for you whether it's a priest or a saint that you pray to is not true.

In fact it's taught that God knows your innermost thoughts. I think the Priest/Saint thing is Protestant propaganda.

Of course now I don't think anyone is entitled to speak to God without going through John Ashcroft.

[LynneSin]

26. To be honest, I'm not Catholic - so maybe you can do a better job at it

I just know that the original post wanted to know what the difference is between a bunch of religions and I still believe it's best to describe just the differences between Catholics and Protestants.

I don't know much about Catholism except from an outsider with catholic friends and they were always praying to saints and fussy over who could and could not take communion (as a Methodist if you believe you can take communion even those who are not Methodist and this is pretty much the same for most protestant faiths that practice communion).

My apologies, wasn't meant to insult anyone!

[roguevalley]

75. BWAHAHAHAA! John Asscroft. :)

Personally, I don't want to look at ANY religion with disdain. Sometimes I do. This whole Jews for Jesus thing has soured you on the rest of us. I HATE JEWS FOR JESUS! What a buncha. As for the rest of us, it runs the gamut.

I would disdain fools: judgmental people of all deominations and faiths who believe God is their wholly owned subsidiary, 'messiahs' such as P. Robinson, Idiot face Falwell and that stripe. They are false gods themselves, the bastards. They give our demoninations, especially the Baptists a bad name. Not all Baptists are like them. Consider that Jimmy Carter lived his faith and left them, a wrenching terrible decision because he couldn't reconcile his faith to their hatred and politics.

There are good groups in all denominations: the Little Sisters for Jesus go with the carnies and circuses, helping them. Lots of nuns volunteer to test vaccines when they come available-there are nuns who will contract AIDS when the vaccine comes up. There are good Unitarians, people of faith who chain themselves to fences of nuclear reactors, run the government's wrath to be human shields, work quietly for the care and health and well being of the poor and all of it is quiet, the way it should be. You can hardly hear the good things they do around the barkers, shills and carnie bastards that go on TV all the time to spew their spew.

Hassidics, I don't understand. But I suppose its my job to educate myself about them. Then if I 'disdain', at least it isn't from ignorance.

People gravitate to holiness where it exists. The Dahli Lama is a holy man. I respect greatly his faith and practices. I am sure they have their skeletons too but their witness, if you will, is holy to me. I also respect people of no apparent faith who put themselves out for the good. The lady in Myanmar is a hero to me and a spiritual person. I don't know if she 'belongs' to a religion but she's showing us all how to live.

The Pope and I go up and down. But when he said to someone that Bush was the anti-Christ in his mind and he wished he was younger and stronger to fight him, he became my man on that score. You see, it doesn't have to be an either/or proposition. :)

If you look for bad, you'll find it. Same with Jews, Buddhists,
Hindus and Christians. Muslims aren't exempt. Look at the stuff that has co-opted their beliefs and practices and brought a great religion to such a place. Frankly, I think we're all a bit nuts now.

Religion should bring peace. I hope yours does. A lot of people get comfort from sitting in someone's church and thinking. I did when my mom was getting her eyes operated on this week. I sat in Holy Family Cathedral in Anchorage and talked to God. I'm not Catholic but I felt peaceful.If that is what it means to be religious, then I guess I am because I have never been to a sermon that makes me feel more peaceful and calmed spiritually than I get from just going into someone's church, temple or cathedral and sitting with my own thoughts. Sometimes you can really feel something with you in a place that has heard so many prayers spoken with such truth and conviction by so many people.

I hope you do learn something about the religions of others. I'm sorry that some Christians want to harass you. Such is the world, unfortunately. They don't represent me.

Hugs,

RV, a non-denominational Protestant and a Jew <Truly> <The westward movement may have stripped the religion from my granny when she finally came to California and found no temple, but it still means I'm a Jew. All hail matriachies.> :)

[trof]

40. Methodists sprinkle, Baptists dunk.

I think that's why they're called "baptists", full immersion baptism?
And I think it's silly.
No offense.

[Bake]

47. Which one? Sprinkling or dunking?

Heck, I'll go you one better. Some "dunkers" believe that baptism must be performed in RUNNING water (like a river), since if the water isn't running, the sins that got washed off when you "went under" get right back on you when you come up out of the water.

Bake

[trof]

51. I'm going to hell.

I was baptised in a waist deep wading pool sort of thing in the church sanctuary.
p.s. It didn't take.

[HereSince1628]

6. This is obviously flame bait.

,

[Hawkeye-X]

11. It's not actually..

Maybe "looking in disdain" didn't come out the way I was hoping to get an answer, but rather trying to understand which churches tend to be fundamentalist....


Hawkeye-X

[HereSince1628]

12. Yeah, sure, I think I recognize an anti-gentile posting when I see it

I can't imagine getting away with stating that one or more of the Judaic sects deserves disdain.

[Cheswick2.0]

44. okay, lets see

though there will be many people here who disagree with me I will try to make some sense of this.

Being fundamentalist is not in and of itself a bad thing (except if you think people are not entitled to think what they like), it doesn't even always make you right wing or conservative. Bill Clinton, Al Gore and Jimmy Carter are all Baptists. Baptists tend to be fundamentalist. The thing is that different branches are different in each denomination.

For instance I am a member of Presbyterian USA. There are other branches of the Presbyterians who are very conservative both liturgically and politically. They are the reformed Presbyterians and the American Presbyterians (I think that is their title). I would stop being a Presbyterian and become a Methodist rather than join either of those branches because I just do not agree with them.

However I would not disparage their religious beliefs or practices. Think of it this way. You probably know people who keep Kosher, or maybe you keep Kosher. You probably don't have a problem with people choosing to keep Kosher or not. However if a small group of Orthodox Jews started to infiltrate politics so to make everyone in the country keep Kosher, then you might object to people disdaining the idea of keeping Kosher rather than just saying "Keeping the dietary laws are fine for those who want to, however it isn't right for one small group to make everyone live with their religious beliefs".

You might get annoyed if people here wanted to know why Jewish kids get the high holy days off from school (separation of church and state) or talked about how deluded it was to follow Jewish dietary laws. You might be annoyed at the least if there were threads all about "leave it to the Jews to find a way to make the Kosher section in the grocery store bigger, you know it's all about money". You might not like it if people wanted to know which Jews they should disdain rather than which politics to disdain.

[roguevalley]

76. all of them can be fundamentalist.

you have to read them and find the ones that are the most open. not all baptists are fundamentalist and not all fundamentalists are baptists. I think having the 'nooze media' always talking to
Pat/Jerry/Satan makes it seem that they are.

[roguevalley]

77. all of them can be fundamentalist.

you have to read them and find the ones that are the most open. not all baptists are fundamentalist and not all fundamentalists are baptists. I think having the 'nooze media' always talking to
Pat/Jerry/Satan makes it seem that they are.

[efhmc]

16. Really. I thought he/she was just interested.

[Hawkeye-X]

29. I *am* interested

Don't worry about it. This is an interesting to know the difference in their opinions. All religion is represented in here. We all are unified in one thing: ABB.

:grouphug:

Hawkeye-X

[Misinformed01]

7. Lutherans shop

at the liquor store.

Episcopalians should buy stock in the liquor store.

Catholics own liquor store franchises.

Baptists sneak to the liquor store.

The Unitarian Universalists pass the liquor store on the way to the natural food store to buy their herbal remedies.

I have no idea what the Moonies are doing; I have never met one.

Does that help?

[efhmc]

13. Funny. At my church in Houston, no one was suppose to have liquor on

church property but we had a lot in back of the church where the men did bbq. There they indulged heavily in "German soda pop", aka beer. No one ever cared, especially not our yankee pastor who thought it was great as long as they came up with a good product.

[Scurrilous]

41. The Moonies ....

..sell flowers on the corner next to the liquor store.

[Misinformed01]

43. Shut up! That's them?

I will look for them tonight!

Weirdly, one other thing I have noticed...not sure how accurate this is, but Catholics seem to hit the vodka....Episcopals seem to go straight for the bourbon.

Interesting.

[TrogL]

57. Anglicans are into wine

Catholics don't get any

[efhmc]

49. That's good. I can do my flower and wine shopping for my guests at

the same location.

[Bake]

54. They refer to us as "Back Door Baptists"

As in, slipping in/out the back door of the liquor store so your fellow church members don't see you.

:-)

Bake

[regnaD kciN]

63. What the Moonies are doing...

I have no idea what the Moonies are doing; I have never met one.

Writing for the Washington Times.

:evilgrin:

[supernova]

14. Presbyterians

It's not so much a point of doctrine. We do have a particular style of self-government, much like the US government.

- local church is run by elected Elders + minister. Minister reports to:

- Presbytery - a local district of 100 churches. Elders and ministers attend those meetings. If you want to become a Presby minister, you must have this body sponsor/guide you. Presbytery goes to:

- General Assembly - This is the National Gathering. Used to be held yearly but for cost saving will now by biannual. The National Moderator, the head of Presby Church USA, is elected at this forum. edit: Resolutions or changes of doctrine that are voted on here, get referred to the presbyteries for up or down vote.

Points of doctrine are researched, discussed, sometimes ad infinitum, and then VOTED ON. It's a very participitory kind of thing.

[Bake]

17. Impossible to do in a post.

You'd have to look it up. The answer would take thousands of words and hours to write/read. I can safely say, however, that you can cross the Unification Church off the list; I think I'm safe in saying it has nothing to do with any of the others on your list.

For a really quick, worth-almost-nothing summary, Lutherans, Baptists, and Episcopalians are part of the Protestant tradition, i.e., they (or their forebears) broke off from the Catholic Church in the 16th Century. The Lutherans trace back to Martin Luther, who articulated 95 points of contention with the Catholic Church at that time. Episcopalians date back to the reign of Henry VIII in England, who got upset when the Pope refused to grant him a divorce, so he and his buddies started the Church of England, which spawned the Episcopal Church in the U.S. Some Baptists claim to date back to the first century A.D./C.E. (they call it the "trail of blood" as in, the blood of the martyrs), but the more normal view is that the Baptist tradition drew on the work of Calvin and Zwingli in the 1600's in Europe and some migrated to America later on.

The Unitarian/Universalists are just happy to be here.

Baptists and SOME Lutherans might be considered "fundamentalists". Episcopalians typically are not. You left out a whole slew of denominations such as the Presbyterians, Christian Church, Church of God, Assembly of God, Church of Christ, etc. etc. ad infinitum.

Bake

[FlashHarry]

24. Well-put.

Don't forget the Anabaptists and Seventh Day Adventists!

[Hawkeye-X]

32. I didn't leave anything out.

I just want people to input in everything... I know there's like half a jillion of different demoninations.

Just wanted to know the difference from one another. :)

I even left out Mormons (the Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter-day Saints)

Hawkeye-X

[Bucky]

38. Great summary, but...

This was a classic:
. The Unitarian/Universalists are just happy to be here.

Indeed, we are.

[Bake]

48. I hope you didn't take that as a diss

I meant it as a compliment, as in, UU's don't get all worked up about doctrinal or liturgical differences, they're just happy to get together as a community and share the love.

Peace!

Bake

[blondeatlast]

64. That was my take on it, and indeed I am.

[regnaD kciN]

65. Soemwaht off, in terms of Episcopalians...

For a really quick, worth-almost-nothing summary, Lutherans, Baptists, and Episcopalians are part of the Protestant tradition, i.e., they (or their forebears) broke off from the Catholic Church in the 16th Century. The Lutherans trace back to Martin Luther, who articulated 95 points of contention with the Catholic Church at that time. Episcopalians date back to the reign of Henry VIII in England, who got upset when the Pope refused to grant him a divorce, so he and his buddies started the Church of England, which spawned the Episcopal Church in the U.S.

Episcopalians consider themselves as being both "Catholic" and "reformed."

As to how Anglicanism became separate: Henry VIII didn't ask for a divorce but for an annulment, on the grounds that he (while still quite young) had been forced to marry his late brother's widow in order to preserve an English-Spanish alliance. Such a marriage would have been unlawful under Church law of the time, but a prior Pope had issued a dispensation at that time. Henry's claim was that such a law could not have been set aside, even by a Pope.

Actually, it is quite possible that the new Pope might have gone along with Henry's request, except for the inconvenient fact that his would-be-ex-Queen's nephew had his troops occupying the Papal lands, so instead of saying "yes" or "no," the pontiff attempted to simply stall the procedure indefinitely, until Henry ran out of patience.

The BIG difference here is, at that point, the Bishops of the English Church elected to tell the Vatican that they, as the English Church, were not going along with Papal jurisdiction any more. In other words, the entire Church in England "seceeded" from Rome, but continued to operate as the ongoing Catholic Church in the British Isles. Hence, the clergy, liturgies, etc. remained the same (although the language of services was changed and the requirement of priestly celibacy was dropped). In particular, the "apostolic succession" of bishops was maintained, and the sacraments were continued as before.

This is distinct from so-called "Protestant" churches, where generally a group of dissenters walked out of the Roman Church and created their own brand new church out of whole cloth, with new doctrines, orders of ministry, ceremonies, and so on.

[Hubert Flottz]

19. Something to do with copperheads or rattlesnakes I think!

Or who has the biggest Buick!

[Bake]

42. They call it taking up the serpent

It comes from one line in the New Testament (I want to say it's in Mark, but I'm not sure) about "they shall take up the serpent and not be harmed." Which is illustrative of the origin of a lot of smaller denominations: their founders picked up on one idea, or one practice, and built a following around it. Some churches (usually rural, fundamentalist, and charismatic) practice snake handling. Yep. Rattlers, copperheads, you name it, as long as it's poisonous. To survive a bite is considered a mark of faith in those groups.

The story goes of a traveling evangelist and musician who visited a certain church, and toward the end of the worship service, one of the elders brought in a box of rattlers. The musician quickly counted the number of snakes in the box, and the number of people in the congregation, and noted that there weren't enough snakes to go around, so he wanted everybody to know that "there ain't a greedy bone in my body!" When one of the elders approached him with a serpent, he quickly asked his partner, "Where's the back door?" The answer, "There ain't one." To which the musician asked, "Reckon where do they WANT one????"

(That's just a little joke I heard in seminary.)

Bake

[Hubert Flottz]

69. I know some of these people!

They Jam! Electric insterments and drums and all! They get all glassy eyed on something and rock and roll! I've been to a snake handler service and it's a trip! I sat directly beside the back door and when they opened the box of snakes I was outside real fast! They were passing big rattlers around and sticking them up in each other's faces! People were rolling on the floor and saying things that I couldn't understand!

The Preacher had been my school bus driver when I was a kid! His entire family was there getting crazy with him! Their eyes were glazed over like people on LSD! There were signs everywhere inside that said they were not responsible for snake bites! I'd been working next door and heard the loud music, so I went to check it out! Their church was in an old warehouse!

It was summertime so the door was open and a crowd of locals watched from outside the door! I watched from out there too after the snakes came out of that wooden box! These were four and five foot timber rattlers and BIG copperheads! I wish I'd had a video camera back then, but it would have been a shakey film for sure!

[roguevalley]

78. I saw a documentary on these folks and they are something

else. Some die but most don't. They even drink cianyde. <SP>
They allowed their drink to be tested and there was enough in
it to kill people but they didn't die. Amazing, eh? :)

[demigoddess]

21. I went to a lot of different protestant churches growing up and I can say

That most of the protestants argue over whether Jesus was divine or merely the son of god. Also most of them disliked catholics like crazy. THe baptists said that the pope was out to rule the US. I liked the lutheran services they were alot like the catholic observances except no pope involved. Episcopalians are like rich catholics , but the ones I know believe the end of the world was in 1989 or 90. Also the protestants cant seem to stand the idea of live and let live. Some that I went to church with wanted to kill someone for being an atheist. If you want a religion that makes sense, try paganism.

[Bake]

31. I beg to differ

Most Protestant churches believe in the divinity of Jesus Christ; most would accept the Apostles' Creed (except for the line about "one holy catholic church" -- catholic in that usage meant "universal" or "all-encompassing", not "Roman Catholic").

Protestants differ over doctrinal questions like the "perseverance of the saints," limited or universal atomenment, predestination/free will, etc. What really gets 'em going, however, is matters of practice and governance: infant baptism v. "believer's baptism", how (and how often) to observe Communion, congregational v. hierarchical governance, etc.

Bake

[TrogL]

39. Episcopalians are not 'end timers'

The 'world has already ended' meme is gnostic. It has nothing to do with Anglicanism.

[Cheswick2.0]

50. on edit

never mind, not worth the effort.

[Rowdyboy]

22. Episcopalians are DEFINITELY not fundamentalists...

As a group, we're socially liberal, with female and gay priests. We recently elected a Bishop who is in a longterm gay relationship. We're very involved in feeding programs, AIDS support groups, and caring for afterschool kids for poor working mothers.

[FlashHarry]

25. Absolutely! N/T

[jburton]

23. Also depends on urban/suburban/rural

For example, a Methodist church in the middle of Dallas (or any other major city) is a whole lot more progressive than a Methodist church in West Pork Chop. Still the same denomination, but different leadership/congregation.

I would assume this goes for the other denominations as well, my experience is in the United Methodist Church.

[Interrobang]

27. A long metaphor for you to help explain things!

Think of Protestantism, Catholicism, and the other non-Protestant/non-Catholic denominations as analogous to the movements in Judaism. Of course, this is a metaphor, and not an exact comparison, so there are areas where the metaphor doesn't work. The areas where it does, however, might help you to understand how those other other guys over there (she says, opting out of either) live. Deal?

In many ways, the evangelical, charismatic (non-C/non-P-identifying) Christian types (the kind who don't identify with any denomination, necessarily, or the fundamentalists) are similar to the Chasid: They're definitely outside the mainstream, they're very fundamentalist (!), and they do a lot of missionary work (I have heard of a lot of Baaley Teshuvah who wind up in the Chasidic fold, anyway).

The Catholics are most similar to the Orthodox: They're the oldest of the denominations, very rigid and traditional, inclined to be (socially) conservative (although not always; don't take that as a slur, please), and they carry the weight of centuries of tradition/practice within their doctrine and practice.

Episcopalians (Anglicans), Lutherans (in most cases), Methodists, Uniteds (United Church of Canada), and other mainstream Protestant denominations would be most similar to the Conservative movement: They're less old than the Catholic Church (they date only from the Reformation), they're a little more liberal in practice (not necessarily in the political/social liberalism sense, just "less stringent"), and tend to be more liberal socially (although, again, that varies), and so on.

The extremely liberal groups like the Quakers would probably be most closely analogous to a Reconstructionist Reform point of view.

Groups like the Unification Church would be most analogous to Jews For Jesus or the Satmar Chasidim: They're freaky cultish hangers-on who are always making trouble and giving (your) religion a bad name, while not practicing it any way you'd recognize as being acceptable, that you just wish would go the hell away.

As to the disdain, save it for places where it really needs to go. Not all organized religions are bad, and not all denominations/movements are intrinsically or inherently bad, either. Me, I'm a religious conscientious objector, but I'm striving to be a real Apikoros (that is, I'm studying that which I reject!). That's why I was able to make this comparison. ;-)

Enjoy!

[FlashHarry]

34. Where do the Crown Heights Lubavitchers fit in?

I heard that some of them thought their Rabbi (who died a few years ago) was the Messiah!

[Bucky]

28. "disdain"

HawkeyeX tells us:
You know what I'm talking about. I'm Jewish, and I can't even tell what church to look at in disdain

Here's a thought... try not looking at anyone else's religious views "in disdain." All thought policing sucks, even if you're disdaining people I disagree with too.

If you want a quick explication of sundry Christian sects, get an encyclopedia. If you just want to rag on someone, make fun of Republicans instead.

[FlashHarry]

30. Well-put! Welcome to DU!

:hi:

[Cheswick2.0]

52. hey Bucky

bucky is what I call men when I want to be annoying, as in "get it bucky". Now I guess I will have to stick to Skippy or Biff. Welcome to DU. :hi:

[bloom]

59. I think plenty of Christians on this board "disdain" the religious right

Why shouldn't a non-christian try to figure out what is being discussed?

[smirkymonkey]

35. Go to beliefnet.com...

and hit explore Belifnet - it gives a rundown of each religion. It's non-denominational (apparently) and is a good source of information for spiritual and religious matters.

[Hawkeye-X]

36. Bookmarked

Will do. Thanks! :thumbsup:

[TrogL]

46. 7th day Adventists

are the 'end of the world' crowd along with a few others (Jehovah's Witnesses?)

They looked pretty stupid in the 1940's when they (repeatedly?) predicted the end of the world and absolutely nothing happened.

[mcar]

53. Check out beliefnet.com

They have information about nearly every organized and not-so-organized religion out there!

[leftofthedial]

55. well, I'm no theologian, but I'll give it a shot

Lutherans cover the gamut from "every word of the Bible is the literal word of God" to "just have fun and don't hurt anybody and if you believe in Jesus you'll go to heaven."

Episcopalians are the country club's religion auxiliary.

Catholics believe that feeling guilty for your entire life about everything you do is not nearly long enough and so you must feel guilty for awhile even after you die.

Baptists believe if you talk about hellfire and brimstone loudly enough while you're alive, you won't have to face hellfire and brimstone after you die.

UU and Unification Church don't appear to really believe anything specific as far as I can tell, except that they can't stand it when a DU post includes words like "myth" or "fable."

Hope that helps.

[Blue_Chill]

61. Ah yes Catholic guilt

The belief that no matter what you do you are a sinner thus you must repent. A step in repenting is guilt. Thus we are always made to feel guilty.

[leftofthedial]

74. my best friend in the world (a devout Catholic)

loved that definition when I told it to him.

I'm truly sorry if it offended.

[trof]

62. Is it time for this yet?

Or not?
;-)

[regnaD kciN]

67. Oh, that's just GREAT...

...next, why don't you turn your keen eye on ethnic differences and tell us how Jews are money-obsessed, Asians inscrutable, and African-Americans just want all the white women?

:puke:

[leftofthedial]

73. huh?

I thought we were all after the white women.

[On the Road]

56. The Easiest Way for Me to Think of Them is by When and How They Split

Many of the differences are accidents or effects. The splits that exist today often survived because they were picked by certain countries or groups. Many churches have fundamentalist and liberal wings, although it varies. From my layman's memory, here are some highlights:

After the Roman Empire became Chrisitian (4th C), the first major split was between the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox church (which include Greek, Russian, Ukranian, etc) in 1066. As I understand it, the pope was one of 12 "metropolitan bishops." The Catholics broke over the belief that the Pope should be supreme.

Luther (16thC) broke from Rome and took a lot of northern Europe with him (now Lutherans). Many of his issues had to do with the Church's misuse of power and the belief that each person should have a direct relationship to God.

Calvinist churches (Presbyterian, Congregational, and "Reformed") also came out of Luther's reformation, but followed a very specific purist theology obsessed with the idea that a person was predestined to be either saved or damned.

Anglicans (Episcopalians in the US) broke from Catholicism at the time of Henry VIII more over personal politics than religious doctrine. I've never understood Anglicanism very well -- there are both Catholic and Calvinist influences, and varies a lot between high church and low church.

The Methodist and Wesleyan churches came out of the Anglican church in England in the late 17thC. John Wesley led mass rallies and revivials for the working classes which were forerunners of revivals today. Methodists were big on doing good works -- they also sent "circuit rider" missionaries to the American frontier. Parts of the Methodist church developed into the Holiness and Pentecostal churches in the 19th and 20thC.

Baptists came from the Anabapists of Europe, who were into religious experiences and special revelation from God, and were persecuted in Europe. There's now the largest US denomination, primarily fundamentalist. The Quakers, started by John Fox (?), were a specific group that fell under the broad Anabaptist umbrella.

Pentecostals believe that after becoming a Christian, a person should receive the "baptism of the Holy Spirit" and practice the "gifts of the spirit" Paul describes in 1 Corinthians. These include speaking in tongues, prophecy, and healing (and yes, they are encouraged in Paul's letters). Pentecostal churches started in the early 20th C, but in the 1960's and 70's Penecostal beliefs (the "charistmatic movement") started to spread in many other churches.

Anyway, that's a start.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

60. Let's take an evolutionary point of view

The still-extant varieties of Christianity may be described in family tree form.

Until about 1100, there was only one Christian church, although there were Western and Eastern variations in the actual ceremonies and customs. Around 1100, the Western (headquartered at Rome) and the Eastern (headquartered at Constantinople) split, becoming the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches. This is known as the Great Schism.

Some differences between the Catholics and Eastern Orthodox: the Catholics allow statues and instrumental music in church, while the Orthodox do not. Catholic priests are not allowed to marry, while Orthodox priests may marry if they do so before ordination. Until 1963, Catholic masses were basically alike everywhere in the world, and conducted in Latin. The Orthodox church had distinct national varieties (Russian, Greek, Syrian, Armenian, etc.) with the services conducted in the ethnic language. Both churches baptize infants, but the Catholics merely sprinkle the water on the baby's forehead, while the Orthodox dunk the baby in the font. There are other differences, but you get the idea.

The Roman Catholic church became very hierarchical, authoritarian, and in league with the rich and powerful, and there were some early rebellions against this, but most of the rebels ended up dead. The first successful rebellion was by Martin Luther, who criticized the practice of "indulgences," financing church building projects by selling certificates that supposedly got one into heaven. He insisted that salvation was by faith alone.

A bit later, John Calvin of Switzerland also revolted against the Catholic church. He took a different tack than Luther did, insisting that since God was all-powerful and all-knowing, everyone was predestined for either heaven or hell.

At the time Henry VIII split off from Rome over his marital problems, both Lutheran and Calvinist ideas were current among intellectuals in England. In those days, people were required to practice the religion of their monarch, so the English were whipsawed between Calvinism (under the influence of young Edward VI's advisor's), Catholicism (Mary), and Anglicanism (Elizabeth). But all in all, the Anglicans (known as Episcopalians in the U.S. and Scotland) ended up closer to the Lutherans in theology than they are to the Calvinists.

Okay, so now we have four brances, the Orthodox, the Roman Catholics, the Lutheran-types, and the Calvinist-types.

The Calvinist types evolved into the Presbyterians and Congregationalists. The Puritans started out as the Calvinist wing of the Church of England, and evolved into the Congregationalists (now known as the United Church of Christ) in the U.S. The most liberal Puritans evolved into Unitarians (believe that God is one and that Jesus was just a prophet) and Universalists (believe that everyone goes to heaven). The Unitarians and Universalists united a couple of decades ago.

One of the main differences between the Lutherans and Episcopalians, speaking as one who has been both, is that the Lutherans tended to come from various non-English-speaking European countries, such as Germany, the Scandinavian countries, or the Baltic States. Both are pretty liberal nowadays, although that doesn't include the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod and the Wisconsin Synod (both of which have churches all over the country), who are a strange combination. In terms of doctrine and politics, they could easily get along with the fundamentalists, but they tend to have a very ceremonial style of worship, which doesn't set well with the "contemporary Christian music" crowd.

The Methodists began as the revivalist wing of the Church of England in the eighteenth century. They grew during the nineteenth century by sending missionaries to the pioneer settlements across the U.S. However, most of them are no longer fundamentalists.

Oh, and how could I have forgotten the Baptists. They ultimately grew out of a group in Germany called the Anabaptists, which arose about the same time as Luther and Calvin. (I guess rebellion was in the air.) Their identifying belief was that infant baptism was not valid and that only someone old enough to make a personal commitment should be baptized. The Anabaptists who stayed in Germany became the Mennonites and the Amish, but most of them eventually emigrated to America. The English-speaking people who adopted Anabaptist ideas were known as Baptists.

The state of Rhode Island was founded by Roger Williams, a Baptist minister. Ironically, he was a staunch believer in religious freedom, unlike some of the fundamentalists today. He welcomed Jews, Quakers, and others who were persecuted in the Puritan-dominated colonies. Not all Baptists are fundamentalists, though. The American Baptist Church is very liberal. I lived in a small town in Oregon where the American Baptist minister enraged the Southern Baptist minister by performing a wedding ceremony for a gay couple.

The Mormons, Jehovah's Witnesses, Seventh-Day Adventists, and Christian Science all arose in the nineteenth-early twentieth century in the U.S.

The Pentecostals emphasize "receiving the Holy Spirit." Their speaking in tongues and other supposed manifestations of possession by the Holy Spirit have been observed by anthropologists and linguists to be identical to the trances experienced in voodoo and other religions around the world--although I doubt that they would want to hear that.

The Unification Church is a law unto itself and is not recognized as Christian by most Christian groups. It was founded in Korea in the 1960s and teaches that Sun Myung Moon is the new Messiah.

If you see a church without a denominational name on it and it looks rather new, or if it says Such-and-Such Community Church, it's likely to be fundamentalist or Pentecostal, or at least evangelical.

Both the fundamentalists and the evangelicals emphasize the "born again" experience, but the evangelicals are less likely to insist that the Bible is literally true. The mainstream denominations do NOT believe that the Bible is literally true.

I hope that this thumb nail sketch of 2,000 years of church history has been helpful.

[Rowdyboy]

68. I'm incredibly impressed...

Your analysis is absolutely excellent! It clearly deliniates the "family tree" of the church in an objective, understandable form. While I "knew" everything you said, I could not possibly have put my thoughts together as well. You have my admiration.

Knowing you're an Episcopalian (from an earlier thread) makes me proud of my denomination and how we represent ourselves publically.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

70. Thank you!

My father was a Lutheran pastor and very much into church history. When we went to Europe when I was in high school, it was essentially a "church history" tour. Couple that with my longtime fascination with reading about history in general and my dad's extensive library of books on church history and world religions. Given those factors, I just kind of absorbed all of this information.

[Kat45]

71. Very interesting. But I'm guessing the evolution continued.

I belong to a Congregational church, and it is totally devoid of any Calvinist predestination thinking. It's pretty much dogma-free. Except for the most basic of Christian beliefs, no particular beliefs are required. Although there is an umbrella church, a central church if you will, its decisions are more "suggestions" than requirements. Each congregation is responsible for itself; the members of the individual church are the leaders of said church. Votes of the membership are what make the decisions for the church. The members hire/fire the minister. A very democratic institution, not what is usually thought of when thinking of a church.

[FloridaJudy]

72. UU (Unitarian Universalist) Here

Notice my icon?

Believe me, we UU's *are* different. We may have started out as a heretic Christian religion (in Transylvania - the home of Vlad the Impaler, no less!), but we've gone much, much further. Our predecessors held the peculiar notion that the Trinity - Father, Son, and Holy Ghost - were simply different aspects of the same Diety.

That was a radical enough position for a bunch of medieval Christians to take, but we took it further: if Father, Son and Holy Ghost were only different ways of describing the Divine, then other folk's names for God were equally valid. Your neighbors might worship Allah or Y_W_, but as long as they behaved well - and didn't scream in our faces that their God was better than our God - they were entitled to worship in any way the spirit moved them.

Flash forward to the 19th Century...

The Unitarians were introduced to Buddhism! They embraced the idea of meditation as a means of obtaining enlightenment. They started calling themselves "Transcendalists".

Flash forward to the late 20th century...

We Witches started showing up at Unitarian services. We were painfully polite and non-confrontational...

The UU's welcomed us with open arms! They even asked us to lead their services...

[Rowdyboy]

79. You've gotten 80 responses to this thread

without a flame war developing. Impressive