Overused mantra.
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No true Christian?
- Thread starter Harel13
- Start date
OK. I don't see it as a problem. I am just trying to locate the OP and the purpose and direction.
Are there differences? Absolutely.
Couple of things we have to remember though, because it isn't as cut and dry as a first glance could make it.
For an example, God told the Jewish people in Jeremiah 4:4 Circumcise yourselves to the LORD, circumcise your hearts, you people of Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem... gives it the understanding that there was more to being God's people than just the circumcision of the flesh.
In other words, there are many people who say "I'm a Christian" but the possibility is that they are Christian in name only. So that alone can create a problem for sure.... it sure did in the Jewish nation.
So most of the list that you mentioned is of no consequence (as far as division is concerned).
Take salvation and works. For those who believe in Eph 2:8-9 "For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— 9 not by works, so that no one can boast" but they still will have works.
Someone who believes works are necessary, they will also have works. Will the two meet together? They will in fellowship--and still disagree as to what is necessary in salvation -- but not denying that both are saved since both exercise good works. (There are always exceptions)
The same with baptism. There are some who believe that it is the infant baptism that is necessary, sprinkling, dunking and then some will say that it is necessary for salvation and others no.
But when the two (or three) come together, all are baptized in some form or another and the fruit of their lives will give testimony of salvation. They will "break bread" together, and won't deny that the other is saved even though they were baptized differently. (There are always exceptions)
I can say that, because I have had fellowship and broken bread with the above. Even went to a Coptic service... (WOW, THAT was along service!
You can look at it this way, there are three bedroom 2 bath split plan, all bedrooms on the same side plan, all bedroom in three completely different areas plan... and everyone one likes their house. Different but not "wrong". As long as the foundation is square you can have your house however you like it.
Like a body, many parts, they look different but still one body.
Now, that being said, there is still some truth to "some" division but it isn't as common as people think as they just use the old "there are so many denominations" as a mantra because it sounds good (I use to use it when I wasn't a believer in Jesus).
But like I said, with 2 billion followers it isn't like you are going to get all to live just like Jesus because people are still people. Even Jesus had one who betrayed him after the 70 left him.
In one retreat in Orlando, Florida, (as I had said before), we had Catholic Priests, Episcopalians, Baptists, Pentecostals, Methodists, Non-denominational, Church of God, Assemblies of God and a few more... we all broke bread together, prayed and worship. No one doubted the other's salvation because we all were in agreement with the foundation. Some of which are:
- Man needs a savior
- Jesus is the mediator
- Jesus was born of a virgin
- Jesus died and was raised again
- The Blood of Jesus cleanses.\\
And things like that. (Baptism wasn't mentioned nor was it a dividing factor, works wasn't mentioned nor was it a dividing factor
I could go on... but maybe you had a more specific question?
I don't have a specific question, my purpose was to answer the OP's question. It's helpful for me to know, though, that you don't consider the many splits Christianity has gone through, to the point of groups declaring one another non-Christians, to even be a problem at all.
All I can tell you is that, quite obviously, you seem to be in a small minority among your fellow Christians on that point. Most of them do consider the questions I raised (and others) to be central to their faith, which is the whole reason they are willing to schism from other Christians and start their own churches over them. And most of them agree that schism is scandalous and problematic for Christianity.
It did use to be a problem.... but things have changed quite a bit in the last half a century.
How so? Because of the increase in ecumenical activities?
That is a good question and I probably don't have all the right answers.
The one thing that broke down the most walls, IMO, was what they call "the baptism in the Holy Spirit" that went through the vast majority of churches. In the US, it started at the Azusa Street Revival and gave rise to churches like the Assemblies of God, Four Square, Church of God, and non-denominational et al.
It was a God thing and not an ecumenical thing though it brought churches together over time.
It went into the Catholic church to the surprise of the Protestants much like when Cornelius, a Gentile, received the baptism and broke down the walls between Jews and Gentiles of that time. Likewise, at the beginning with Azusa Street, it was a problem, but in the end it brought us all together in the Love of Christ breaking down denominational lines.
That's a good question, and a question I first began thinking about 40 years ago while studying comparative religion at uni. So I am thrilled, and grateful to you for bringing it up.
To me, the greatest cause has to do with the very nature of Christianity as a religion. When you mix the nature of Christianity as a religion with some historical causes that @Vouthon would know far more about than I do, you arrive at a good provisional explanation, in my opinion.
The challenge, Harel, is that explaining the "nature" of Christianity requires an effort on the part of one's audience to patiently follow a rather subtle description. At least, for some people it's too subtle to be worth thinking through. That's fine. Everyone has to make up their own mind about what to think about. I'm just giving you a heads-up of a deceptively simple idea coming up.
My guess is that the key explanation for why Christianity schisms faster and more frequently than most religions starts with recognizing that most Christians have no personal experience of their god. It will anger some folks to hear me say that but it's your question, not theirs, so I'm not going to mask my ideas with you in order to soothe them. Now let me be vivid what I mean by "no experience".
It's 'simple'. I have a sculpture in my yard. You yourself have never personally experienced it. So, suppose I wrote up a description of my sculpture, published it on Amazon at $1.00/copy and told you about it. You buy it, and think, "This is a mighty fine sculpture, and I want to form a discussion group to talk about it." And that's exactly what you do. You form a discussion group to buy my pamphlet, then meet once a week to talk about my sculpture based on their experience of my sculpture as revealed to them in my pamphlet.
It will not be long before you will have some differences of opinion, will it? One guy might say, "It says here in the pamphlet that the sculpture is painted red. You know, I bet the red pigment is iron oxide." Then another might say, "Iron oxide? How could such a beautiful sculpture be painted with such a common pigment? At the very least, it is painted with pyrrole red." A third then asks, "Pyrrole Red Light or Pyrrole Red Dark?"
And on and on and on it goes. I'm sure you will agree with me, Harel, one does not need to be the finest student of human nature to grasp how those 'discussions' will quickly turn into 'debates', which might soon enough turn into 'battles'.
Now, it would not be so bad if your discussion group were to now and then select a few members to hop aboard a plane and visit me to actually experience first-hand the sculpture. If the group as a whole valued their reports, that is. If they valued their reports, those witnesses might ameliorate the conflicts between the members. "Why yes, Steve, it was indeed painted pyrrole dark."
But here's the thing about Christianity: Even though it ultimately originates with a mystic (Jesus), and has always had something of a minor tradition of mysticism, Christianity is structured more as a priest's religion than it is structured as a mystic's religion.
Just compare and contrast it to Third Century Gnosticism. The Gnostics were emphasizing direct experience of 'god' roughly at the same time that the Christians were consolidating the priestly nature of their religion as a mediated experience of god.
And though the Gnostics had even more differences of opinion that the Christians did, they didn't bicker and they didn't schism to anywhere near the degree as the early Church did. There is no nonsense in the Gnostic writings comparable to the seemingly endless scrolls the early Christians produced condemning each other as heretics. So far as I recall there is not even a hint in Gnostic writings of anyone being cast out of a group because of a difference of opinion.
The paradox, then, is that Christianity produced less diversity of opinions than Gnosticism, but those differences mattered far and away more to the Christians than mattered the differences of the Gnostics to the Gnostics.
The paradox is easily resolved though by reflecting on the necessary differences between a religion which mediates its follows 'experience' of their god through priests and scriptures, and a religion that encourages and promotes the direct, unmediated experience of its ultimate truths.
Now that does not explain all of it --- all of why Christianity is so divisive. I do not for even a moment suggest that. I think this is where we need someone like @Vouthon with a encyclopedic knowledge of Christianity to tell us about the historical reasons why other non-mystical religions are perhaps less schismatic than Christianity. Because I'm pretty sure that the reason, say, Christianity has broken into more sects than Islam has a lot to do with the unique and individual histories of each of those religions, rather than the common nature of Islam and Christianity as both being non-mystical religions.
@Harel13 A complicated question (what isn't where Christianity is concerned? 
)
It would, perhaps, be useful to first break the major Christian denominational 'families' down to get a clearer picture of the ecumenical re-unification - or at least mutual understanding - that we're seeking (in an ideal sense):
And secondly, the actual timeline of the major schisms involving the extant churches (excluding Christian traditions that no longer have a following today):
Early Christianity was a complex phenomenon (so let's not go there!) but by the second century a so-called 'Great Church' had formed, led by men called the Apostolic and Church Fathers, which represented the largest segment of the growing Christian movement. This more numerous sect called itself "Catholic" and encompassed a swathe of internal theological wings that were in debate with one another, even as these Catholics collectively set themselves against smaller groups they deemed to be 'heretics'.
This multiplicity of interpretations was finally settled by consensus vote at the Council of Nicea (325) and its promulgation of the "Nicene Creed", which remains the standard of Christian doctrine in the three main 'families': Catholicism, Orthodoxy and Protestantism. So for most of the world's Christians, we share Nicene 'orthodoxy' (small-c) in common.
Nicene Catholicism was declared the state religion of the Roman Empire under Theodosius's 'Edict of Thessalonica' (380):
Edict of Thessalonica - Wikipedia
Until the 11th century, when the Catholic Church became divided by the 'Great Schism' into Roman Catholicism in the West (henceforth just known as "Catholicism") and Eastern Orthodoxy in Byzantium, the vast majority of the world's Christians had been united within a single body, known simply as "the Catholic Church". Smaller schisms had occurred at the Council of Ephesus (431) when the Persian church declared independence from wider Christendom, owing to its support for a moderated form of Nestorianism (declared a heresy at the council) to chart its own course as the Assyrian Church of the East and the Council of Chalcedon (451) when the Monophysites parted ways to constitute the Oriental Orthodox Church. But the picture still remained pretty simple.
So until the 16th century mainstream Christianity was not all that 'complicated' (at least, not more so than other religions with denominations) in that there were but three major branches: Catholics, Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox and one smaller outlier, the Nestorians. Each one of these churches adhered to the Nicene Creed with its essentials of Christian belief, possesed the same conception of God - that is Nicene Trinitarianism - as well as the same ecclesiology (an ecclesial structure involving bishops, priests and deacons), the same seven sacraments of the faith, the same fundamental beliefs in the apostolic succession and the teachings of the Church Fathers, the co-authority of both Sacred Scripture and Sacred Oral Tradition, monastic orders, mystical traditions etc. etc.
They differed only over points of Christology, pneumatology (i.e. the filioque) and the exercise of the primacy of the Roman See (the papacy): with the two Orthodox churches and the Nestorians regarding the pre-eminence of the Bishop of Rome - the pope - over Christendom to be "honorific" in character (a primacy of honour, with the pope acting primus inter pares or first among equals), whereas Catholics regarded his office to be juridically or sacerdotally 'higher' than his brother Patriarchs of the other great sees of first millennium Christendom. Moreover, these churches tended to continue recognising the sacramental efficacy of each others' sacraments (in general) even as they pronounced mutual anathemas on one other.
Everything changed, however, with the emergence of the 'fourth major branch' 1500 years into Christian history: Protestantism. This was a much more diffuse movement, which broke away from Catholicism to form six distinct orthodox ('Nicene Trinitarian Christianity') branches within itself: Lutheranism, Calvinism, Arminianism (which spanned Dutch Remonstrants and some Anglicans), Anglicanism, Baptism and Anabaptism.
These six new expressions of 'Reformed' Christianity did not exactly agree amongst themselves, being united more by what they were 'Protesting' (the abuses they believed had developed in the Catholic Church, thus warranting the schism) than what they shared in common, although there was a general shared consensus amongst Lutherans, Calvinists and Baptists (as well as some Anglicans) regarding three key doctrines: sole fide (faith alone), sola scriptura (Bible alone) and the priesthood of all believers, in addition to continued respect for the definitions of the Nicene Creed and the Fathers, especially St. Augustine of Hippo, amongst the three 'magisterial Protestant' churches (Lutheranism, Calvinism and Anglicanism).
However there were serious disputes over almost everything else: Lutherans had three sacraments, whereas Calvinists observed only two (baptism and the Eucharist) and the Anglicans took a middling position of admitting that only 'two' (baptism and communion) were ordained by Jesus but that the other 'five' were still either full sacraments or sacramental rites.
Calvinists generally followed a 'Presbyterian' model of church governance which rejected episcopacy and believed in some unique concepts such as 'double predestination' which the Arminians (with their doctrine of prevenient grace) flatly rejected, whilst the Anglicans and Lutherans retained forms of episcopacy, with the Anglicans themselves preserving a strongly Catholic 'worship style', ethos and high church theology along with Protestant doctrines (evolving, therefore, into a via media between Catholicism / Protestantism). Baptists believed in 'believer's baptism' - that only adults could be received into the Christian faith - as opposed to the Lutherans, Calvinists and Anglicans who all practised 'infant baptism', and the Baptist movement was likewise 'congregationalist' in ecclesial structure rather than Presbyterian or episcopal.
The Anabaptists were the last major denomination to emerge from the 16th century Reformation and significantly different from the other Protestant churches, such that some scholars regard Anabaptism as a 'distinct' branch of Nicene Christianity separate from Catholicism, Orthodoxy and Protestantism (the "Radical Reformation"):
Anabaptist | Protestantism
From these six original denominations of the 'fourth' branch of Christianity...........Protestantism then, over the next four centuries, subdivided into more and more subdivisions of subdivisions with ever-increasing theological diversity, with some smaller sects ultimately splitting off from Protestantism to reject Nicene Christianity itself (Unitarians, Jehovah's Witnesses, Oneness Pentecostals etc.)
So that's the basic state of play (the only one I missed out was the Hussite Schism in the 15th century in Bohemia). My next post will address ecumenism proper (when I get around to it)
)It would, perhaps, be useful to first break the major Christian denominational 'families' down to get a clearer picture of the ecumenical re-unification - or at least mutual understanding - that we're seeking (in an ideal sense):
And secondly, the actual timeline of the major schisms involving the extant churches (excluding Christian traditions that no longer have a following today):
Early Christianity was a complex phenomenon (so let's not go there!) but by the second century a so-called 'Great Church' had formed, led by men called the Apostolic and Church Fathers, which represented the largest segment of the growing Christian movement. This more numerous sect called itself "Catholic" and encompassed a swathe of internal theological wings that were in debate with one another, even as these Catholics collectively set themselves against smaller groups they deemed to be 'heretics'.
This multiplicity of interpretations was finally settled by consensus vote at the Council of Nicea (325) and its promulgation of the "Nicene Creed", which remains the standard of Christian doctrine in the three main 'families': Catholicism, Orthodoxy and Protestantism. So for most of the world's Christians, we share Nicene 'orthodoxy' (small-c) in common.
Nicene Catholicism was declared the state religion of the Roman Empire under Theodosius's 'Edict of Thessalonica' (380):
Edict of Thessalonica - Wikipedia
It is our desire that all the various nations which are subject to our Clemency and Moderation, should continue to profess that religion which was delivered to the Romans by the divine Apostle Peter, as it has been preserved by faithful tradition, and which is now professed by the Pontiff Damasus and by Peter, Bishop of Alexandria, a man of apostolic holiness. According to the apostolic teaching and the doctrine of the Gospel, let us believe in the one deity of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, in equal majesty and in a holy Trinity. We authorize the followers of this law to assume the title of Catholic Christians.
Until the 11th century, when the Catholic Church became divided by the 'Great Schism' into Roman Catholicism in the West (henceforth just known as "Catholicism") and Eastern Orthodoxy in Byzantium, the vast majority of the world's Christians had been united within a single body, known simply as "the Catholic Church". Smaller schisms had occurred at the Council of Ephesus (431) when the Persian church declared independence from wider Christendom, owing to its support for a moderated form of Nestorianism (declared a heresy at the council) to chart its own course as the Assyrian Church of the East and the Council of Chalcedon (451) when the Monophysites parted ways to constitute the Oriental Orthodox Church. But the picture still remained pretty simple.
So until the 16th century mainstream Christianity was not all that 'complicated' (at least, not more so than other religions with denominations) in that there were but three major branches: Catholics, Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox and one smaller outlier, the Nestorians. Each one of these churches adhered to the Nicene Creed with its essentials of Christian belief, possesed the same conception of God - that is Nicene Trinitarianism - as well as the same ecclesiology (an ecclesial structure involving bishops, priests and deacons), the same seven sacraments of the faith, the same fundamental beliefs in the apostolic succession and the teachings of the Church Fathers, the co-authority of both Sacred Scripture and Sacred Oral Tradition, monastic orders, mystical traditions etc. etc.
They differed only over points of Christology, pneumatology (i.e. the filioque) and the exercise of the primacy of the Roman See (the papacy): with the two Orthodox churches and the Nestorians regarding the pre-eminence of the Bishop of Rome - the pope - over Christendom to be "honorific" in character (a primacy of honour, with the pope acting primus inter pares or first among equals), whereas Catholics regarded his office to be juridically or sacerdotally 'higher' than his brother Patriarchs of the other great sees of first millennium Christendom. Moreover, these churches tended to continue recognising the sacramental efficacy of each others' sacraments (in general) even as they pronounced mutual anathemas on one other.
Everything changed, however, with the emergence of the 'fourth major branch' 1500 years into Christian history: Protestantism. This was a much more diffuse movement, which broke away from Catholicism to form six distinct orthodox ('Nicene Trinitarian Christianity') branches within itself: Lutheranism, Calvinism, Arminianism (which spanned Dutch Remonstrants and some Anglicans), Anglicanism, Baptism and Anabaptism.
These six new expressions of 'Reformed' Christianity did not exactly agree amongst themselves, being united more by what they were 'Protesting' (the abuses they believed had developed in the Catholic Church, thus warranting the schism) than what they shared in common, although there was a general shared consensus amongst Lutherans, Calvinists and Baptists (as well as some Anglicans) regarding three key doctrines: sole fide (faith alone), sola scriptura (Bible alone) and the priesthood of all believers, in addition to continued respect for the definitions of the Nicene Creed and the Fathers, especially St. Augustine of Hippo, amongst the three 'magisterial Protestant' churches (Lutheranism, Calvinism and Anglicanism).
However there were serious disputes over almost everything else: Lutherans had three sacraments, whereas Calvinists observed only two (baptism and the Eucharist) and the Anglicans took a middling position of admitting that only 'two' (baptism and communion) were ordained by Jesus but that the other 'five' were still either full sacraments or sacramental rites.
Calvinists generally followed a 'Presbyterian' model of church governance which rejected episcopacy and believed in some unique concepts such as 'double predestination' which the Arminians (with their doctrine of prevenient grace) flatly rejected, whilst the Anglicans and Lutherans retained forms of episcopacy, with the Anglicans themselves preserving a strongly Catholic 'worship style', ethos and high church theology along with Protestant doctrines (evolving, therefore, into a via media between Catholicism / Protestantism). Baptists believed in 'believer's baptism' - that only adults could be received into the Christian faith - as opposed to the Lutherans, Calvinists and Anglicans who all practised 'infant baptism', and the Baptist movement was likewise 'congregationalist' in ecclesial structure rather than Presbyterian or episcopal.
The Anabaptists were the last major denomination to emerge from the 16th century Reformation and significantly different from the other Protestant churches, such that some scholars regard Anabaptism as a 'distinct' branch of Nicene Christianity separate from Catholicism, Orthodoxy and Protestantism (the "Radical Reformation"):
Anabaptist | Protestantism
The Anabaptists also believed that the church, the community of those who have made a public commitment of faith, should be separated from the state, which they believed existed only for the punishment of sinners. Most Anabaptists were pacifists who opposed war and the use of coercive measures to maintain the social order; they also refused to swear oaths, including those to civil authorities. For their teachings regarding baptism and for the apparent danger they posed to the political order, they were ubiquitously persecuted.
From these six original denominations of the 'fourth' branch of Christianity...........Protestantism then, over the next four centuries, subdivided into more and more subdivisions of subdivisions with ever-increasing theological diversity, with some smaller sects ultimately splitting off from Protestantism to reject Nicene Christianity itself (Unitarians, Jehovah's Witnesses, Oneness Pentecostals etc.)
So that's the basic state of play (the only one I missed out was the Hussite Schism in the 15th century in Bohemia). My next post will address ecumenism proper (when I get around to it)
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Titles mean a whole a lot but at the same time a whole lot of nothing.
Even Christian vs Jew vs Muslim is artificial division. I consider many people even Atheists to be submitters to God because they follow morality and goodness to their best of their ability.
I only consider disbelievers people who deny when it's so clear, clear as in they know it so plainly and beyond doubt, yet choose to trick themselves. Disbelief and Shirk is condemned in Quran in context of Mohammad (s) performing miracles and being accused of being lying sorcerer or a possessed one by demons that is taught.
Since Quran devoted so much to why miracles are signs from God and why the power from Mohammad there is directly from God and it's not acquired skill like other knowledges, I don't equate other humans as transgressors or disbelievers or non-submitters or arrogant or evil or oppressive, that I have no proof they are that.
Most people with respect to the proof of God and his religion, are what the Quran terms "musta'afeen", which means without the ability or power to deny the truth nor affirm it.
It's artificial, but since I want to describe who I primarily (though I read Kabala and gnostic works of Christians too) rely on, I say I believe in Mohammad and also believe had twelve Successors. This doesn't mean I'm not a follower of Christ nor that I'm less sincere to Moses nor that I can't make use of other people of other religions and learn from them.
Muslim has so many meanings, we don't even agree on what God is, let alone other things, so it's quite meaningless the title now.
And Quran titled us submitters, but so it call us believers, so did it call us followers, so did call us party of God, so did it call us friends of God. It called submission the religion, but also other names, like the rising religion, the human nature, the light of God, and called us Wilayah (which means the relationship God has with humans and Jinn including being their authority, leader, master, friend, helper, etc) and vice verse Wilayah (as in what role we have with respect to God) and called it Worshiping God as well.
Why submission stoke, it has to do with history. Submission in Quran is used primarily to emphasize, this is why you have to accept and obey the Messenger. Why we picked this title out of all titles, has to do with the authoritarian route we went.
Another title of the proper religion is being Rabiniyoon which means "knowledgeable devotees to God free from the vanities of this world". And there is other names like the ones who know, those who possess understanding, the people of insight, those who hear.
We aren't named Muslims nor Islam, we are titled that as a description among many. But now a days, if you don't testify to Mohammad, we say "you aren't a believer" when Quran categorically forbid that behavior "O you who believe, if you travel in the earth, never say you are not a believer, thus you were before till God..."
Why do we divide on color but not on how tall we are? Why do we divide on religion titles as opposed to other things like what morals you believe in?
Division is meaningless, I don't subscribe to it. Titles you get mixed with a bag of people, and than have to explain why you don't believe so much of what they believe. But what they believe is not what they thought through but they rely on other authorities over them.
And so I'd rather not play this title game. All titles are misconceptions more then they are truth about a people, but even if true about a people, are they true about the founding guides and teachings they claim to represent. That's what I'm finding out - and these divisions don't make sense to me.
Obviously dividing on this methodology, humans will not unite on truth nor love nor friendship.
Creed is important, but really, not worth dividing from other humans upon. Titles are just that, titles, and never define anyone or any group or reveal much about the teachings they hold on to nor do an iota justice to any real Messenger from God or Guidance of a book.
Mohammad and Ali and Abraham and Moses and Jesus and Noah and the Mahdi are neither Muslims nor Islam their religion, they are rather upright submitters to God who don't believe in division.
Islam is claimed to be their religion by Muslims, that doesn't mean anything really. It's a claim.
And if you are trying to figure out what they believe - that's endless growth, you never reach that. So there is no point of arguing and dividing on every issue, which is what Muslims did exactly with regards to. All sorts of titles under titles under titles, that divide and further divide.
We have to accept humans will misunderstand some of God's teachings, be forbearing, accept differences, and don't let labels divide us.
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Fine, Ken. Present your own number -- but please try to be comprehensive.
And then, would you be good enough to give a discourse on how such variety is possible when we are assured that there is only the one "Truth" about God.
I'll even give you a head start -- I have a little list.
Christianity – 2.51 billion
Catholicism – 1.329 billion
Latin Church – 1.311 billion
Eastern Catholic Churches – 18 million
Byzantine Rite – 8.2 million
Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church – 5.5 million
Melkite Greek Catholic Church – 1.6 million
Romanian Greek Catholic Church – 0.5 million
Ruthenian Greek Catholic Church – 0.4 million
Hungarian Greek Catholic Church – 0.3 million
Slovak Greek Catholic Church – 0.3 million
Belarusian Greek Catholic Church – 0.1 million
Italo-Albanian Catholic Church – 0.01 million
Greek Catholic Church of Croatia and Serbia – 0.01 million
Georgian Byzantine Catholic Church (not sui iuris) – 0.01 million;
Albanian Greek Catholic Church – 0.01 million
Russian Greek Catholic Church – 0.01 million
Macedonian Greek Catholic Church – 0.001 million
Bulgarian Greek Catholic Church – 0.001 million
Greek Byzantine Catholic Church – 0.001 million
East Syriac Rite – 4.9 million
Syro-Malabar Catholic Church – 4.3 million
Chaldean Catholic Church – 0.6 million
West Syriac Rite – 4.2 million
Maronite Church – 3.5 million
Syro-Malankara Catholic Church – 0.5 million
Syriac Catholic Church – 0.2 million
Armenian Rite – 0.8 million
Armenian Catholic Church – 0.8 million
Alexandrian Rite – 0.5 million
Coptic Catholic Church – 0.2 million
Eritrean Catholic Church – 0.2 million
Ethiopian Catholic Church – 0.1 million
Canonically irregular groups
Society of Saint Pius X – 1 million (claimed)
Independent Catholicism – 18 million
Various denominations self-identifying as Catholic, despite not being affiliated with the Catholic Church.
Philippine Independent Church – 6 million[16] (Part of the Anglican Communion)
Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association – 5 million
Brazilian Catholic Apostolic Church – 5 million
Traditionalist Mexican-American Catholic Church – 2 million
Old Catholic Church – 0.1 million (Part of the Anglican Communion)
Polish National Catholic Church – 0.03 million
Apostolic Catholic Church – 0.005 million
Palmarian Catholic Church – 0.002 million
Protestantism – 900 million
Historical Protestantism – 300–400 million
Baptist churches – 75–105 million
Southern Baptist Convention – 14.8 million
National Baptist Convention, USA, Inc. – 7.5 million
Nigerian Baptist Convention – 5.0 million
National Missionary Baptist Convention of America – 3.1 million
National Baptist Convention of America, Inc. – 3.1 million
Baptist Union of Uganda – 2.5 million
Baptist Community of Congo – 2.1 million
Baptist Convention of Tanzania – 2.0 million
Baptist General Convention of Texas – 2.0 million
Brazilian Baptist Convention – 1.6 million
Progressive National Baptist Convention – 1.5 million
Council of Baptist Churches in Northeast India – 1.3 million
American Baptist Churches USA – 1.2 million
Baptist Bible Fellowship International – 1.2 million
Lott Carey Foreign Mission Convention – 1.1 million
Baptist Community of the Congo River – 1.1 million
National Primitive Baptist Convention of the U.S.A. – 1.0 million
Myanmar Baptist Convention – 1.0 million
Cooperative Baptist Fellowship – 0.8 million
Baptist General Association of Virginia – 0.6 million
Baptist Convention of Kenya – 0.6 million
Nagaland Baptist Church Council – 0.6 million
Korea Baptist Convention – 0.5 million
Samavesam of Telugu Baptist Churches – 0.5 million
Orissa Evangelical Baptist Crusade – 0.5 million
National Baptist Convention (Brazil) – 0.4 million
Baptist Convention of Malawi – 0.3 million
Garo Baptist Convention – 0.3 million
Convention of Philippine Baptist Churches – 0.3
Ghana Baptist Convention – 0.3
Union of Baptist Churches in Rwanda – 0.3 million
Conservative Baptist Association of America – 0.2 million
National Association of Free Will Baptists – 0.2 million
Convention of Visayas and Mindanao of Southern Baptist Churches – 0.2 million
Manipur Baptist Convention – 0.2 million
Evangelical Baptist Church of the Central African Republic – 0.2 million
Converge – 0.2 million
Seventh Day Baptists – 0.05 million
Here, I simply give up listing all the sub-denominations, but trust me, each heading below has dozens of them. Except the Quakers, who seem to have restricted themselves to just the one.
Lutheranism – 70–90 million
Anglicanism – 110 million
Methodism – 60–80 million
Presbyterianism – 40 million
Seventh-day Adventist Church – 21.4 million
Hussites – 1 million
Quakers – 0.4 million
Modern Protestantism – 400–500 million
Pentecostalism – 280 million
African initiated churches – 60 million
Zion Christian Church – 15 million
Eternal Sacred Order of Cherubim and Seraphim – 10 million
Kimbanguist Church – 5.5 million
Redeemed Christian Church of God – 5 million[217]
Church of the Lord (Aladura) – 3.6 million[218]
Council of African Instituted Churches – 3 million[219]
Church of Christ Light of the Holy Spirit – 1.4 million[220]
African Church of the Holy Spirit – 0.7 million[221]
African Israel Church Nineveh – 0.5 million[222]
New Apostolic Church – 10 million
The New Apostolic Church has around 10 million members.[223]
Local churches or Church Assembly Hall – between 1 and 10 million
Eastern Lightning – 1 million
The Shouters – unknown, probably less than 1 million
Eastern Orthodoxy – 230 million
It brought some of you together to a degree, true, although many Christians regard the charismatic movement as a detriment to Christianity that is overly emotional and confirms an easy stereotype about the silliness and irrationality of Christians. And it resolves none of the central doctrinal issues I mentioned, it just makes a way for them to be sidelined in the heat of the moment.
And of these... .how many preach Jesus Christ, crucified, died, risen again and coming back?
The body..
Two eyes,
two ears,
one nose,
one mouth,
two lungs,
two legs,
ten fingers,
ten tows,
one liver,
two kidneys,
one heart,
two arms,
one head,
one mouth,
etc etc etc
Do they look the same? act the same? do the same?
How many bodies? ONE
Of course, with two billion people you can find anything all over the spectrum. Yet the benefit is still evident, it broke down walls of denomination.
I remember a friend of mine thought it was also silliness and irrational... even went throughout Guatemala saying it was "of the devil"... then, God baptized him the the Holy Spirit and moved him to Honduras.. brought 23 denominations that were against each other to working together and stopped communism from taking over the country (decades ago)
And of course, people of completely different religions (or no religion) can work together to accomplish common goals (and have done so). But that obviously doesn't erase the large differences that still exist between them.
And once again, another Trumpian "hey, look over there!"And of these... .how many preach Jesus Christ, crucified, died, risen again and coming back?
The body..
Two eyes,
two ears,
one nose,
one mouth,
two lungs,
two legs,
ten fingers,
ten tows,
one liver,
two kidneys,
one heart,
two arms,
one head,
one mouth,
etc etc etc
Do they look the same? act the same? do the same?
How many bodies? ONE
Sorry, Ken, after all this time, gotta put you on ignore. You never, ever answer a question as asked of you. You are allowed to do that of course -- but I hate it, and am not required to be bothered any more.
Hey @Vouthon! What do you think of the notion that the Protestants -- in generally placing such an emphasis on everyone making up his or her own mind about things -- in effect made themselves sitting ducks for church splits and schisms? Any merit to that?
And if so, could it further be added that resorting to the Bible as the final and ultimate arbitrator of true belief and doctrine in that context might have poured petrol on the fire?
I'm thinking had the Protestants still admitted tradition as a co-equal source of authority with the Bible, they might not have seen so many splits. Why? 'Cause that would have limited the scope of things to disagree about in the Bible. At least, a little bit.
"Look, Jason, it's all very well and good for you to interpret Eve's fig leaf as akin to a Brazilian string bikini based on your knowledge of the Bible alone, but we Protestants have long settled that issue by traditionally interpreting it as a see-through burka. Of sorts, I mean."
And if so, could it further be added that resorting to the Bible as the final and ultimate arbitrator of true belief and doctrine in that context might have poured petrol on the fire?
I'm thinking had the Protestants still admitted tradition as a co-equal source of authority with the Bible, they might not have seen so many splits. Why? 'Cause that would have limited the scope of things to disagree about in the Bible. At least, a little bit.
"Look, Jason, it's all very well and good for you to interpret Eve's fig leaf as akin to a Brazilian string bikini based on your knowledge of the Bible alone, but we Protestants have long settled that issue by traditionally interpreting it as a see-through burka. Of sorts, I mean."
Alas, I must get to bed for some shut-eye but I will respond in full tomorrow (both to the OP on intra-Christian acrimony and ecumenism, as well as to you my friend).
For now, I will quickly opine as follows: the Protestant regard for personal engagement with scripture in one's own vernacular - and private judgement - was of immeasurable benefit to Christendom as a whole. However, the sola scriptura doctrine and abandonment of strict adherence to apostolic succession has proven to be the main precipitator - in my humble opinion - of the seemingly unending panoply of schisms within the Reformed movement, which has a momentum all of its own unlike anything comparable in religious history.
Since sola scriptura is absolutely fundamental to Reformed theology, I doubt there's much at all which can be done now to put the genie unleashed back into the bottle and prevent future schisms - if this is something one wants to stop, as opposed to just accepting and living with as normative.
I remain optimistic that the pre-Reformation churches will attain a degree of inter-communion and ecclesial re-unification within the next few centuries, perhaps along with some Protestant churches (for instance High Church Anglicans and Lutherans). For the rest of our brethren, the viable hope is for increased ecumenical dialogue and solidarity while still being apart in terms of actual ecclesial communion.
It is telling to me that none of the churches which preceded the birth of Protestant Christianity - Catholicism, Eastern Orthodoxy and Oriental Orthodoxy - have undergone anywhere near so many internal mutations but have remained (a few generally small-scale internal schisms aside) largely stable in character over the past four centuries.
All of these pre-Reformation churches, including my own, reject sola scriptura and hold Sacred Tradition (under the guidance of the bishops as teachers of the faith and heirs to the apostolic succession) as a co-equal authority to the Bible, which beyond anything else distinguishes us from our fellow Nicene Trinitarian Protestant brethren (sans Anglo-Catholics in the Church of England and wider Episcopalianism, who do believe in the authority of Sacred Tradition).
Correlation is not causation, of course, but I think this is more than a mere coincidence personally.
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Harel13, with respect for previous comments in the thread, I'd like to suggest that this was planned from the beginning. I don't discount any of the previous comments, however I think that it was anticipated. I think that developments and problems and schizms did develop naturally and to the surprise of many but not to the surprise of all. I believe there are indications in the NT writers that they knew this would happen. They couldn't have foreseen all of the divisions or the release of the canon translated into English on a mass printing press, but they did foresee a lot of things I think.
I believe the church had/has a mission to overcome the divisions which divide people, and its been fighting this tendency to divide and names it 'Antichrist'. Its just my opinion.
happy to answer any bonafide question.
amorphous_constellation
Well-Known Member
The verses that seem to speak to this concern are Mark 9:38-39 I think, and I was going make a thread on those earlier. They seem to indicate that jesus can be accessed through a plurality of denominations, though history didn't seem to advocate for this view of course. What would happen, is that the verses that advocated for total truth would socially win out, and so social cohesion would orbit around the 'truth' that each group identified to. If they followed the Mark verses, they would give more recognition to individuality. That said, I think all abrahamic religion seems to deviate from the individuality that spirituality originally had, for they oppose 'witchcraft,' which was basically the 'right' of the individual to access spiritual conclusions on their own terms.
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This differentiation that you've outlined between sacerdotalism and experientialism is very interesting to me.
Since we're in a debate thread, I would like to present some of my own respectful qualifications to this thesis (tomorrow) as I feel it to be a tad too reductionist, even though it has merit in my opinion.
The least "mystically-inclined" branch of Christianity, arguably, is also the one that is least priestly in nature: Evangelical Protestant Christianity, which is a sect of the Baptist branch of Protestantism and congregationalist in ecclesial structure (no ordained clergy, just pastors). Calvinism, similarly, adopted much of Augustinian theology but stripped of Augustine's profound neoplatonic mysticism, just as it rejected his clericalism in favour of presbyterian church order (lay presbyters rather than priests, teaching priesthood of all the faithful rather than an ordained caste distinguished from the laity).
Within mainstream Christianity, the more sacerdotal a denomination is in theology, typically correlates with a higher appreciation for mysticism (consider Eastern Orthodoxy, it's liturgy wholly centered around mystical communion resulting in deification and Hesychasm), the Quakers and some other Anabaptists being the main exception to this rule.
Mysticism is also not "minor" within any of the pre-Reformation churches, all of which were strongly clerical in nature and actually produced Christianity's predominant mystical literature between them (again, excepting some Radical Reformation mystical sects of the Anabaptist tradition).
One of the primary criticisms traditional Protestant polemic advanced in relation to Catholicism - and pre-Reformed Christianity in general, as well as Anabaptism - was that it had been too mystical and too mysterian in orientation, which the Reformers denounced as "superstition" in violation of their reading of the Bible (mysticism arising, allegedly, from attachments to the traditions of men and the accretions of pagan philosophy to an originally "pure" biblical Christianity that had been deformed).
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