What's the Difference?

[Jistyr]

I am not too sure about the difference between all the Christian denominations, and I believe it would be a great topic to discuss. Where does one draw the line between the different subcategories and their origins?

I am wondering about the following terms/denominations:

- Catholic
- Protestant
- Baptist
- Fundamental
- Evangelical
- Episcopal or Angelican
- Orthodox
- Restorationists: Church of the Latter-day Saints, Seventh-day Adventist Church, Disciples of Christ, Churches of Christ, etc.
- Nontrinitarian: Jehova's Witnesses, etc.

Also, if anyone has another important group that I missed, please let me know and I'll add it to the list.

Secondly, please do not let this become a debate! I think this thread could potentially become another debate on whether the Latter-day Saints are a Christian denomination or not.

Well, feel free to discuss away!

 

[Dream Angel]

Youve forgotten JWs. There are some great sites on the internet if you plug religon into a search engine. When you find out, let me know!

 

[Jistyr]

Youve forgotten JWs. There are some great sites on the internet if you plug religon into a search engine. When you find out, let me know!

Thanks for the suggested group! I would rather hear the responses of everyone here first though before I go look how they are classified somewhere else.

 

[Katzpur]

I am not too sure about the difference between all the Christian denominations, and I believe it would be a great topic to discuss. Where does one draw the line between the different subcategories and their origins?

I am wondering about the following terms/denominations:

- Catholic
- Protestant
- Baptist
- Fundamental
- Evangelical
- Angelical
- The Latter-day Saints
- Orthodox
- Jehovah Witness

Also, if anyone has another important group that I missed, please let me know and I'll add it to the list.

Secondly, please do not let this become a debate! I think this thread could potentially become another debate on whether the Latter-day Saints are a Christian denomination or not.

Well, feel free to discuss away!

I'm glad you started this thread, Jistyr!

In my opinion, and in the opinion of most Christians I think, Baptists are one of many denominations within Protestantism.

I'm not sure what you mean by "Angelical." I don't think there is such a denomination. Could you be thinking "Anglican"?

Jehovah's Witnesses and Latter-day Saints would probably both consider themselves to be "Restorationists" and believe that they have "restored" the original Christian Church to the earth (as opposed to "reformed" the existing Church).

I, too, would like some input from *Paul*, Porkchop or BT (provided it's a simply, straightforward explanation in their own words) as to how they would define the word "Evangelical" since I believe they would all describe themselves as Evangelicals. I am also a bit confused as to what is meant by "Fundamentalist." To me, it's just a kind of an unflattering way of describing Evangelicals and is not a terms that very many people use to describe themselves. I also use, and have heard other people use, the term "Born Again Christians" interchangeably with "Evangelical Christians" or "Fundamentalist Christians." Would the three of you (or any other Evangelicals on RF I've forgotten about) try to explain the distinction between these three words and tell us which is the preferred term.

 

[Jistyr]

I'm glad you started this thread, Jistyr!

In my opinion, and in the opinion of most Christians I think, Baptists are one of many denominations within Protestantism.

I'm not sure what you mean by "Angelical." I don't think there is such a denomination. Could you be thinking "Anglican"?

Jehovah's Witnesses and Latter-day Saints would probably both consider themselves to be "Restorationists" and believe that they have "restored" the original Christian Church to the earth (as opposed to "reformed" the existing Church).

I, too, would like some input from *Paul*, Porkchop or BT (provided it's a simply, straightforward explanation in their own words) as to how they would define the word "Evangelical" since I believe they would all describe themselves as Evangelicals. I am also a bit confused as to what is meant by "Fundamentalist." To me, it's just a kind of an unflattering way of describing Evangelicals and is not a terms that very many people use to describe themselves. I also use, and have heard other people use, the term "Born Again Christians" interchangeably with "Evangelical Christians" or "Fundamentalist Christians." Would the three of you (or any other Evangelicals on RF I've forgotten about) try to explain the distinction between these three words and tell us which is the preferred term.

Thank you for the corrections, I updated the list and made it a bit more organized. I am also extremely interested in the difference between Evangelical and Fundamentalist.

I could see this thread going on for a long while drawing the lines between a large number of subcategories. So next time someone talks about a Christian denomination that some of us have never heard of, we will at least have some idea of what they are talking about while we nod our heads up and down as if we understand their every word.

 

[Katzpur]

*bump*

*Paul*, Porkchop, BT?

Could one of you address my question regarding "Born again Christians," "Evangelical Christians," and "Fundamentalist Christians"? I would really like your input, not for the purpose of debate, but just to clear this up in my own mind.

 

[James the Persian]

I am not too sure about the difference between all the Christian denominations, and I believe it would be a great topic to discuss. Where does one draw the line between the different subcategories and their origins?

I am wondering about the following terms/denominations:

- Catholic
- Protestant
- Baptist
- Fundamental
- Evangelical
- Episcopal or Angelican
- Orthodox
- Restorationists: Church of the Latter-day Saints, Seventh-day Adventist Church, Disciples of Christ, Churches of Christ, etc.
- Nontrinitarian: Jehova's Witnesses, etc.

Also, if anyone has another important group that I missed, please let me know and I'll add it to the list.

Secondly, please do not let this become a debate! I think this thread could potentially become another debate on whether the Latter-day Saints are a Christian denomination or not.

Well, feel free to discuss away!

You've forgotten to ancient groups - the Oriental Orthodox and the Assyrian Church of the East. The latter are very small now, but their influence, at their height, spread as far as China, so they certainly are historically important.

As to what the differnces are, I'll concentrate only on us and the OOs. Like the RCC, we and the OOs consider ourselves to be the Catholic Church (we do not recognise Rome's claims or each others'). Many of the things that separate us from the RCs are common to both us and the OOs, different approach to soteriology, less codified , more mystical approach to faith, use of icons rather than statuary etc. The OOs reject the exact same aspects of Roman Catholicism we do (the Papacy, Immaculate Conception, use of unleavened bread in the Eucharist, to name a few) and generally we are very close to one another. Where we differ is on our Christology and the number of Ecumenical Councils we adhere to. The OOs split from us when they rejected the Council of Chalcedon and as a result they do not acept th Chalcedonian Christological formula. Unfortunately this ancient schism appears to be a matter of semantics, both sides now agreeing that, properly understood, the two sets of language mean the same thing. A reconciliation between EO and OO is probably the most likely reconciliation to occur in the next few decades.

As for where you draw the line between us, in my experience this is only really an issue for Protestants. It's quite obvious who is OO, RC, or EO because you just look at who they are in communion with. This is because for all three of us communion is only possible with other members of the same Church, so if I can receive the Eucharist from another church, then they are definitely (Eastern) Orthodox. If I can't they aren't.

James

 

[may]

Youve forgotten JWs. There are some great sites on the internet if you plug religon into a search engine. When you find out, let me know!

if anyone wants to know about JW the only accurate site would be this one ,http://www.watchtower.org/ because there are loads of sites on the net which have been set up for the whole purpose of knocking them down and teaching halftruths about them