Path: christian Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian From: enenkel@cs.toronto.edu ("Robert F. Enenkel") Subject: different kinds of christianity Organization: Department of Computer Science, University of Toronto Approved: christian@aramis.rutgers.edu Can someone briefly explain the distinguishing philosophies of the following, and whether any are sub-classes of others? catholic (= roman catholic?), protestant, lutherin, anglican, presbytarian, methodist, baptist, fundamentalist, calvinist. ---------- There are now three major divisions of the Christian Church: Catholic, Protestant, and Orthodox. Catholic means universal. Before the current East-West split, the terms Catholic and Orthodox were both used to characterize the entire Church. After the split, the term Catholic came to be used of the West and Orthodox of the East. Catholic is of course still used by most Christians in the creeds. When saying the Creed, non-Catholics typically interpret "catholic" as referred to the whole of Christ's body, independent of these divisions. Technically, Roman Catholic is one of about 7 different rites within the Catholic communion, including Eastern groups such as Maronite that are in communion with Rome and accept the leadership of the Pope, but have a somewhat separate hierarchy. In this usage, Catholic means everyone who is in communion with Rome. However the term Roman Catholic is sometime used to refer to everyone in communion with Rome, i.e. including the other Catholic rites. (It's particularly used this way by groups that reserved Catholic to refer to a wider group.) Anglicans sometime use the term Catholic to include themselves and the Orthodox as well. Protestant in its widest usage means everyone who isn't Catholic or Orthodox. The narrower usage would be based on the Reformation of the 16th Cent. Now in fact essentially all existing Christian bodies that aren't part of the Catholic or Orthodox tradition can be traced to the Reformation. However some groups are far enough from the views of the Reformers that it is probably misleading to call them Protestant. I'm thinking of Mormons, JW's, Unitarians, and a few others. While you don't ask about it, the third major group is the Orthodox. This is the Eastern church. The Eastern and Western churches slowly moved apart, starting fairly early in history. They are now more or less separate (though with many shared ideas and practices). Essentially the Catholics and Orthodox are the original Western and Eastern churches, respectively, and the Protestants are an offshoot of the Catholics. The rest of the groups you ask about are Protestant: Roughly, the original Reformation resulted in four groups of churches, primarily defined geographically: (1) Lutheran and (2) Reformed had similar ideas (though there are enough differences to create flame wars), but developed in different areas (Germany and Switzerland). (3) Anglican developed in England. It has its own peculiar character -- unlike the other churches, it has never really been defined by specific theological beliefs. This has made for an exciting history. (4) The Left Wing, which consisted of groups that believed in a "gathered church" (i.e. a church that was separated from society as a whole -- the other three groups expected everyone in the society to be church members) of committed believers, adult baptism, and generally a rejection of sacraments. The Lutheran churches are (as far as I know) all still called Lutheran. There are several branches in the U.S., going back to different countries, and as a result of splits for doctrinal reasons (primarily over modernism, in one way or another). The major Reformed bodies are called Presbyterian (basically Reformed Christians from England and Scotland), Reformed (typically from Holland, though there are some others as well), Congregational (now called the United Church of Christ -- another group from England, which differed from the Presbyterians in their ideas of how the church should be organized), and perhaps Baptist. (The original Baptists were sort of a cross between Reformed and left wing. They accepted much of the Reformed theology, but believed in a gathered church and believers' baptism. However most modern Baptists are not Reformed in theology.) The Unitarians (now Unitarian/Universalists) were originally a Reformed group. They are the very liberal wing, so liberal that not all of their members are Christians, and it's not entirely clear to me whether one should think of it as a Christian church in the usual sense. The Anglicans have branches in many English-speaking countries, and some others. In the U.S. it's the Episcopal Church. The left wing led directly to the Mennonites, Hutterites, Amish, etc. However their spirit is embodied in the Baptists, and I think the Baptists in the U.S. have tended to move away from their Reformed roots and become closer to the original left wing. This is roughly the list of churches that go back to the original 16th Cent. roots. However there have been a number of splinters since then, so there are a number of second and third generation movements. The Methodists are probably the earliest major one. They came from the Anglicans. They were originally an attempt to bring the church to the poor (primarily the urban masses, I believe), and also the U.S. frontier. They tended to be revivalist in character. They eventually split from the Anglicans and become a separate group. There are a number of separate groups that developed in the U.S. Among the major groups are Holiness, Pentecostal, and Restoration. The Holiness churches are an outgrowth of the Methodists. They emphasized personal holiness -- they are sort of a revival movement, whose members felt that the Methodist Church had become too staid. There are still some churches with Holiness in their names, but I think these groups largely got caught up in later movements. The Pentecostals are largely an outgrowth of the Holiness movement. They emphasize speaking in tongues and other gifts of the Spirit. There are now a number of different Pentecostal groups. The Assemblies of God are the largest (I think). Many of the other groups have Pentecostal in their name. The Restoration movement was an attempt to start a church on the New Testament model more or less from scratch. The concern was all these denominations had become a hindrance to the Gospel. So they attempted to look again at just what the NT specified. They came up with something that has some similarities to the Baptists and other evangelical churches, though with some of its own emphases. The primary characteristic is that it absolutely denies that it's just another denomination. The major (non)denominations that came from this tradition are the Christian Churches/Churches of Christ(Independent), the Churches of Christ(Noninstrumental), and the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ). The Disciples of Christ have become a lot more liberal and ecumencial-minded, and look a lot like one of the Reformed churches. The Noninstrumental Churches of Christ are distinguished by not using instruments in worship. A more recent group is somewhat related to this tradition: the International Church of Christ. Like the original Restoration, it's an attempt to recreate Christianity from the Bible. There some similiarities to the older groups. But it's controversial, and is considered by some to be a "cult". Questions about this group are one of the most common I get -- there's a separate (huge) FAQ on them. There have been at least two other major causes of new church formation, particularly in the U.S.: charismatic leaders with a particular vision, and expectations of the imminent second coming. A number of churches were formed because of specific teachings of a leader. Among these I would include the Mormons (Later-day Saints), Christian Scientists, and World-Wide Church of God. In general the Mormons believe in continuing revelation, deny that God and humanity are essentially different, and have their own additional scriptures. The Christian Scientists believe in spiritual healing (and that the material world is not entirely real, or at least that the spiritual world is a more senior reality). I'm not sure what the current beliefs of the WWCoG are. (They seem to be in transition.) The Quakers could also fit into this category, as they are based on a particular vision, though in many ways they don't fit well with the others. They were founded in Britain in 1668 by George Fox. They are best known for emphasizing the importance of individuals' being led by the "Inner Light", a deemphasis of doctrine and creed, meetings for worship based on silence, and a consistent witness for peace, humanity dignity and respect for everyone. Not all Quakers consider themselves Christian, though many do, and there are certainly evangelical Friends. At any rate, their ideas seem based on Jesus' teachings. The imminent expectation of the end led to several groups characterized as Adventist. The best-known survivals of this are the Seventh-Day Adventists and Jehovah's Witnesses. The SDA's have some novel theological views (e.g. that hell results in destruction of the soul rather than eternal torment, and the importance of worship on Saturday), but are more mainstream than the JW's. There's a separate FAQ on the JW's, so I won't say much here. Fundamentalist, Calvinist, and evangelical are terms that characterize certain theological views or approaches. They aren't specific churches. Fundamentalist comes from a movement early in the 20th Cent, reacting against "modernism". It emphasized traditional fundamental doctrines of (conservative Protestant) Christianity: the inspiration and inerrancy of the Bible, the Virgin Birth, etc. It's generally used for any person or Church with that emphasis. There are churches from each of the major Protestant traditions that could reasonably be considered fundamentalist. Calvinist is a person or church who accepts the major doctrines of Calvin. The most well-known is double predestination, but there are some others as well (there's a separate FAQ on this). The Reformed churches were all originally Calvinist. Probably it doesn't make sense to consider the larger ones (e.g. Presbyterian (USA) and UCC) Calvinists anymore. At least some of Calvin's more controversial doctrines (e.g. predestination) are not held by most members. Evangelical is a general term meaning that a group emphasizes the gospel. Of course every church should be evangelical (as every church should be catholic and orthodox). But the term was used during the Reformation for the Protestant churches in particular. I believe in some languages it is still used essentially as a synonym for Protestant. In the U.S. it is used for those churches that emphasize Biblical teaching and preaching and missionary work, and typically take a inerrantist or near-inerrantist position on Scripture. --clh]