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September 12, 2010 |
| Denominations | ||
In today’s lesson we will compare the major denominations of Christianity. As we encounter differences we will take a look at why we believe what we believe.
During the time of the Apostles and throughout the writings of Paul we see the churches as individual churches. They would help each other but we see no sign of an administrative hierarchy. But over time, history tells us, that the churches were united under a central organization head-quartered in Rome. It came to be called the catholic (inclusive, worldwide) church.
This organization continued through the fall of Rome somewhere in the 6th century, but as Constantinople became more the center of the remaining Roman Empire, Rome became less. The church in Rome, at least from the point of view of the church in Constantinople, began to deviate from the teachings it had held. The disagreements became worse and eventually around 1054 A.D. each church excommunicated the head of the other church. The church in Constantinople came to be known as the orthodox (meaning – following doctrine) church. We know it now as Greek Orthodox, Russian Orthodox, or other names.
In the 17th century Luther found that the Roman Catholic Church had drifted away from the Bible. He was not the first person to notice the church was doing things it should not, but he became the most effective. He posted a list of 95 problem areas. The church eventually excommunicated him and he would have been killed except for the protection offered by like minded people.
By successfully opposing the church Luther opened the flood gates and Christianity fractured into more and more denominations. This lesson deals with some of the well known ones. In this lesson you will notice that the main-line protestant churches have no serious disagreements among themselves. In most cases the differences are ones of emphasis and relative importance.
We see no evidence in the Bible, even in the writings of the Apostle Paul who wrote up to the time of his execution, of a statement of doctrine, or creed. Yet today we have a number of these. One, called the Apostle’s creed, is attributed by the Catholic Church to the Apostle’s themselves. However, the creed doesn’t appear until 2 centuries later.
But the creeds were important documents. They were a natural response to false teachings, in a post-apostolic world, where there was no one with the authority of an Apostle to refute the false teaching. The Roman Catholic Church places the highest value on these Creeds. Protestant churches place much less value on them.
The two most commonly seen creeds, Apostles and Nicene, are reproduced below.
| Religious Authority | Catholic | Orthodox | Lutheran | Reformed/ Presbyterian | Anglican/ Episcopalian | Methodist/Wesleyan | Baptist |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Creeds & Confessions | Many, but special focus on Apostles' Creed and Nicene Creed (Catechism, 2nd ed.) | Nicene Creed is "the authoritative expression of the fundamental beliefs of the Orthodox Church." (GOAA) | Apostles' Creed, Nicene Creed, Athanasian Creed, Augsburg Confession, Formula of Concord (ELCA) (LCMS) | Apostles' Creed, Nicene Creed, Westminster Confession | "We understand the Apostles' creed as the baptismal symbol, and the Nicene creed
as the sufficient statement of the Christian faith."
(CofE; Art. 7) |
Nicene and Apostles' (UMC) | "We have tended to avoid embracing prepared creeds or other statements that might compromise our obligation to interpret Scripture as individuals within the community of faith under the guidance of the Holy Spirit." (ABC) |
Apostles CreedI believe in God, the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth. And in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord, who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, and born of the virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died and was buried. He descended into hell. On the third day He rose again from the dead. He ascended into heaven and sits at the right hand of the Father. From thence He will come to judge the living and the dead. I believe in the Holy Spirit, the Holy Catholic Church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting. Amen. |
Nicene CreedWe believe in one God, the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, and of all things visible and invisible. And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God, begotten of the Father before all worlds (æons), Light of Light, very God of very God, begotten, not made, being of one substance with the Father; by whom all things were made; who for us men, and for our salvation, came down from heaven, and was incarnate by the Holy Ghost of the Virgin Mary, and was made man; he was crucified for us under Pontius Pilate, and suffered, and was buried, and the third day he rose again, according to the Scriptures, and ascended into heaven, and sitteth on the right hand of the Father; from thence he shall come again, with glory, to judge the quick and the dead; whose kingdom shall have no end. And in the Holy Ghost, the Lord and Giver of life, who proceedeth from the Father, who with the Father and the Son together is worshiped and glorified, who spake by the prophets. In one holy catholic and apostolic Church; we acknowledge one baptism for the remission of sins; we look for the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come. Amen. |
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| The churches differ significantly on which texts they consider sacred. The old line churches, Catholic and Orthodox accept the Apocrypha as sacred texts. The Apocrypha consist of 15 books that appear to document Jewish life in the Inter-testamental period between the Old Testament and the New Testament. However their origins and authorship are unclear and their doctrine sometimes seems to conflict with other parts of the Bible. The Jews do not accept them as the word of God and neither do the Protestant churches, though some allow that they may have some value. | |||||||
| Sacred Text | Holy Bible (Old Testament, New Testament, and Apocrypha) | Holy Bible (Old Testament, New Testament, and Apocrypha) | Holy Bible (Old Testament and New Testament only). Apocrypha can be "useful" reading and can help to increase one's faith. (ELCA) | Holy Bible (Old Testament and New Testament only) (PCUSA) | Holy Bible (Old Testament and New Testament only). Apocrypha used only for edification (Art. 7). Tradition and reason assist interpretation. (ECUSA) | Holy Bible (Old Testament and New Testament only) | Holy Bible (Old Testament and New Testament only) |
| There is a surprising difference of view point on the inerrancy of scripture, whether all parts correctly reflect the word of God. All churches covered here agree that scripture was inspired by God and if one were to look deeply enough we would likely find that they would all agree that scripture was inerrant when it was written. But some are concerned that 2000 years of copying may have changed parts of the text enough that there may be an error or errors. Others are also concerned about translations and probably no church accepts that the translations were inspired by God. | |||||||
| Inspiration & Inerrancy of the Bible | "The books of Scripture firmly, faithfully, and without error teach that truth which God, for the sake of our salvation, wished to see confided to the Sacred Scriptures." (Catechism, 2nd ed.) | "God's inspiration is confined to the original languages and utterances, not the many translations." (GOAA) "While the Bible is treasured as a valuable written record of God's revelation, it does not contain wholly that revelation." (GOAA) |
Inspired and inerrant. (LCMS) Inspired but not inerrant. (ELCA) |
The Bible is inspired. "For some, that means the Bible is inerrant. For others, it means that even though the Bible is culturally conditioned and not necessarily factual or even always true, it breathes with the life of God." (PCUSA) | The OT and NT contain all things necessary for salvation. (CofE) | Inspired and inerrant in original manuscripts, "and have been transmitted to the present without corruption of any essential doctrine." (WC) |
"written by men and divinely inspired. It has God for its author, salvation for its end,
and truth, without any mixture of error, for its matter."
(SBC) "the final authority and trustworthy for faith and practice." (ABC) Inspired by God, written by humans (MB) |
| There is also a significant difference between the churches on what or who is the source of doctrine. All agree that the Bible is a source. But the Catholic Church and to a lesser extent the Orthodox Church, accept many other sources, including men not even claiming inspiration of God. Protestant churches, looking back at false doctrines that have come from the Catholic Church only to be later refuted by the church, accept only the Bible as a source. This view is called Sola Scriptura. | |||||||
| Sources of Doctrine | Bible, church fathers, popes, bishops; Seven Ecumenial Councils; Trent, Vatican, and other Catholic councils | "The Scriptures, both the Old and New Testaments, along with Sacred Apostolic Tradition." Seven Ecumenical Councils. (GOAA) | Bible alone | "Our standards of belief are to be found in the Bible and in the Church's historic Confession of Faith." (CofS) | "The Scriptures and the Gospels, the Apostolic Church and the early Church Fathers, are the foundation of Anglican faith and worship." | "The Holy Scripture contains all things necessary to salvation. " (UMC) | "We hold the Scriptures, the Old and New Testaments, as our final authority. We accept no humanly devised confession or creed as binding." (ABC) |
| All the mainline churches agree on the doctrine of the Trinity. Although the word does not appear in scripture, we see many repetitions of the phrase "The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit" we show them as equal aspects of God. There are churches that do not accept this. They view God as a bi-unity rather than a tri-unity and the Holy Spirit as "the mind of God". It is difficult to square this with scripture. | |||||||
| The Trinity | "The mystery of the Most Holy Trinity is the central mystery of the Christian faith and of Christian life." (Catechism, 261) | "The fundamental truth of the Orthodox Church is the faith revealed in the True God: the Holy Trinity of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost." (GOAA) | "We teach that the one true God. is the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost, three distinct persons, but of one and the same divine essence, equal in power, equal in eternity, equal in majesty, because each person possesses the one divine essence." (LCMS) | "We trust in the one triune God." (PCUSA) | "There is only one God, the Creator of the universe, who has three 'persons' or aspects, inseparable yet unique parts of the whole." (ECUSA) | "We believe in the one living and true God. Within this unity there are three persons of one essential nature, power and eternity - the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit." (WC) | "The eternal triune God reveals Himself to us as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, with distinct personal attributes, but without division of nature, essence, or being." (SBC) |
| There is complete agreement on the nature of Christ – that he was fully God and fully man. Any differences in view are related to trying to understand how this is possible, something the Bible does not try to explain. | |||||||
| Nature of Christ | "The Son is consubstantial with the Father, which means that, in the Father and with the Father the Son is one and the same God." (Catechism, 262) | "Christ was born with two perfect natures, the divine and human, as God-man." (GOAA) | "True God, begotten of the Father from eternity, and also true man, born of the Virgin Mary, [and] Lord." (Sm. Catech.) | Christ is "fully human, fully God." (PCUSA) | "Jesus is the complete revelation of God to us, and as such, Jesus, although fully human with us, is also fully God—fully divine." (ECUSA) | "The Son, who is the ... very and eternal God, of one substance with the Father, took man's nature... so that two whole and perfect natures... were joined together in one person, never to be divided; whereof is one Christ, very God and very Man." (UMC, Art. 2) | Christ "is the One Mediator, fully God, fully man, in whose Person is effected the reconciliation between God and man." (SBC) |
| No other church agrees with the Roman Catholic Church’s views on Mary. They all agree that she was the Mother of God and highly honored to have been chosen to serve in bringing forth the Messiah in a virgin birth. But the Catholic Church goes on to claim that she herself was born sinless and lived free of sin, that she remained a virgin all her life, and that she ascended into Heaven as Jesus had done. There is no Biblical support for any of this and there are Biblical references that seem to refute at least parts of it. | |||||||
| Mary | Mary had no original sin, remained free of sin throughout her life, is "Mother of God" and the new Eve. (Catechism, 508-10) Bodily assumption into heaven instead of death. (Catechism, 966) | Theotokos ("God-Bearer"). Honored highly, but no immaculate conception or bodily assumption into the heavens. (GOAA) | Mary should not be regarded as a mediator between man and God, but she should be honored as "God-bearer" and a model for Christians. (PCUSA) | Mary was the mother of Jesus and one of his disciples. (UMC) Virgin birth affirmed, immaculate conception denied. (UMC) | |||
| There is a range of differences on Original Sin, the idea that the sin of Adam and Eve has made all mankind sinners. At one end of the range is the Catholic view that there is only a resultant tendency to sin, but that this can be overcome, as they claim Mary did. Other groups range from "born in sin" to "born with a tendency to sin that always results in sin". | |||||||
| Original Sin | Only a tendency to sin. "Luther and Calvin taught as their fundamental error that no free will properly so called remained in man after the fall of our first parents. and that man in all his actions sins." (CE) |
"In fallen humanity [the image of God] remains part of human nature, albeit
darkened, wounded, and weakened."
(GOAA) An unnatural condition of human life that ends in death. (EB) |
Adam's offspring "have lost the original knowledge, righteousness, and holiness, and thus all men are sinners already by birth, dead in sins, inclined to all evil, and subject to the wrath of God." (LCMS) | "No one of us is good enough on our own--we are all dependent upon God's goodness and mercy … from the kindest, most devoted churchgoer to the most blatant sinner." (PCUSA) | "Man is very far gone from original righteousness, and of his own nature inclined to evil, and that continually." (UMC) | ||
| There is really no meaningful difference on the topic of atonement, just different ways of expressing the same idea and differences of emphasis. | |||||||
| Atonement (Purpose of Christ's Death) | "By his death and Resurrection, Jesus Christ has "opened" heaven to us." (Catech 1026) Also created merit that is shared with sinners through sacraments. | "Christ enlightens the minds of the people, purifies their hearts and frees their wills from the bondage of the devil. Christ became flesh to make reconciliation for the sins of the people." (GOAA) | "The purpose of this miraculous incarnation of the Son of God was that He might become the Mediator between God and men, both fulfilling the divine Law and suffering and dying in the place of mankind. In this manner God reconciled the whole sinful world unto Himself." (LCMS) | "Through Jesus' death and resurrection God triumphed over sin." (PCUSA) |
Christ " truly suffered, was crucified, dead, and buried, to reconcile his
Father to us, and to be a sacrifice, not only for original guilt, but also
for actual sins of men. "
(UMC) |
Christ "honored the divine law by His personal obedience, and in His substitutionary death on the cross He made provision for the redemption of men from sin." (SBC) | |
|
Discussions about predestination seem to have generated more heat than light. The Bible
makes it clear that God knows in advance, before each person is born, who
will be his and who will not. In fact it says that
God chose them before they were born. Some people take that a step further to
mean that therefore their destiny is predetermined and no matter what they do
in life they cannot change that. But the flaw in this thinking is that no man knows his destiny and therefore he determines his destiny by the life he lives and the choices he makes. The fact that God knows that destiny does not limit the choices each person makes. But some odd beliefs have resulted. If every man has one of two possible destinies and you claim that one of those destinies is predestined, then obviously the other destiny must also be predestined because it is the only other possible outcome. It is possible that some of these points of view use the word Predestination in a different sense than the average person would think of it. |
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| Predestination | Predestination to heaven only, and related to God's foreknowledge. "God predestines no one to go to hell." (Catech 1037) | God has foreknowlege of man's destiny, but he does not predestine him1 | Predestination to heaven only. "There is no predestination to damnation." (LCMS) | "We are able to choose God because God first chose us." (PCUSA) Some modern Presbyterians are "very concerned about the few statements in the confessions" suggesting predestination to hell. (PCUSA) | "Predestination to Life is the everlasting purpose of God … to deliver from curse and damnation those whom he hath chosen in Christ out of mankind, and to bring them by Christ to everlasting salvation, as vessels made to honour." (Art. 17) | Affirmed, but understood in terms of God choosing those he knew would freely believe | Affirmed - "Election is the gracious purpose of God, according to which He regenerates, justifies, sanctifies, and glorifies sinners. It is consistent with the free agency of man." (SBC) |
| No other group accepts the Catholic belief in purgatory, a place where people go first after death to be purified and where the prayers of priests and others can affect the length of your stay. | |||||||
| Purgatory | Affirmed - " All who die in God's grace and friendship, but still imperfectly purified. after death they undergo purification, so as to achieve the holiness necessary to enter the joy of heaven." (Catech 1030) | Denied (GOAA) | Denied. | Denied. | Denied. | Denied. Purgatory is "vainly invented and grounded upon no warrant of Scripture, but repugnant to the Word of God." (UMC) | Denied. |
| The Catholic Church and to a lesser extent the Orthodox Church see themselves as the one true church. This belief is built on the length of their existence and their claims to have been created by the Apostle Peter. All protestant churches believe that a church is a group of people living as Christians. | |||||||
| The Church | "The sole Church of Christ which in the Creed we profess to be one, holy, catholic, and apostolic, subsists in the Catholic Church, which is governed by the successor of Peter and by the bishops in communion with him." (Catech 870) | Church consists of baptized people who have received Christ as the Son of God and Savior of the world. (ELCA) | "The visible Church of Christ is a congregation of faithful men, in which the pure Word of God is preached, and the Sacraments be duly ministered." (Article 19) | "The visible church of Christ is a congregation of faithful men in which the pure Word of God is preached, and the Sacraments duly administered." (UMC) | "A New Testament church is an autonomous local congregation of baptized believers." (SBC) | ||
| Because the Catholic Church and Orthodox Church see themselves as the one true church they see other churches as false churches. These opinions have moderated some in modern times and the church has lost its authority to physically punish those that disagree with it. Because the Protestant churches define a church by the baptism of believers rather than the history of the organization they accept the existence of most other protestant churches and the Catholic and Orthodox churches. | |||
| Other Denominations | "… many elements of sanctification and of truth are found outside [the] visible confines [of the Roman Catholic church]." (Catech 870) Those "who believe in Christ and have been properly baptized are put in a certain, although imperfect, communion with the Catholic Church." (Catech 838) | "The Orthodox Church continuously and without interruption is the true keeper of the truths of the Undivided Church, without omissions or additions." (GOAA) | [View other churches as valid and "recognize the obligation to seek and promote union with other Churches in which it finds the Word to be purely preached, the sacraments administered according to Christ's ordinance, and discipline rightly exercised." |
1 http://christianity.about.com/od/easternorthodoxy/a/orthodoxbeliefs.htm
2 http://www.religionfacts.com/christianity/charts/denominations_beliefs.htm