I go to a non-denomination Christian church, and have only recently started learning about the other Christian denominations (Catholic, Lutheran, Baptist etc...) I'm curious to know your opinion on if there is one "true" denomination, and if all believers of these denominations can get to the heaven mentioned in the Bible even though they practice different rituals. And if anyone can give me a brief summary on how the main denominations are different that will be great.
I don't know a lot about the difference that's why I ask, but I know for a fact that Catholics have the Pope/priest system where in others they don't because it doesn't exactly say so in the Bible.
Yeah Chinahype, I can help you out. I'm running out the door at the moment, but I'll log on this evening and give a brief description of each major denomination (can't do all of them, simply too many). And no, there isn't one "true" denomination. A catholic might disagree, however. They believe that they are the only true church, because of their direct ties to the apostles who formed the church. They believe they were the original. Which is a strong argument. They wouldn't say other Christians aren't in a relationship with Christ and aren't going to heaven, just that they are a little misguided in the beliefs. Other denominations believe the catholic church messed up somewhere down the line. Jesus commanded his followers to "be of one mind." So it really is a sad case that there are so many variants of the faith. This situation really speaks to the nature of human corruption and sin. Our imperfectness has damaged the one thing we hold dearest.
I'd also like to request that someone provide us with gross generalizations and humorous stereotypes of each denomination to go along with the real explanations.
They all hinge on philosophical differences, which I'm willing to bet, many of the congregants couldn't articulate. Things like the value of faith vs. works and whether there is predestination. There are other little variances in ritual, but those don't tend to be the cause of the split - rather they seem to be the effect of groups of churches evolving separately.
There are 3 levels of "belief-importance", if you will. Dogma- That which is truly essential to the faith. You can't call yourself a Christian otherwise. Ex: Jesus Christ was God Doctrine- Important, but not really necessary to call oneself a Christian. Ex: Methods of Baptism Opinion- Doesn't even matter what you believe. Scripture doesn't address it. Ex: Evolution vs. Young Earth Creationism Sadly, there are splits all the way down. Some are major, others aren't.
I've been reading into the Roman Catholic interpretations of the Christian religion, and it kind of baffles me how they enforce the teachings of Jesus while also "idolizing" Mary and granting priests the ability to forgive sin?
Interesting way of putting it. I care little about religion and its denominations in general, so these concepts are pretty new to me. Heck, I didn't even know Catholicism is a denomination of Christianity.
:grin: I just don't have time to dispel all the ignorance on the interwebs. That's what google is for. I usually let other people handle those types of gross mis-characterizations and handle the one's nobody's bringing up. And I'll get back to your post in the other thread, eventually (Deckard can attest that I won't leave you hanging, even if it takes 6 months or so).
Essentially there are 4 tenets to the Christian faith from where we get our authority: Scripture, Tradition, Reason, and Experience. The Catholic church holds Tradition in a very high regard. It is from this tradition that a lot of those Doctrines (see above) come, even though we do not see them in Scripture. After all, they were there from the very beginning of the church. Who else knows tradition better? The Reformation was essentially a stance against the Catholic church and their Tradition. Martin Luther (and others) felt that the Catholic church had put too much of their stock in Tradition. One of Luther's rally cries against them was Sola Scriptura, which meant that he believed that Scripture should be held in higher authority than others. Baptists, Lutherans, Methodists, Pentecostals, Anglicans, Presbyterians, and others, come from this belief and protest against the Catholic church, thus, they are called Protestant.
Most christian denominations are very similar, they all promote family, love, sharing, kindness, the teaching of Jesus and the bible ect... Anyone can be saved as long as they accept Jesus as their savior. There are slight differences however, they are mostly minor such as the way they go about things (seventh day Adventists see Saturday as the sabbath for example) However each denominations claims do have the Bibles backing so they are similar, some more strict then others but similar and thats whats seperates those denominations (different interpretations of text and more strict then others) Catholic though is a corrupt form of Christianity. They are the one denomination who's backing do not come from the Bible and their differences compared to the others are enormous. For example, Mary.. Sometimes it's almost as if they worship Mary and hold her to a higher decree then Jesus himself. Either way they definitely idolize her and no one can argue that. Catholics have changed the ten commandments do to a Popes order to be more fitting for them. Within Catholicism EVERYTHING is a ritual it seems. They believe in purgatory and they also believe the only way to heaven is through Catholicism. It is quite funny that the man who died beside Jesus and who was welcomed into Heaven wasn't a strict Catholic, he accepted Jesus as his savior physically and morally which is what the Bible says. Not to mention they seem to hold their 'doctrines' just as high as the Bible. Catholicism is like the Government, full of corruption. well now that I think of it, they are a government ha ha ha
