Thank you so much for starting this thread. I have always wondered the same thing. I was raised Jewish and the major sects of Christianity have always been a bit of a mystery to me.
If I can interject a question. I more or less get the history behind the various sects, but I don’t actually know what distiguishes one sect from another beyond the history.
I know that Lutherans are sort of Catholic lite (all the guilt none of the Pope!), and I have an ex who was Episcopalian, so I sort of get that Episcopalians are like Lutherans but with a more relaxed attitude toward life. And I think I understand a bit about some of the more extreame sects (Seventh Day Adventists and Jehovas Witnesses, Pentacostals etc) because they are strange enough that their differences are refferenced frequently.
But what exactly is it that Presbyterian, Methodist, Congregationalist, Unitarian, Babtist, and the other mainstream sects that I am sure I am leaving out, believe that makes them different from one another?
From Polycarp’s post #4 it sounds as though they are all more or less the same with a different historical starting point and varying degrees of literalism/conservativism in their beliefs. Is it just as simple as that? Are the majority of Christian sects largely intergangable? If a Methodist moved to a town where there was only a Presbyterian church, would they feel at home going to church there or would it seem wacky and weird?
I was a member of a UCC church in Dallas, but when I moved to Phoenix, I started going to an Episcopal church. Prior to that, I lived next to a Methodist church, so I usually went there. I’m sure not everyone is comfortable going between denominations, but I know many who are.
Here is a website which compares visits to a wide variety of Christian churches.
The Filioque started off in Spain as a simple expression of an idea that was not really tied to any deep theology. Charlemagne later siezed on the difference in language between the Eastern and Western Church in an attempt to use the power of the church to secure more political power to himself. In the Eastern Church, a fair amount of theology had been written based on the idea that the Son and the Spirit each proceeded from the Father that would need to be undone and re-written if the idea of the Spirit proceeding from the Father and the Son was accepted as a theological point. The West really had no vested interest in the discussion outside Charlemagne’s politics and once the schism had come to pass, the West sort of wandered away from the topic. (It is possible to find Western authors who make a point of defending Filioque, of course, but it simply never became a major point in the West.
That is why the Western Church has fewer barriers to interaction with the East than the reverse and why there was a serious possibility of riots when Pope John Paul II visited Athens a few years ago. The West looks on the matter as a rather unfortunate disagreement that got out of hand while the East views it as a serious departure into heresy by the West. (JP II defused the hostility by stepping off the plane and begging forgiveness, thus satisfying the honor of the East with a tacit acknowledgement that the West might have been wrong.)
Since the Eastern Churches are all, pretty much, “national” churches, (in a way that would get a good head nodding from Henry VIII), they have tended to suffer more issues when the “nations” have broken up or come into conflict. From the middle of the eighteenth century until the early twentieth century, several of these national churches got into fights with neighboring churches, based partly on theology and partly on religious politics, exacerbated by national politics. (Note that several of them were in lands dominated by the Muslim Ottoman Empire and that the situations often changed as the movement toward nationalism grew in post-Napoleanic Europe.) When those churches suffered ther own schisms, the breakaway churches tended to look to Rome for support, leading to their own unions with the Latin Rite Church. Since the Roman/Latin Rite Church was not nearly as concerned about the Filioque, it rarely was an issue in deciding whether one group or another could enter into communion with the Roman church.
On the other hand, politically speaking English law has defined the Church of England to be a Protestant church since at least the late 17th Century (with the English Bill of Rights in 1689 and the Act of Settlement in 1701). And in the United States, one of the official names of the Episcopalian church is “the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America”. So there is a long-standing tradition within Anglicanism of considering itself to be a Protestant denomination.
However, “Protestant” in the context meant “not Papist” (that’s not insulting as used here, Catholics; the meaning of “adhering to the Pope” is key, where “Catholic” does have a range of meaning). Some of the modern meanings of “Protestant” like “non-ligurgical,” having infrequent Eucharists, focusing on the sermon, sola Scriptura, sola fidei, etc., are not implied.
It would vary from church to church, not just denomination to denomination. There was barely a lick of difference between the Baptist church my parents took me to as a kid and the Methodist church we went to when visiting my grandparents (adult vs infant baptism and debtors vs tresspassers in the Lord’s Prayer being all I ever noticed) but take any two other churches of the same two denomintations and it might be completely different. Or even two different churches of the same denomination. Or the same church when a new pastor/preacher/minister takes over.
There’s really no way to answer that because it would depend on what each individual finds wacky and weird. When I was growing up, I really couldn’t tell any difference in the Methodist services and the Presbyterian USA or Cumberland Presbyterian services. (A lot of these denominations are sub-divided! Even the Methodist church, as such, is no more. It is officially the United Methodist Church. )
But I could tell a difference in my church and the Southern Baptist churches that my grandparents went to. They baptized people by putting them under water and their ministers talked, generally, the a different cadence. In still other churches, the audience responded to what the minister was saying.
The greatest differences come from the beliefs and from the way the church is organized. Those are things that a child wouldn’t understand or notice.
Yet, summer tent revivals and Easter sunrise services were for anybody. That was really cool that people could set aside their differences and come together that way.
I am puzzled by your statement that “elders = ministers” in the Presbyterian churches. Although many Presbyterians – or perhaps all – believe in the priesthood of all believers – an “elder” is not the same as what we usually think of when we refer to a “minister.”
Each church may have several elders but usually only one minister. She or he is not an elder. The elders are the decision-making body of the individual church. Ministers are usually ordained. Elders are not. Did you mean something else?
By the way, Protestant churches have a different way of looking at church history. Most, as far as I know, don’t think of their history as beginning with Luther or the Reformation. They see themselves as part of the Church all along and splitting from Roman Catholicism. I have seen cornerstones on Church of Christ buildings that say “Founded in 33 B.C.,” for example. And why shouldn’t they? The Reformation began within the Church.
Right, but some Lutherans are liturgical, have frequent Eucharists, etc, and nobody doubts they are Protestant (and, on the other hand, Low Church Episcopalianism has infrequent Eucharists, and a few low church congregations have even gotten rid of the Book of Common Prayer). Regardless of its origins, Episcopalianism was influenced enough by Luther and Calvin to fit into the Protestant camp.
Note that there are a number of Orthodox Churches besides the “Greek”, there’s the Russian, Ukranian, etc. However, they are more or less unified.
There are also some early branches that are neither Protestant or Catholic or Orthodox- the Assyrian Church, Copts, Maronites (Which is in communion with the Catholic Church, so you could call it Catholic) and others.
The Copts are a quite large group, part of the Oriental Orthodoxy or the Eastern Christian Churches. They are somewhat similar to the Orthodox Chruches, but split off earlier, in the 5th century or so. The Orthodox Chruch and the Oriental Orthodoxy are in talks to become “in communion” and in fact one group- is in communion with one group of the Orthodox Church.
Assyrian Church is a very old split:
and has been called a Nestorian church, becuase it split off during that period, giving Nestorius some support.
And there are other small Christian churches, such as the Free Catholic Church, the Celtic Catholic Church, Celtic Orthodox Church, and some others.
I screwed up on Presbyterians, not badly but terminologically. All Presybterian ministers are equal, there are no bishops or other prelates. They are called presbyters or preaching elders, and together make up a presbytery or synod which governs the (denominational) church as a body. (Actually you get regional synods handling regional affairs and then a General Synod handling the whole church.) The local church, on the other hand, has the preaching elder associated with “ordained laymen” (no less solecistic way to put it – businessmen and such who receive ordination) as “ruling elders” and who with him make up the Session (=official board=vestry=parish council=body running the local church). There are also deacons who are not clegymen J.G. as in Catholicism or Methodism but who do outreach ministry.
The Old Catholic Church is a fairly widespread smaller church in northern Eurpoe, and consists of groups who broke with Rome either over the Jansenist issue or over Papal infallibility after Vatican Council I. Fotrmerly affiliated with them is the Polish (National) Catholic Churches – two denominations in communion with each other, one in the U.S. (with “National” in its name) and the other in Poland (without “National”) – the Old Catholics accept female priests, the Polish Catholics do not.
The United Church of Christ was a 1958 merger of the old Congregational Churches with a group called the Evangelical and Reformed Church. It’s a quite liberal Protestant denomination.
The Assembly of God is the most widespread, and I believe the largest, of the Pentecostal churches.
And then if you go north of the border you have the United Church of Canada, which was a 1925 union of the Methodist, Congregationalist, and much of the Presbyterian church.
As near as I can tell, these are more or less synonyms, and as somebody else mentioned a lot simply depends on which term is preferred by which denomination. I think there is, however, a bit of implied difference as far as the degree of respect inherent in each term. For example, in my early 20s I attended a Church of the Nazarene. In that church, in addition to the active pastor there were two retired pastors in the congregation. The oldest of these was in his late 80s, and pretty much everybody addressed him as “Reverend Mink”. The other retiree was in his 70s and tended to be called either “Pastor Ray” or “Pastor Griffiths” (and this was pretty much determined by the age of the person speaking to him - younger people used his last name, older people used his first name, though there were exceptions either way). The active pastor, who was in his 50s, eschewed titles (the little sign in front of the church identified him as “Coach”), and preferred to be called, simply, “Norm”. Even after he earned his Doctor of Divinity he rejected being addressed as “Doctor”.
None of the denominations I’ve attended regularly used the title “Minister” for the senior preacher, but some have used the term as essentially the equivalent of “department head”, i.e. “Minister of Music” (song leader, choir director), “Children’s Minister” (in charge of children’s ministries), “Minister of Education” (director of Sunday School classes for all ages), etc.
I think previous posters have explained what can be explained, so I’ll just meander anecdotally.
I once heard a Greek Orthodox priest say something along the lines of we are orthodox but not Jewish, evangelical but not Protestant, catholic but not Roman Catholic.
My mother was raised Methodist and my stepfather was a Southern Baptist, and I was quite comfortable bouncing from one church to another. I know I went to Sunday school for a while, but I couldn’t even tell you what denomination it was. In elementary school I signed up for something called “Released Time Education” that came in two varieties, Catholic and Protestant. I knew I wasn’t Catholic, so I chose the other one.
It wasn’t until I had stopped attending church regularly that I began to look into the history of Christianity and realize how deep the schisms between sects run in theory. Many of us may not think it’s important whether someone gets baptized at all, or by dunking or sprinkling, or as a baby or a teenager, but for others it could be the difference between heaven and hell.
In practice, I think many who identify as members of a Protestant sect do so out of habit, family tradition, or loyalty to a specific pastor or congregation more than adherence to any fine points of doctrine. I’ve known a few who have firmly claimed allegiance to a particular denomination who have, with no apparent angst or reluctance, switched to another upon marriage or moving to a new neighborhood.
Originally, I think the terms were chosen with greater care - one of the criticisms of the Reformation was the fact that the Holy Scriptures were a guarded secret of the priesthood, to which the laity had limited access. You therefore had to take your priests word for the fact that the Bible said this, that or the other & one of the actions of the reformation was to push for the translation of Scripture into the local languages for everyone (educated enough) to be able to read for themselves. The division between priesthood and laity implied above can be seen very clearly in church architecture, with great distance and often barriers between the congregation and the alter where the priest would minister, for example.
Many of the Protestant denominations sought to close this gap, and this is reflected in the names given to thier leaders - no longer Father (patriachal) or Reverend (worthy of reverence), but Pastor (pastoral = shepherding) or Minister(one who ministers/serves). Along with a general decreace in formality in society, many churches too have become less formal (Call me Norm!!) places. At our current church, the “leader” refuses any title, and styles himself “the one who leads the leadership team who leads the church”.
I think it’s mainly church leaders and other theologians who worry about hair-splitting between denominations, while the rest of us go where we feel comfortable, where we’re used to going, or where we get our particular needs met. I’ve been a regular attender of three different denominations in my lifetime. I left the first (Calvary Chapel) at age 17 simply because my family moved across the state and there was no Calvary Chapel in our new city. We settled in at a Four Square church, which I left around age 19 to go to my then-best-friend’s church instead, the Church of the Nazarene. I left there at age 22, at first simply because I had a job that forced me to work Sundays and then because I just drifted away from the church for a few years in favor of lots and lots of beer. When I eventually sobered up again at age 28, I came back to the Four Square church.
The pastors of these three churches, meanwhile, are interesting because each of them started out in a completely different denomination. My Calvary Chapel pastor was originally a Methodist minister who started deviating from the prescribed sermon topics ordered by the Methodist hierarchy in favor of writing his own sermons based purely on Scripture rather than “authorized denominational doctrine”. He was “found out” when his superiors investigated to find out why he was packing his small church full for four Sunday morning services every week. They said, “Hey, knock it off” and he said, “No, I quit” and aligned himself with Calvary Chapel instead. The Nazarene pastor was raised German Congregationalist (in Minnesota or Wisconsin, or somewhere near there) and started as a Congregationalist minister, but changed denominations for reasons I never learned. My current pastor at the Four Square church was born and raised Church of Christ, and began his pastoral career there, but he began to have problems with the CoC doctrine and ended up getting himself essentially blackballed out of there. Eventually he discovered that the Four Square doctrine was in line with his own independent interpretation of Scripture, and so he hooked up with them and has been there for 30+ years now.