Churchgoers - how different are your beliefs from the next church over?

Great Debates
1

When I’ve dated women who were into church (I’m not) they would always know the fine distinctions between their church and the ones that last split from it. “Oh, the ____ branch is like ours but don’t believe in dancing or singing on church property, but it’s ok at home. While the _____ branch requires exactly 5% of your income go into the fund. And the _____ branch thinks it’s not proper to use electricity in the church building.” You get the idea.

I always assumed that many, perhaps most, of the congregations were not all that sold on the distinctions, and that if called upon they could easily switch between branches without much concern.

Do those distinctions mean a lot to you?

2

My family and I are converted to be Episcopalian out of choice. The Episcopal church derives from the worldwide Anglican community with members such as the church of England. People tend to label it as a protestant church but it technically isn’t as it didn’t arise from the Protestant Reformation.

Episcopal services look very much like Catholic services. Under the hood however, the Episcopal church isn’t much like the Catholic church at all. The Episcopal church is very socially liberal and women can be priests (mine is) and all types tend to be accepted including gays. There aren’t prohibitions on many specific behaviors like drinking or dancing. The teaching are not fundamentalists either.

The Episcopal church tends to attract professionals and intellectuals. I believe that per capita income for Episcopals is among the highest of all the Christian Churches. The church is focused on community, outreach, and following broad Christian principles in general. It isn’t focused on dogma or exclusion.

I grew up in the Methodist church and my wife was raised Catholic. I have fond memories of the Methodist church and it was fairly similar to the Episcopal church accept the ceremonies were less Catholic based. My wife is now strongly opposed to the Catholic church because of their view’s of women and because of the Boston sex scandal. Going there isn’t an option even though one side of her family pressures someone.

I grew up in a town that was largely Southern Baptist but also had a lot of fundamentalist churches. When you get to the fringes, the differences between the extremes are not subtle at all. There is no way an Episcopalian could ever feel comfortable sitting through say a Pentecostal service.

3

The little eastern Kentucky county where I grew up seems to have a little church every 100 feet or so, most of which came about by splitting from another church. For instance, there are about eight churches in the county that are called something like “(x) Church of God”, and the old timers can trace them all the way back to a single congregation more than a century ago.

My understanding is that these splits are more commonly the result of personality differences than true doctrinal disputes, but that they usually try to come up with some minor religious disagreement as an excuse. My guess is that 99% of the people who go to those churches have no idea what the difference is between them and the similarly-named churches down the street, and if you did tell them what doctrinal point led to the split they wouldn’t care.

4

Shagnasty pretty closely calls it for me as well. I want a church that’s Eucharistically oriented, solid in the Apostolic Succession, honors and respects women and gay people and treats them as full equal welcome members, and permits me to use my intelligence rather than laying down unquestionable dogma. That translates to either Episcopalian or ELCA Lutheran.

5

I attend the First Congregational Church of Santa Cruz, which belongs to the United Church of Christ. Now you’ve got UCC Congregationalists and you’ve got just plain old Congregationalists who may belong to either to National Association of Congregational Christian Churches or the Conservative Congregational Christian Churches (who are fairly fundamentalist). Non-UCC Congregationalists chose not to participate in the merge between Congregational Christian Churches and Evangelical/Reformed Churches during the 1950’s to form the UCC.

UCC Congregationalists are typically more socially and theologically liberal, although this does differ between different congregations. You may remember that the UCC General Synod recently passed a resolution in support of same-sex marriage. This would be pretty much unheard of in any of the non-UCC Congregational churches. My own church is very liberal but open-minded to any variety of theological beliefs: if you were to announce that you were a Charismatic Messianic Jewish Lesbian, most folk here probably wouldn’t bat an eye.

Every UCC congregation is a little different in the worship styles; many are very traditional, with hymns, organs, and choirs. Others, such as mine, incorporate jazz and gospel into their worship services. We are “low-church”, a term I can’t quite explain, but I think it means that we aren’t very much like Lutherans and Episcopalians. Everything’s very casual, communion (Eucharist) is important but not overemphasized, ministers preach but all members of the church can participate in leading worship. We’re a lot like the Southern Baptist church of my upbringing in that respect, but without the conservativeness (and we perform infant baptism).

I think that’s pretty thorough! Hope it made sense.

6

The church next to mine is United Church of Christ, while I attend a Presbyterian church.
They’re distinctly more liberal.

That said…

it depends on the distinction.
(As you could probably guess)

I consider myself Generic Protestant. I could probably walk into most protestant churches and at a gross theological level, not have a problem. At a finer level, there are churches who apply the same teachings in a way that I wouldn’t agree with. I’m likely to be ok with most mainline and non-extreme evangelical churches. There are always exceptions. I have definite doctrinal differences with Catholicism and Orthodoxy, and less so with Anglican/Episcopalean beliefs - they’re big enough that I couldn’t join without having an extreme change of mind and heart, but if they were the only/best game in town, I’d attend.

When I church shopped, I started in the denomination I grew up in, and then went to other denominations. Assuming they seemed ok theologically (which was most of them) the decision rested more with community involvement, size, makeup of the congregation, pastors, general “feeling,” etc.

I know a guy who narrowed it down to two churches (different denominations) and chose because one served bad coffee after service.

7

On differentiation of religious beliefs, this made me laugh. Couldn’t resist posting it:

*I was walking across a bridge one day, and I saw a man standing on the edge, about to jump. I ran over and said: “Stop. Don’t do it.”

“Why shouldn’t I?” he asked.

“Well, there’s so much to live for!”

“Like what?”

“Are you religious?”

He said: “Yes.”

I said: “Me too. Are you Christian or Buddhist?”

“Christian.”

“Me too. Are you Catholic or Protestant?”

“Protestant.”

“Me too. Are you Episcopalian or Baptist?”

“Baptist.”

“Wow. Me too. Are you Baptist Church of God or Baptist Church of the Lord?”

“Baptist Church of God.”

“Me too. Are you original Baptist Church of God, or are you Reformed Baptist Church of God?”

“Reformed Baptist Church of God.”

“Me too. Are you Reformed Baptist Church of God, Reformation of 1879, or Reformed Baptist Church of God, Reformation of 1915?”

He said: “Reformed Baptist Church of God, Reformation of 1915.”

I said: “Die, heretic scum,” and pushed him off.
*

8

I think in general denomination is bad way to judge divisions within Christianity. A lot of denominations get along quite well with others. I go to an Anglican/Episcoplaean church (which here in .au is more evangelical) but I consider myself a general evangelical Christian, rather than an Anglican. I also have friends that I consider brothers and sisters in the faith (as they consider me) from a range of other churches, including Baptist, Presbyterian, Lutheran, Reformed, Independent, ect. We may disagree about small matters, and have slightly different traditions, but we all condsider each other to have pretty much the same ideas.

What distinguishes churches I think is not so much the denomination, but the theological “movement” that they belong to, of which there are only a few. These would include things like “Liberal”, “Evangelical”, “Fundamentalist”, “Pentecostal”, “Catholic” and “Orthodox”. These are the major divisions between churches. And what you tend to find with denominations of any great size you often find different people influenced by different movements.

So in reality for most denominations while there often is a definite statement of belief (ie: 39 articles, Westminster confession, Hiedelburg catechism, Scots confession, Papal edict, ect), it is not too hard to find someone who fundamentally disagrees with the “official” view of the church. So for example the “offical” stance of the Church of England is in the 39 articles, yet many Episcopalian churches in the US openly teach stuff that is contradictory to it. Or here in .au the Anglican church can be divided up into three main groups, within which there are some large disagreements. We have the “anglo-catholics” (high church - theologically liberal) “liberals” who are low church - theologically liberal) and “evangelicals” (low church - theologically conservative). So if I was to change churches I would actually have less problem going to an evengelical church in a different denomination than going to an anglo-catholic or liberal church within my own denomination.

The other thing worth noting about the different movements is that often the distinctive is not matters of biblical interpretation, but what else you add to the biblical record. So Catholics and Orthodox people are different because they add church tradition to the bible, Liberals are distinct because they add individual reasoning to the bible, ect.

Joey Jo Jo.

9

From the title, I thought the OP was asking about churches in geographical proximity, rather than theological.

As it happens, both overlap in my case. I’m a member in the local Assembly of God. Behind us is the Seventh-Day Adventist church, down a block west is the
Church of Christ (non-instrumentalist), down a block east WAS the United Pentecostal Church (they moved to build a bigger building, and we bought
that building for our Teen ministry), and across the street from us is a Wesleyan
church.

To most the Doper community, every church would qualify a Fund’ist-to-Fundie.
But there are distinctive differences.

AOG - Trinity, Salvation through faith in JC alone, Eternal Hell, tongues-speaking as the Sign of Holy Spirit infilling but distinct from salvation, instrumental & modern music, “worldly amusements” accepted within reason, Sunday-worship,
Rapture & PreMil return of JC, no diet restrictions, alcohol discouraged but not forbidden
SDA- Trinity, Salvation-faith in JC alone, Hell as final destruction, tongues not forbidden but suspect, instrumental old-style music, “worldly amusements” tolerated but suspect, Sabbath-worship, PreMil Return of JC but not Rapture,
unclean meats & alcohol strongly discouraged, meat discouraged
Church of Christ- Trinity, Salvation -faith in JC & CoC membership w/immersion baptism, Eternal Hell, tongues & instrumental music forbidden, “worldly amusements”- I’m not sure, Sunday-worship, Return of JC to end world, take us into Eternity- no Rapture or Millenium, no diet restrictions, alcohol- don’t know
United Pentecostal Church- Modalism- not Trinity, Salvation- faith in JC & immersion baptism & tongues, Eternal Hell, instrumental lively music, “worldly amusement” discouraged. Sunday worship, Rapture & PreMil Return of JC (the local UPC is more tolerant & has actually held joint services with us), no diet restrictions, alcohol- forbidden
Wesleyan- Trinity, Salvation- faith in JC, Eternal Hell, tongues discouraged, instrumental older music, “worldly amusements” discouraged, Sunday worship,
not sure about Rapture & Millenium, no diet restriction, alcohol- discouraged or foridden

10

Actually, apart from the female priests, that is pretty similar to the Roman Catholic Church. There will be variation from one congregation to another, of course, but that’s equally true of Catholics and Episcopalians. It may well be that in Shagnasty’s hometown, the local Episcopalian church is more socially liberal and the rest than the local Catholic church, but it’s probably hasty to generalize from that.

So far as I know, the only fundamental differences between the Episcopal and Catholic churches as a whole are the primacy of the Pope and female clergy. Episcopals also allow married priests, but that’s not actually something that’s completely out of line with the Catholic church, and there are in fact a handful of legitimately married Catholic priests (albeit in very special circumstances).

The other closest relative to the Roman Catholic Church would be the Eastern Catholic Churches. Roughly, these are churches which hold to the same doctrine as Roman Catholics, but follow the same traditions as the Eastern Orthodox. A service in an Eastern Catholic church would look very different from one in a Roman Catholic church, but if you questioned the members on theology, you’d get very similar answers.

11

Quite fun to run the Church of England through FriarTed’s filter:

Trinity, Salvation through God’s Grace and repentance (i.e., faith in Jesus desirable but not necessary), Hell - ignored as much as possible, tongues generally discouraged but present in some congregations, instrumental music (all ranges), “worldy amusements” positively encouraged, Sunday-worship, no literal Rapture, quite a few theologians hold with no literal Millennium - Pre-Mil for those that don’t, alcohol positively encouraged.

12

Two important doctrinal differences between the Anglican and Roman Catholic churches are the number of sacraments (only Baptism and Communion - no confession) and the doctrine that Jesus is the only intercessor between God and humanity (so, no prayers to the saints or to Mary). I’m not sure if these count as “fundamental”, though.

13

You never know what you’re going to get when you open the hood on a church.

I won’t bore anyone with the details of the great Lutheran split of the 1970s, but let’s just look at the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod (LCMS) and the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America (ELCA).

They both trace their roots to Martin Luther (and before). They have the same worship service, use the same hymnal. They even participate together in things like the Lutheran League. At first glance, you’d be hard-pressed to tell the difference.

But they have very different doctrines. The LCMS is very literal in its interpretation of the Bible, the ELCA is a good deal more liberal. As a result, they’re distinctly different.

14

Two sacraments are required as Christ’s commandments; the other five things are available to parishioners wanting them, and priests must give them. Whether you count them as sacraments or not is personal choice. My wife belongs to an Anglican order that requires annual confession to a priest. Most American churches make anointing of the sick available if parishioners want it. Etc. Likewise invocation of saints – pray all you want to Mary, Jude, or C.S. Lewis for that matter, to intercede before God for you – but don’t hold it up as church doctrine.

15

And transubstantiation, and the doctrine of Purgatory. The 39 Articles calls veneration of saints and relics (paraphrased) an evil Romish doctrine, and ‘A fond (foolish) thing vainly invented.’. Whether or not they take that bit seriously varies from church to church. I was surprised to find out that the Prayer Book is also predestinationist.

Roman Catholics have a few bits of dogma that greatly separate them from everyone but the Orthodox, and even then there’s still primacy and filioque. :smiley:

Our best friends have become Catholic after being raise Baptist and Free Brethren, repectively, and there were very bitter fights about it. The Free Brethren family do truly believe that their son and daughter-in-law have imperiled their souls and are practising idolatry. It’s very sad.

As for myself, my husband and I are also joining the RCC for (among other things) doctrinal reasons, so yes, the differences do matter to me, in terms of my faith. This does not mean that I think less of anyone else’s denomination or faith, and I do not presume to know the state of anyone’s salvation.

Well, I do think the St. Francis National Evangelical Spiritual Baptist Faith Archdiocese of Toronto has a silly name. That may be judgemental.

16

I’m LDS, so we’re on the unique side. The closest relative is the Community of Christ (formerly RLDS), and we’re not very similar any more. Though I think there are a few here in town.