I was reading a history of the colonization of North America, and was unable to make sense of some of the internal squabbles between colonies as I really didn’t understand the religions of the various groups.
Anyone know of a good website to tell me what distinguishes all the various Christian sects? Anglicans vs Catholics, Quakers vs Puritans, etc. Just interested in the overall big picture of how the sects differ in their beliefs. While I know the basics of Christianity, I am astonishingly ignorant about, say, what it means to be a Presbyterian. Help enlighten me!
(Note that I am really only interested at this time about the various major named groups from Western Europe, not the Gnostics and Manicheans and stuff).
http://www.religioustolerance.org/
There may be some quibbles by actual adherents of the various groups as to how accurately they describe doctrine, but they make a serious effrort to get it right.
One problem you may have would be that the churches of the 18th and 19th centuries do not directly translate to current denominations. Some have changed their names, merging or separating, and other have kept the names, but have modified their stands on certain religious doctrines.
It is still a good place to start.
Specific pages:
Christian denominations (Good information in an oddly incomplete list)
A different list of denominations (Still oddly organized (from my perspective) but fills in most of the blanks on the previous page)
Thanks, this was the kind of thing I was looking for. But it’s too bad this site still has so many gaps. But at least it gives me the names of the various families and rough groupings to further organize my web searches.
I appreciate the knowledgable commentary you provide to the Dope on religious matters.
Feel free to ask about specific groups you have questions on. There’s a real odd lot of knowledge about denominations on this board.