Are Different Denominations Actually Different Religions?

[Duvduv]

After some analysis of the main issues concerning several denominations in Christianity, the question has arisen in my mind as to whether in fact there are so many true fundamental doctrinal differences that each could be considered a distinct religion:
For example, the Baptist denomination, the Methodist denomination, the Catholic denomination. The fundamentals regarding key doctrines are so distinct that they could qualify as separate religions. The fundamental issues about justification, salvation, faith versus works, intermediaries etc. leads me to the conclusion that these are different religions, whereby each would consider the members of the other group not saved for eternal life. And this is a very important matter to Christians.

 

[Not David]

After some analysis of the main issues concerning several denominations in Christianity, the question has arisen in my mind as to whether in fact there are so many true fundamental doctrinal differences that each could be considered a distinct religion:
For example, the Baptist denomination, the Methodist denomination, the Catholic denomination. The fundamentals regarding key doctrines are so distinct that they could qualify as separate religions. The fundamental issues about justification, salvation, faith versus works, intermediaries etc. leads me to the conclusion that these are different religions, whereby each would consider the members of the other group not saved for eternal life. And this is a very important matter to Christians.

Would you consider Orthodox, Conservative and Reform Judaism as different religions?

 

[ewq1938]

After some analysis of the main issues concerning several denominations in Christianity, the question has arisen in my mind as to whether in fact there are so many true fundamental doctrinal differences that each could be considered a distinct religion:

Denominations by definition are different parts of the same religion. There naturally will be differences in belief but the main beliefs will be the same like Christ is God and died and resurrected etc. "Denominations" that differ with the main beliefs can and are considered different religions (often just known as non Christians even if they believe in Jesus in some ways)

 

[Sabertooth]

Are Different Denominations Actually Different Religions?

They can be. Some can even be cults or verging on such.

I have found that most evangelical Protestants share a lot of common ground.

The World-Wide Church of God abandoned its cultic teachings a number of years ago.

Salvation Army started off as being very evangelical, but IMX, they have moved more toward social justice, without any clear evangelical message.

 

[Duvduv]

About Judaism I guess you could say that a group that rejects thr divine origin of the Torah and the authority if the Talmud is a different religion. Now about Christianity, the doctrinal differences between Roman Catholicism and the Baptist denomination are different enough to make them separate religions sharing certain beliefs. I am certain that a Baptist would not consider a Catholic saved and vice versa.

 

[A_Thinker]

I am certain that a Baptist would not consider a Catholic saved and vice versa.

you are mistaken ...

 

[Duvduv]

you are mistaken ...

I'm not mistaken. Catholicism requires compliance with the Sacraments for salvation and accepts the possibility of loss of salvation. Not to mention of course that baptism must take place in infancy. Without these a person isn't saved. There is no salvation outside the Church. On the other hand Catholicism is viewed as a lying organization headed by the anti Christ by Baptists who say one is saved by faith forever without the Vatican and sacraments.
Therefore it is fair to say thst a Catholic, a Baptist and a Methodist belong to three different religions sharing certain beliefs.
Indeed, given the turns of Catholicism under Vatican Two, it is better described as Neo-Catholic.and is not the same religion as historical Catholicism.

 

[com7fy8]

Indeed, given the turns of Catholicism under Vatican Two, it is better described as Neo-Catholic.and is not the same religion as historical Catholicism.

So, it looks like you have done some research, spent some amount of time on this.

I'm not concerned about if you label different groups different religions or different denominations. What I maybe have noticed is how people in a group can give a lot of their attention only to their particular things, compare themselves with each other, but not get into all the things of God's word and how we are and love, in comparison with Jesus. It is possible for us to know groups, better than we know the Bible.

So . . . how much have you gotten to know the Bible, meaning what Christians call the Old Testament and the New Testament? I understand you consider the five-book Torah to be your Canon Scripture.

So, have you gotten to know the New Testament and all the beliefs and commandments and guarantees which are in the New Testament? Or, have you concentrated your study on groups calling themselves Christian??

My opinion of experience is there are people who simply have trusted in Jesus for salvation, and we pray and trust God to have us doing all He means by His word; and in the process of doing this, we feed on the early scriptures, which include your Torah, and we feed on the New Covenant which has come after Jesus the Messiah was sacrificed for our sins and rose again on the third day.

We are not concerned about what label to put on ourselves, at least not as much as becoming like Jesus and loving any and all people the way Jesus on the cross has loved us all. How God has us become in our character is most important, possibly, because our character has a lot to do with what we are capable of choosing and doing, and if we are sharing with God in His love, or not.

So, labels are not relevant, I would say. But how we become in our character is what has to do with Christianity. But there are people who evade this, by staying busy with beliefs and labels and congratulating themselves about their label or how they can disprove people of another label.

And what is a significant difference is if people believe God personally relates with every one of His children. There are people claiming Christianity, who treat God like He is distant, and their prayer and worship and works can be gestures, like they are to God at some distance while the people control their own selves.

Others experience how God personally corrects us > Hebrews 12:4-14 > while also perfecting us in His own love > Romans 5:5, 1 John 4:17 > while personally ruling us in His own peace > Colossians 3:15, Matthew 11:28-30. And we have scripture about how God in us has us relating with other children of God in His love > Ephesians 4:2, 4:31-5:2, and other scriptures.

And Jesus in us has us loving any and all people, with hope for any evil person, at all, like how Jesus on the cross was loving and having hope for any and all people > love "hopes all things" (in 1 Corinthians 13:7) . . .

"And walk in love, as Christ also has loved us and given Himself for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling aroma." (Ephesians 5:2)

And God's word tells us what His religion is >

"Pure and undefiled religion before God and the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their trouble, and to keep oneself unspotted from the world." (James 1:27)

But there are people who keep attention away from God's kind of religion; instead, they keep attention to differences in outward activities and beliefs of people. Why is it, that ones do not first and mainly keep attention to all which God's word says?? Possibly you can find it much more interesting to discover all which is in the New Testament, in case you have not already checked this out.

God bless you I am glad to meet you
Bill

 

[Duvduv]

Hello Bill. I had hoped this thread would concentrate on the subject involved. You could stert another thread. But the facts point to the fact that we are looking at separate religions of Catholics, Methodists and Baptists, regardless of ecumenism and humanism thst blur the differences.

 

[Duvduv]

By a perfect coincidence I came across a video asking questions of a Catholic priest by a young Protestant. Two things came out. The priest said the Church comes first, the bible second, because the Church interprets what the Bible says. He also said that the Bishop breathes on the oil of anointing and confirmation because he is Christ endowing the oil with the holy spirit. I have heard that the Pope is the vicar, meaning Christ on Earth, but I never knew that a bishop was viewed that way too. Now, is this the same religion as that of a Methodist or Baptist???

 

[Duvduv]

My assessment is that Presbyterianism, Baptist faith, Roman Catholicism and Methodism are truly different religions.

 

[hedrick]

A lot of traditional Christianity has essentially the same paradigm: We are broken due to sin. Because of this we merit hell. Christ died for us. As long as we're one of Christ's people, we're saved.

It's true that the specific of just how we're broken differ, as well as whether being one of Christ's people is due to faith, works, or some combination. But I think in practice it's basically the same religion with different descriptions.

However there are variations that muddy the water. Many in the early church saw humans as basically free entities. Jesus enables us to choose right, but the judgement is more of us than of whether we’re tried to Jesus. Surveys say that a majority of modern Christians think at least some non-Christians can be saved. So even though traditional terminology is used, it may work out to the same model.

The problem with saying that this is a separate religion is that many people, maybe even most people, use both sets of ideas. People who are strongly committed to one or the other paradigm — particularly the first — may see those who don’t agree with them as belonging to a different religion. Indeed I sometimes wonder whether I share any ideas at all with many evangelicals. I often feel that evangelicalism and mainline Christianity are different religions.

But from a descriptive point of view when you’ve got a pot of ideas that people grab many out of, it makes sense to think it’s one pot, not 100 different religions, with each combination of ideas being a separate religion.

 

[FireDragon76]

I believe your information about Catholicism is overly simplistic. While they believe all salvation is due to Christ's merits alone, they do not believe salvation is restricted to a visible church.

 

[FireDragon76]

I often feel that evangelicalism and mainline Christianity are different religions.

I think they are, more or less. Though Lutheranism can resemble evangelicalism more than liberal Episcopalianism or Presbyterianism.

 

[FireDragon76]

My assessment is that Presbyterianism, Baptist faith, Roman Catholicism and Methodism are truly different religions.

You can see it that way in some respects, but they are also all broadly Christian and share similar elements. All of those are closer together in terms of their soteriology than say... Eastern or Oriental Orthodoxy, whose views of salvation are very different.

 

[FireDragon76]

Would you consider Orthodox, Conservative and Reform Judaism as different religions?

I don't think those are as different as the different forms of Christianity. The various schools of Judaism mostly differ on how to interpret the Torah, what hermeneutic to use. Whereas Christianity can have very different soteriologies that change the entire character of the religion.

 

[jayem]

The diversity of beliefs among those considering themselves as Christian is staggering. Christians can range from authoritarian Biblical literalists like Pentecostals. To non-dogmatic freethinkers who believe each man receives and interprets God in his own way. Like the Society of Friends (the Quakers.) There are even Christian Unitarian Universalists. Who accept Jesus's moral teachings, but deny that he is God, or that he is the only path to salvation. This enormous spectrum of belief is one of the things I admire about modern day Christianity. Another is that Christians no longer persecute or kill each over such doctrinal conflicts as whether God is one or 3 entities.

 

[drich0150]

After some analysis of the main issues concerning several denominations in Christianity, the question has arisen in my mind as to whether in fact there are so many true fundamental doctrinal differences that each could be considered a distinct religion:
For example, the Baptist denomination, the Methodist denomination, the Catholic denomination. The fundamentals regarding key doctrines are so distinct that they could qualify as separate religions. The fundamental issues about justification, salvation, faith versus works, intermediaries etc. leads me to the conclusion that these are different religions, whereby each would consider the members of the other group not saved for eternal life. And this is a very important matter to Christians.

Look at the church in corinth and what Paul had to write to them about specifically. look at what he told those in galicia or his messages to the church in thessonlicalica. If there where meant to be one unified church one set of rules then why wasn't all of paul letters the same? why did he speak to one church about sin, another about faith and still another things like all the different types? why did he address this topic specifically with the corinthians by telling them we are all of one body that is made up of different parts. that each part has it's own way to worship.

Christ himself sets up the primary rule that governs our worship. 1) He himself did not give us a book of the law. When asked about the law, he told us to love your lord God with all of your heart, mind, spirit and strength. and second love your neighbor as your self. that in these two rules all of the law of the prophets where full filled.

Look at rule 1 with fresh eyes. If we are all a little different, who live in different communities, with different levels of intelligence, with different God given skills, and gifts would it not stand to reason that our worship would be different? If i am someone who can sing like an angel but you are one who studies as a form or worship or you best worship God by studying then would it not then be a violation of loving God with all of my being if i sit bored to tears in a church geared towards guys who study? This is what Paul meant about where would the body be if it where all an eye or if it where all a ear. The eye works and worships to the fullest an eye can do and a ear worships by hearing. what good would it be for the body if the ear was made to worship like an eye? made to see things? what good would a eye be if it where made to hear things as a form of worship?

The second thing Christ did to allow us this freedom in worship (to the standard of loving God and not to a book of rules like the Jews had) was to full fill the law and provide atonement. Meaning Forgiveness is not reserved only for when we willfully sin. Atonement also works all that much more when we are trying to love God with all of our mind body spirit and strength and just can't get it right for whatever reason. Meaning if we just can not understand or if we where just taught wrong.. The atonement Jesus offers from the cross covers our for the lack of a better term ignorance.

So 1) the different churches Paul wrote to are evidences of different denominations. As even witnessed through what the apostles like peter taught was different yet united under the idea of a single body with different parts.

2) we have the specific teaching of one body different parts as it relates to the body of Christ (the church) and how each member can and often will act and respond differently.

3) we have the teaching of Christ that boils the law down to two commands one of which sums up the church by saying worship God the best way you can. 3a) we have the parable of the talents to back this up/The same is not expected from everyone, but rather we do the best with God gave us

4) atonement also covers mistakes in worship when we are trying to follow the greatest command to worship God the best that we can.

So even if our worhip is different we are indeed of the same body if Jesus Christ is the center of our worship

 

[dzheremi]

I am a minority of basically one (at least of the OO here who post about their religion; I know there are a few of us, but the others usually don't post about Church topics), so take my opinion as nothing more than that, but I would say that insofar as there is far greater difference between different forms of Christianity at the 'extremes' (however that those may be defined) than there appears to be in Islam, Judaism, or other self-identifying monotheistic religions (I do not accept the term 'Abrahamic', for several reasons), yes, it can be rather convincingly argued that different 'denominations' of Christianity, as you've called them, are more akin to different religions than to different forms of the same religion.

That does indeed call into question the definition of 'denomination', but that's not a term I am interested in or would allow my own Church to be referred to as. Basically, denominations are what those who do not form a communion have, and I am a member of the Oriental Orthodox communion, so that term does not fit us, nor was it something that came from the Church itself. So others may apply it to us as that is their understanding of how Christian bodies are categorized, but that is not appropriate or sensible, just as it would not be for us to attempt to apply our ecclesiology to those it does not fit (e.g., asking a Pentecostal who they were baptized under the auspices of).

So there's that basic problem, even without explicitly addressing any theological differences (though yes, the two are very much related). But it is a very good illustration of the basic fact that we do not share either a common vocabulary nor a common vision of what it is to be Christian with a great many who claim the religion. That's nothing to me on an individual level (i.e., I'm not going to go around shaking my finger at these people, saying "You are not Christian!" just because they don't have hierarchical or synodal structures), but then it is not a part of my religion to determine anything on an individual level anyway.

Things only get 'worse' (messier? I don't know the right word) when we start looking at the deeper theological levels, wherein there is all kinds of variation, some of which is acceptable (again, in the context of the OO communion in particular; can't 'speak' for others), and some of which is not. And of course whatever is not does not belong in the Church, or can be said to be alien to the faith, or however it is best to put it. Forgive me, I am not a theologian, so I am trying to keep things simple, as I don't want to go beyond what I have actually been told by our priests, bishops, monks, etc., and of course our 2,000 years of saints.

Basically...yes. Yes they are, but who exactly 'belongs' where is a matter of what the exact nature of the differences is.

*Awaits virtual pillory-ing and pelting with refuse*

 

[Verv]

I tend to view it as...

Affirm the Nicene Creed (and therefore the Trinity, Heaven & Hell, etc.) (Orthodoxy, Catholicism, most Protestantism, etc.) = Christianity. We are the same religion. We have very different situations, but it is the same, and I consider them my fellow Christians.

Anything else is, to me, differing levels of non-Christianity... and I am more comfortable saying they are different religions

By a perfect coincidence I came across a video asking questions of a Catholic priest by a young Protestant. Two things came out. The priest said the Church comes first, the bible second, because the Church interprets what the Bible says. He also said that the Bishop breathes on the oil of anointing and confirmation because he is Christ endowing the oil with the holy spirit. I have heard that the Pope is the vicar, meaning Christ on Earth, but I never knew that a bishop was viewed that way too. Now, is this the same religion as that of a Methodist or Baptist???

Yes, it's the same...

Very different emphasis, though.

Do you believe that a Minister can cast out demons from a man, or that some people can speak in tongues or have healing or other spiritual gifts? Loads of Protestant people do believe this... The idea that the Priest does something special during communion or chrismation is not very radical in terms of this, right?

We believe in good spirits and bad spirits, and we believe in spiritual warfare; it is just that the Protestant perhaps de-emphasizes nearly completely the role of the Priest and emphasizes the role of the laiety.

And it would be the case that some Protestants nwo do not even believe in the necessity of a sort of active spiritual warfare against literal evil entities and thus creating protection through prayer, anointing, and ceremony -- which is a form of prayer, Liturgy being the collective working of prayer and sacred words, you could say.