Relationships of various Christian groups
Comments
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Take note, this is how threads get off topic.
DominicM said:The argument is unsustainable.
Jewish Maybe, but impossible to be a Christian Heresy, as its pre Christian era, at least in the bible I read.
Where does the Bible mention Islam, Muslims, or any sort of distinctive Islamic theology?
The peoples of Arabia practiced traditional religions (like animism and totemism), henotheism, and polytheism prior to Muhammed's reforms (the Hanifs tried similar reforms, but their theology was not Islamic and they were a *reaction* to Judaism and Christianity). And while the Arabs believed the Ka'ba was originally founded by Adam, they never held to anything remotely resembling Islamic *or* Abrahamic (biblical) theology. It served as the house of pagan gods such as Hubal, al-Uzza, al-Kutba, Jesus and Mary. Muhammed simply borrowed from these pagan beliefs and also from Nestorianism and, probably, Arianism. There is no evidence that something similar to Islamic theology preceded Mohammed. I believe the only evidence we have of a pre-Islamic monotheism in Arabia (Hanifism) was explicitly a reaction to Judaism and Christianity.
So there is absolutely no basis for saying that Islam predates Christianity, in any sense (other than the sense that Muhammad borrowed from Christian and Jewish theology).
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John Bowling said:
An argument can be made that Islam is actually a Christian heresy. It certainly doesn't deserve to be side by side with Judaism stemming back to Abraham (and if it does then it seems that Christianity does too).
Remember that I am trying to capture how they view themselves ... on further reflection, since they accept Jesus (Issa) as a prophet, they should be an offshoot of Christianity. Thanks for the correction.
Orthodox Bishop Alfeyev: "To be a theologian means to have experience of a personal encounter with God through prayer and worship."; Orthodox proverb: "We know where the Church is, we do not know where it is not."
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You are right IMHO. Do you think it has something to do with the evangelical and other parts of the Protestantism?
Bohuslav
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As I understand it (which may be flawed), the origin of Islam can be traced back to 7th century Saudi Arabia, Muhammad introduced Islam in 610 A.D. after experiencing what he claimed to be an "angelic visitation" most likely a demon IMO
My understanding in the erroneous teachings is the Qur'an teaches that Ishmael was the child of promise (Sura 19:54; compare Sura 37:83-109 with Genesis 22:1-19) not Isaac.The Koran also teaches that Muhammad is a direct descended of Ishmael, they not me claim the link.
how Islam could be called a "Christian Heresy" is beyond my understanding, as IMO its straight from of the pit of hell
but I will put my foot in my mouth so I dont say anything else..
Never Deprive Anyone of Hope.. It Might Be ALL They Have
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John Bowling said:
Take note, this is how threads get off topic.
DominicM said:The argument is unsustainable.
Jewish Maybe, but impossible to be a Christian Heresy, as its pre Christian era, at least in the bible I read.
Where does the Bible mention Islam, Muslims, or any sort of distinctive Islamic theology?
The peoples of Arabia practiced traditional religions (like animism and totemism), henotheism, and polytheism prior to Muhammed's reforms (the Hanifs tried similar reforms, but their theology was not Islamic and they were a *reaction* to Judaism and Christianity). And while the Arabs believed the Ka'ba was originally founded by Adam, they never held to anything remotely resembling Islamic *or* Abrahamic (biblical) theology. It served as the house of pagan gods such as Hubal, al-Uzza, al-Kutba, Jesus and Mary. Muhammed simply borrowed from these pagan beliefs and also from Nestorianism and, probably, Arianism. There is no evidence that something similar to Islamic theology preceded Mohammed. I believe the only evidence we have of a pre-Islamic monotheism in Arabia (Hanifism) was explicitly a reaction to Judaism and Christianity.
So there is absolutely no basis for saying that Islam predates Christianity, in any sense (other than the sense that Muhammad borrowed from Christian and Jewish theology).
I think you are perfectly correct.
Bohuslav
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Chris Roberts said:
But I would not call it a Christian heresy, though I can see the concern of placing it all the way back by Judaism.
But if you compare it to the formation of other "Christian heresies" such as Mormonism and JW you see many similarities. It claims to teach what Jesus *really* taught, that Christians distort (or misinterpret) the Scriptures, which is why we don't recognize Islam or Muhammad. In other words, Islam is the fulfillment of OT and NT theology as it was originally intended to be transmitted.
perspectivelyspeaking.wordpress.com
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Bohuslav Wojnar said:Paul Golder said:
Pentecostals are a direct result of the Methodist-Holiness movement.
Well, not all, at least here in Continental Europe. Great part of the movement has been a direct offspring of the Pietist Lutheranism.
Actually John Wesley's theology has it's roots in Pietistic Lutheranism. Europe has just "jumped" over the Methodist-Holiness step and gone right on to Pentecostalism. (you guys are always so "forward thinking" [:)] )
It is human nature that when we start to think that we can gain, keep, or improve our salvation with our actions/behavior, we start to expect so-called "greater things" based on how much faith we have.
"As any translator will attest, a literal translation is no translation at all."
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Bohuslav Wojnar said:
Interesting question would be also, were you put all churches like Unitas Fratrum (Czech Brethren, being before Luther) Waldensians and others?
That is a question in my mind as well and was hoping someone would have a good suggestion.
Orthodox Bishop Alfeyev: "To be a theologian means to have experience of a personal encounter with God through prayer and worship."; Orthodox proverb: "We know where the Church is, we do not know where it is not."
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Bohuslav Wojnar said:
Where would you put Pentecostals, especially Indigenous 3rd World Pentecostal movements?
I think that they would fall under Protestant - to the best of my knowledge as their own subtype.
Orthodox Bishop Alfeyev: "To be a theologian means to have experience of a personal encounter with God through prayer and worship."; Orthodox proverb: "We know where the Church is, we do not know where it is not."
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Paul Golder said:
It is human nature that when we start to think that we can gain, keep, or improve our salvation with our actions/behavior, we start to expect so-called "greater things" based on how much faith we have.
Really interesting comment [:)]
Bohuslav
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MJ. Smith said:Bohuslav Wojnar said:
Where would you put Pentecostals, especially Indigenous 3rd World Pentecostal movements?
I think that they would fall under Protestant - to the best of my knowledge as their own subtype.
Some writers would put it as a separate sub-stream of Christianity as Catholics, Protestants, Anglican, Eastern Orthodox etc. but IMHO it is better to describe it as part of the Evangelical Protestantism.
Bohuslav
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I would submit that instead of a "Gentile Church" I would consider it the "catholic church," the small "c" to seperate it from the Catholic church. The early Christian church contained both Jew and Gentile that worshipped together, and would not have thought of each other as sepereate members, as there was one body of Christ that included both. The Eastern, Western churches and associated heresies were not just born out of the Gentiles.
In Christ,
DP
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This is a new draft based upon the feedback. Major shifts:
- In order to represent Kabbalah, I subdivided Judaism to keep similar granularity - hence the addition of Samaritans, Karaites, and rabbinic Judaism
- Islam is moved under Christianity to reflect their recognition of Jesus as a prophet. Because of the insertion of Kabbalah in Judaism, I wanted to insert the "parallel" Sufism - hence the addition of Sunni and Shiite to keep similar granularity
- Christianity has the addition of the Coptic Church which I had originally considered to be part of Eastern Christianity but must agree that it deserves its own category. I have also broken Gnosticism out from "various heresies" to have a parallel to the Kabbalah and Sufi thread
- I have added an incomplete breakout of Protestant - based primarily on comments made here. I know there are many major groups that do not have an appropriate subset - i.e. the subsets are representative not exhaustive.
Thank you for all your input.
Orthodox Bishop Alfeyev: "To be a theologian means to have experience of a personal encounter with God through prayer and worship."; Orthodox proverb: "We know where the Church is, we do not know where it is not."
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Thanks for a great chart, Martha!
Grace & Peace,
Bill
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David A. Peterson said:
I would submit that instead of a "Gentile Church" I would consider it the "catholic church," the small "c" to seperate it from the Catholic church.
I struggled for terminology here and am not pleased with my choice. My first instinct was a simple "early church" but that seemed to exclude the Messianic Jews. I wanted to make the distinction between those who retained a Jewish identity and those who either never had it or who gave it up. I was afraid that some people have a gut reaction against the word "catholic" even with a small c - obviously the creedal churches are fine with the term. But you may be right that it is a better choice.
Orthodox Bishop Alfeyev: "To be a theologian means to have experience of a personal encounter with God through prayer and worship."; Orthodox proverb: "We know where the Church is, we do not know where it is not."
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me thinks this is the old image, not the updated one, I dont see the reflected changed..
thanks
Never Deprive Anyone of Hope.. It Might Be ALL They Have
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DominicM said:
me thinks this is the old image, not the updated one, I dont see the reflected changed..
You know that minor little step called "save your file?" ... I had missed that step before the copy. Oops. [:$] Luckily I saw and corrected the issue.
Orthodox Bishop Alfeyev: "To be a theologian means to have experience of a personal encounter with God through prayer and worship."; Orthodox proverb: "We know where the Church is, we do not know where it is not."
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Martha,
The three traditional strands are Western, Eastern, and Oriental (this includes Coptic Christianity)
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Very nice chart. Thank you once again for your diligent creativity.
MJ. Smith said:I was afraid that some people have a gut reaction against the word "catholic" even with a small c - obviously the creedal churches are fine with the term. But you may be right that it is a better choice.
The catholic (with a small "c") label better fits the chart for representing a universal (non-Roman) set. Those who would object to the word "catholic" will also object to "universal" and "unseen" and "corporate". ("The Unseen Church" is a pulpit jest in many IFB circles. A jest I find no humor in. [:(]) One of the great changes in my perspective came from reading Chuck Colson's The Body.
Logos 7 Collectors Edition
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I think the chart is still missing.. First off your missing the saved gentiles of the OT.
second. The church did not start split. It started in jerusalem and spread throughout the world as one church. It did not split until later. Then we have the hundreds of years where the only belief we could see is roman or eastern christianity as any other belief would have been credited as a heretic and killed. thus there could be no other church.. Until the reformers finally somehow broke tradition without getting killed, and out from it cam many beliefs.
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JimVanSchoonhoven said:
Based on the teaching in Romans 4, I am not sure I would agree with the chart. It almost makes me think that Christianity has it's roots directly in Abraham like Judaism and Islam does.
I believe that Romans 11:11-24 ties Christianity very solidly to a Jewish root.
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JackCaviness said:JimVanSchoonhoven said:
Based on the teaching in Romans 4, I am not sure I would agree with the chart. It almost makes me think that Christianity has it's roots directly in Abraham like Judaism and Islam does.
I believe that Romans 11:11-24 ties Christianity very solidly to a Jewish root.
I would agree. Christ was the prophesied jewish messiah who would take the sins of the world. and make jews and gentiles on.. Thelegalistic jews rejected him.. Those who understood Gods grace and what the messiah had to do did not.. Not to mention. Christ will still keep his promise made to abraham ( all the land which israel has never had) and david ( his son ruling from jerusalem and the world worshiping him.) even though many think he will not.. so the jews will again be in Gods plan..
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MJ. Smith said:
In another thread, I learned something I should have known because it is perfectly logical - Lutherans do not consider themselves to be Protestants. Which got me to thinking about what the relationships are from the point of view of the adherents not the historians.
This is my first, imperfect attempt. Please let me know if you think I have misrepresented the group to which you belong.
- Abrahamic religions is chosen as the root so that Messianic Jews can logically be included.
- Judaism is a branch in its own right which also gives rise to Messianic Judaism and Christianity
- Islam is an independent branch that I follow no further
- Judaism includes the Karaites, the Rabbinical Jews and the Messianic Jews; it is the root of Christianity.
- Messianic Jews are contrasted to the "Gentile" Church - simply a term to cover the Christians who separated from Judaism.
- The early church (Gentile Church) divides into three major categories - Eastern Church, Western Church and heresies. The latter is my way of handling groups that have been tagged as "not really Christian" by the bulk of Christianity.
- The Eastern Church (a historical, cultural division) includes most Orthodox, uniate Catholics and a miscellaneous category
- The Western Church divides into the Catholics and the Restorationists who believe they have restored the "original church" i.e. the Restorations do not define themselves against other groups.
- The Catholic Church is where it gets interesting - I have added a superfluous "post-counter-reformation" box to clarify the other relationships.
- The Lutherans are not Protestants but rather are post-reformation Christians.
- The Anglicans view themselves as neither Catholic nor Protestant but rather the middle way. Note that they include both Anglo-Catholics and Episcopalian Protestant church so they truly straddle the Catholic/Protestant division
- The Protestants are post-reformation Christians defining their reformation as a protest against the Catholic Church
I'm currently considering how this framework requires revisions of some of my assumptions about certain theologians. It also allows me a more concrete way to describe groupings based on approach to Scripture. And, I am actually using Logos to build a hierarchy of collections which reflects this division ... although I cheat and put Catholic - east and west into a single collection. This allows me a quick way of verifying if a group as a whole reflects the generalized statements made about them.
MJ-
I like your chart. I have examined the Lutheran portion, as well as the Catholic portion, with respect to the others. I have some observations.
First, if you include the coptic church, then you have to refer to the person attending, as a copter. If they become heretics, they will go to hell and be known there, as a hell-a-copter.
NOW on the more serious side....
The positioning of Islam troubles me. They stemmed from Ishmael, while the Jews and Christians come from Isaac, so the two of them should be shown as a separate leg from Islam. I would have to say, that Christianity should be a separate box below (or above) Judaism. Although we have a common spiritual ancestry, we were "grafted in" as Gentiles. Read that, "adopted".
Your treatment of "Various Heresies" do you put things there, like Mormonism, who allege they are Christian, but who most of us would say they are NOT?
The difference between the Eastern and Western churches, it sounds like to me you are saying, is cultural and more location (historical). Actually it is a big issue, in terms of the recognition of Christ as both true God and true man. So let's chalk that up as an irreconcilable difference. But the both of us still think we are both catholic (small "C"). I almost think the various heresies should not be shown.
Interestingly enough, I would draw the line AFTER the East/West split, as a straight line, up to Protestant. Like this:
Western Church -------[then a partial heresy/change called the Reformation]----Lutherans would maintain that we did not split off from the catholic (small "c"
"Roman"
church, but that the Roman church split from the catholic (small "c" church with their heresies -indulgences, for example). Then along the line, Protestants and then several splits, Methodists, Presbyterians, Baptists, etc.
As far as the Lutheran piece, there is something you are neglecting, which affects all the churches, including Roman. That is the politics. Within Lutheran, there are several very conservative wings. Missouri Synod is not even the most conservative. Somebody referenced Wisconsin Synod. Then probably Missouri (LCMS), eventually ELCA.
The Scandinavian Lutherans came to America in several separate pots. The American Lutheran Church was conservative. The Lutheran Church in America was liberal. Missouri Synod had a split in 1973, casting out many of their seminarians (called Seminex) and the liberal of the Missourians went, calling themselves the AELC. THEN the AELC, LCA and ALC merged into ELCA. So those wings are liberal.
In light of many issues such as homosexual marriage and inerrancy of the Bible, the more conservative Lutherans would even question the more liberal Lutherans' position as Christian. NOT trying to get controversial, I will just say that things like was Jesus bodily resurrected are those types of issues. Missouri says it was bodily, some but not all ELCA would say not necessarily bodily.
So just to say, the material that a person would get from places like Logos is of paramount importance to those denominations, which take seriously their doctrine and make great efforts at understanding it.
Perhaps you could draw a garbage disposal at the bottom, for heretics, atheists, and those Christians, who have begun to flirt with apostasy.
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Dan Sheppard said:
The difference between the Eastern and Western churches, it sounds like to me you are saying, is cultural and more location (historical). Actually it is a big issue, in terms of the recognition of Christ as both true God and true man. So let's chalk that up as an irreconcilable difference.
Dan, you are confusing the Eastern Orthodox with the Oriental Orthodox...
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What bunk this chart is.
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Dan Sheppard said:
The positioning of Islam troubles me. They stemmed from Ishmael, while the Jews and Christians come from Isaac, so the two of them should be shown as a separate leg from Islam.
Islam is a religious system, not a people group.
perspectivelyspeaking.wordpress.com
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Damian McGrath said:
The three traditional strands are Western, Eastern, and Oriental (this includes Coptic Christianity)
Quite true. However, the majority of the Oriental group that I know self-identify as Orthodox although in both the Coptic and the St. Thomas Churches I know individuals who identify as Orthodox, Catholic and Oriental/Other. It is a puzzle how to best represent the groups barely known in the West. But I may well switch to the Oriental terminology.
Orthodox Bishop Alfeyev: "To be a theologian means to have experience of a personal encounter with God through prayer and worship."; Orthodox proverb: "We know where the Church is, we do not know where it is not."
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Dan Sheppard said:
First, if you include the coptic church, then you have to refer to the person attending, as a copter. If they become heretics, they will go to hell and be known there, as a hell-a-copter.
I truly love it!
Dan Sheppard said:The positioning of Islam troubles me. They stemmed from Ishmael, while the Jews and Christians come from Isaac, so the two of them should be shown as a separate leg from Islam.
I had bought into the argument that the line of prophets supported my current structure but the Isaac/Ismael argument is mighty compelling.
Dan Sheppard said:The difference between the Eastern and Western churches, it sounds like to me you are saying, is cultural and more location (historical).
I am saying that the East/West split is primarily cultural. I would point to the Uniate churches as evidence. But, then, I have spent 40 years in a Dominican parish; the O.P.'s have always leaned a bit more to the East. They even claim that if Thomas Aquinas, O.P. hadn't had the audacity to die on the way to the important meeting, the schism would have been closed centuries ago. [:)]
Dan Sheppard said:it is a big issue, in terms of the recognition of Christ as both true God and true man
Are you thinking of the Caledonian Council here? A Coptic deacon friend takes the position that the current situation in one of vocabulary rather than substantial disagreement. Given that the only other Copt I know is a Jesuit priest I can't claim to have a representative sample.
Dan Sheppard said:Lutherans would maintain that we did not split off from the catholic (small "c" "Roman" church, but that the Roman church split from the catholic (small "c" church with their heresies).
This is part of what I am trying to capture ... I think both the Anglo-Catholics and Lutherans have substance behind their claims. To me, the Wikipedia diagrams do not depict the degree to which the Orthodox-Catholic-Lutheran-Anglican form a group often against the "rest of Protestants" in practices and theology. By capturing current self-identification, I want to bypass the arguments of who broke with whom.
Dan Sheppard said:Perhaps you could draw a garbage disposal at the bottom, for heretics, atheists, and those Christians, who have begun to flirt with apostasy.
I am so tempted ... but someone might ask who I'd put there.
Orthodox Bishop Alfeyev: "To be a theologian means to have experience of a personal encounter with God through prayer and worship."; Orthodox proverb: "We know where the Church is, we do not know where it is not."
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In light of Romans 4, setting the foundation for Romans 9-11 I am not so sure that Romans 9 and 11 mean what has been stated. None of the comments have dealt with my comment on Romans 4 and how it appears to show that the church is related directly to Abraham just as Israel was.
In Christ,
Jim
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JimVanSchoonhoven said:
In light of Romans 4, setting the foundation for Romans 9-11 I am not so sure that Romans 9 and 11 mean what has been stated. None of the comments have dealt with my comment on Romans 4 and how it appears to show that the church is related directly to Abraham just as Israel was.
In Christ,
Jim
Hi Jim,
Did not this address your comment?
http://community.logos.com/forums/p/8068/64148.aspx#64148
"As any translator will attest, a literal translation is no translation at all."
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