Relationships of various Christian groups
Comments
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Mark Barnes said:
Even more problematic is the inherent assumption that this a linear process
I'm not trying to capture a process, I am trying to capture current state.
Mark Barnes said:Protestants, for example, view themselves as going back to an earlier theological position. In no way do they view themselves as a 'child' of Catholicism.
This is true, but as we have seen in the forums, many see themselves as a correction to the Catholic Church - only a subset sees themselves otherwise.
Mark Barnes said:leaves no room for rediscovery of lost doctrines, nor the shedding of earlier ones now viewed heretical.
That is the position I was trying to show in the "Restorationist" category.
Mark Barnes said:Then that is an impossible task.
In detail, I agree completely But in a broad overview, I think I can get close enough to be useful. See my prior post of specific aspects I wanted to show because I thought they were not well known.
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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Joan Korte said:
I can't find non-denominational, charismatic (not Pentecostal) house church in the chart. That is the group I am part of.
Unfortunately, I don't know enough about such groups as to know how to place them. As soon as one moves outside the liturgical churches, my knowledge is very weak and disorganized or narrowed down to the single congregation of my childhood.
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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What is beautiful is that we don't want to be on a chart or categorized because the heart of the matter is fellowship with Jesus and others and departing from lifeless institutionalism.
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Joan Korte said:
What is beautiful is that we don't want to be on a chart or categorized because the heart of the matter is fellowship with Jesus and others and departing from lifeless institutionalism.
At the risk of drawing incendiary fire, I'll say amen to that.
Longtime Logos user (more than $30,000 in purchases) - now a second class user because I won't pay them more every month or year.
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Alex,
I don't want to start a flame war either, if I read you right. But, I'd recommend to anyone Thomas Dubay's book called "The Fire Within". [A]
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Joan Korte said:
I'd recommend to anyone Thomas Dubay's book called "The Fire Within".
What's that about Joan?
Longtime Logos user (more than $30,000 in purchases) - now a second class user because I won't pay them more every month or year.
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Alex,
It's about Theresa of Avila and St. John of the Cross-the contemplative prayer life. One of my interests, along with Song of Songs. Now, I have gone and revealed my true identity in this thread.[H] God Bless!
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Have you seen Christianity's Family Tree: What Other Christians Believe and Why by Adam Hamilton? Maybe something to request in Logos format. It has nice family tree charts throughout, showing where different denominations split off from the root.
I seem to recall Bob Pritchett once showed me a big wall cart with a family tree of Christian denominations and sects. I think that was back when they were dreaming up the design for the Biblical People family trees, and they were intending to do something with it in Logos someday. It would be interesting to have, even though such a thing could never be objectively accurate, since each group understands its own history differently from the way others looking at them from the outside do.
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Regarding this: "Interesting question would be also, were you put all churches like Unitas Fratrum (Czech Brethren, being before Luther) Waldensians and others?"
The standard answer is to call the Waldensians and the Hussites "Proto-Protestant."
That gets somewhat complicated due to later history. Most of the Waldensians accepted the Calvinist wing of the Reformation and merged into emerging Reformed churches (as happened in France with the Huguenots), or were exterminated by Catholic persecution (as happened in most of Italy outside the Piedmont in the historic Waldensian heartland of the high Alps), and Waldensians for centuries have correctly been classified as being in the Reformed tradition, though predating Calvin and Zwingli. The Hussites/Unitas Fratrum/Moravians were, as you likely know, recognized by the Anglicans as being an "ancient episcopal church" and during the 1700s and 1800s played an important role in development of the Pietist movement in the existing denominations of Europe.
Deciding whether the Waldensians were "Calvinists before Calvin" or whether they were a medieval movement that jettisoned its history to become Reformed is a theological question that has been debated by scholars since at least the 1800s and the answer to that question will determine questions of classification.
In answering that question, it's not irrelevant that Calvin was first introduced to Protestant principles by his landlord while he was studying law, a Waldensian cloth merchant who had a boarding house, or that Calvin's cousin Olivetan, whose translation of the Bible into then-modern French was an update of the much older Waldensian translation dating back to Peter Waldo, and was paid for by the Waldensians. It's likely that Olivetan was either a Waldensian before the Reformation or was influenced by them.1
