Talk:Christian denomination

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What's with the colon? Why isn't this just called "Denominations of Christianity"? [Jengog]

The LDS movement's being discussed twice, once in the "Western" and once in the "Other" section. Surely these should be comsolidated. Alai 16:25, 5 Feb 2005 (UTC)

The closing remarks of the article make it sound like Christianity is so nebulous a concept that it is impossible to define. I would suggest that there are core tenants that are common to all of Christendom. I do not think that Jehovah’s Witnesses even consider themselves to be Christian.

This is incorrect. A cursory glance at the watchtower website shows they consider themselves Christian, and in fact to go further, the only true Christians. boche 05:32, 7 August 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Taxonomy graphic

The yellow lines used on the 'taxonomy' graphic are not readable. And, if the graphic describes lineage, it is not necessary or helpful to try to make it double as a list ("Baptist, Adventist" etc. ") If these weaknesses could be fixed, then it might be useful - although it should not give imbalanced treatment to Protestantism. — Mark (Mkmcconn) ** 17:37, 15 August 2005 (UTC)

===>I'll happily except criticism But I'm not sure what you mean when you say that the graphic "should not give imbalanced treatment to Protestantism." The fonts and line weights are identical to, say, the Assyrian church, in spite of the fact that the former has hundreds of times more congregants and is much more influential in a much shorter history.

If you think the graphic should not have the listing of denominational families, feel free to edit it off. Does anybody else care to weigh in? I would recommend still keeping the Waldensians and Hutterites/Moravians, though, as they are pre-Reformation groups that were initially distinct from the larger Protestant movement.

I was concerned about the yellow color myself, so I'll change it tonight. Justin (koavf) 22:56, August 15, 2005 (UTC)

My largest objection to the graphic is that it lists families of Protestant denominations together. For example, are you sure that Methodists belong to the Protestant family, if the Anglicans do not? Are you sure that all Anabaptists, Baptists, Waldensians and Adventists consider themselves descendent from Catholicism? — Mark (Mkmcconn) ** 23:47, 15 August 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Non-denominationalism

I've been looking for some information on non-denominational churches, specifically their history, for that article. Does anyone have any concrete information on when they started popping up, and how they'd fit into the schematics in this article? Fieari 23:42, 20 October 2005 (UTC) If non-denominational amounts to independant, the "Independent Fundimental Churches of America (IFCA)" was formed in 1930 to safegard doctrine. There is an article in the "Handbook of Denominatios in the United States" by Frank S. Mead / Samuel S. Hill New Nineth Edition copyright 1990, page 120. Sammy Dyck 18:22, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Reversion of edits by anonymous user 3-4 December 2005

Some of the reasons why I've reverted these edits (and some encouragement to the anonymous editor who wrote them):

• You may be unaware of the Wikipedia NPOV policy. Just one example: The basic premise for the changes is the "fact" or unanimous/majority view that Catholicism ("Roman" + Eastern Rites) is not a denomination. However, even the Catholic Encyclopedia (Nihil Obstat, July 1, 1912) deems Catholicism a denomination. Please remember this is an article about Christian denominations, not about the schisms that gave rise to the concept and the need to have a word for it.
• This article already contains a reference to Apostolic Succession. Earlier editors integrated what amounts to an NPOV version of some of your changes in the article itself (as opposed to the introduction). They included a reference and a brief explanation, since the principle itself is fully explained in its own article - all important views, not just a Catholic one.
• Any idea how many people actually hold the view that Catholicism is not a Denomination? If the number is large enough, it would certainly merit mention in the article body. I'm hesitant to add it myself, since locating that information proved a difficult job. It could be inserted somewhere around the Apostolic Succession reference in the article body, something along the lines of: "For the same reason, some/many/most Catholics do not view Catholicism as a Denomination, equating the latter with schismatic churches." or "For the same reason, Catholic doctrine holds that Catholicism is not a Denomination, equating the latter with schismatic churches. In practice, however, this has become a minority view".
• You referred to a non-existing article on private interpretation. Perhaps you're interested in creating this article? However, if you do, and especially if you only present a single viewpoint, don't be surprised if others add substantially to your original article over time.
• You may want to check the spelling of your edits. Examples: "per say" instead of "per se", "cannonically" instead of canonically.

AvB 09:54, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Last comment about Islam and Bah'ai

Im fairly certain Islamic's do not consider Christ to be the Messiah, as I understand it the Qu'ran even says he didn't die for a single thing, (according to them they snuck Judas onto the cross instead and Christ just went up to heaven instead of dying as I understand it.)isn't Islam limited to only calling Christ's God's most loved prophet or something? and if they do consider Him to be the Messiah, why?Homestarmy 19:46, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

Good point. Different readers may interpret this comment differently depending on their understanding of the name Messiah. I hope you don't mind I have already updated the article. Feel free to incorporate your own changes if you wish. I've used the following sources:

• Islam article: Jesus is seen as a messenger/prophet sent by God — they refer to Him as the Messiah (anointed one) but tell Christians they should stop calling Him the Son of God. Jesus is definitely not Islam's Savior.
• Bahá'í Faith article: Jesus is called the Messiah. Baha'i goes a bit further than Islam in viewing Him as the Son of God. However, Baha'i seems to avoid the subject of Christ as the Savior. See also [1].

 AvB ÷ talk 00:58, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Edit regarding wide variety of doctrines etc.

1. As explained elsewhere in the article and visible in the "chism flow chart," the splits were not away from the Roman Catholic Church.
2. "giving rise to a wide variety of doctrines" - quite true (apart from being the other way round) but superfluous as this is already explained in full in the remainder of the section.
3. The statement about the various "beliefs" in the Roman Catholic Church is supported by reputable sources. You can add information to the contrary from other reputable sources but you cannot remove the statement without providing a good reason.

Please do not let this discourage you from editing Wikipedia. This is mostly about the way Wikipedia works, and certainly not about your grasp of logic or your mastery of the English language :-) AvB ÷ talk 11:07, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Historical schisms and methods of classification scheme

It would be interesting to see where/how you would place the Coptic Christians (see the Wikipedia article Coptic Christianity). Also, in discussing denominations, there is an excelent book "Handbook of Denominations in the United States" by Frank S. Mead / Samuel S. Hill (Abingdon Press), that will shed a lot of light on the subject. I have a copy of the 9th edition - copyright 1990.

Sammy Dyck 16:33, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

I'm fairly certain Coptic Christians hail from the Eastern Orthodox. Homestarmy 18:45, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Structure of the article

I am reading the article and I think the diagram of the tree of Christianity is very good. I don;t know enough about all these denominations, but it seems to be accurate as far as I can tell. But the text seems to classify different groups on religious beliefs, rather than how they fit in that tree. The example I see is "Christianity outside of the mainstream" which I think most fall under "Restorationism". Can anyone enlighten me, or think of a better structure? Basically, I think the chart should match the structure of the article. Maybe both need to be adjusted. Bytebear 08:37, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Organization

Why is it that Christian denominations, in contrast or relation to other religions, have always been so structural and institutionalized? It's not many other religious denominations that have headquarters and codification and universally centralized direction and such rigid territorial divisions as Christianity. Why have Christians always organized in dividing and governing themselves? Any thoughts? VolatileChemical 16:46, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

Well, Christianity has been around for awhile, and country or geological boundaries often created divides. For instance, in the Bible Belt of America, that's primarily in the back country which doesn't have access to the often corrupting effects of big cities. (I presume it has something to do with capitalism getting the best of people or something like that) As for why there has to be so much organization, in the Bible's time, it was hard enough just for paul to take care of just a few regions close to each other geographically, doctrines kept diverging in odd ways when sometimes the culture of the area would corrupt the churches. And now, even though there's more ways to organize over large distances thanks to technology, if there wasn't accountability to main church areas, many congregations (especially these days) might dissolve themselves and nobody would know about it. Plus, often some churches like to publish things for all of the churches to benefit from, and they need some centralized authority to ship this stuff to individual churches or things like that. While we are supposed to be accountable to God, in a culture which is not very friendly to Fundamentalist Christianity or the formation of fundamentalism in general, its not easy for large groups of people to all maintain the same sort of beliefs. Of course, that's just me talking about America.... Homestarmy 20:24, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Christian anarchists - rejecting saint Paul?

I found this text in the article:

"Christian anarchists believe that the original teachings of Jesus were corrupted first by Saint Paul and then by Roman statism (see early Christianity), and that earthly authority such as government, or indeed the established Church, do not and should not have power over them."

As a Christian anarchist, I strongly object to that statement. As far as I know, most Christian anarchists do not believe that the teachings of Jesus were "corrupted" by Saint Paul. I, for one, do not. 81.216.146.55 16:01, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

Well, is there a citation for the sentence? If not, I don't see why it should remain in the article if it can't be defended. Homestarmy 16:21, 6 March 2007 (UTC)