Social Studies Homework due tommarrow!!!?

Question

Why are there so many christian denominations?

Ps:best answer gets a great rating!!!

Answer 1

Some Christian denominations were founded based on a particular persons interpretation/modification of another faith. For instance, Lutheran is derived from Catholicism. The Lutherans believed the core of what the Catholics believe: i.e. in God, Jesus, Heaven, h**l. But they allow their pastors to marry, they recognize divorce, and they do not believe your faith is measured/proven in the amount of money that is given to the church.

Many people believe in the basic principles of the Christian faith, but the details as to how to put this faith into action differs. Therefore, these different beliefs spawn different religions.

Hope that helped. It didn't come from a book, just my opinion...  

Answer 2

Out of all the different view-points I read on the subject, I like Tom Ehrich 's answer to this question the best:

Why are there so many Christian denominations?

Splintering within the faith community goes back to ancient times. Some of the divisions are based on fundamental differences, like the rural shrines that Israelites established after the wilderness wandering vs. the urban temple they built in Jerusalem, or temple cult vs. synagogue. These came about because people had different historical experiences, different views of the world from present reality (e.g. countryside vs. city), as well as the usual differences among people's perceptions and desires.

The Christian community splintered from the very start, with some following James and the Jerusalem church, some following Paul and his mission to the Gentiles, and some following other local leaders. Each of the four gospels was written for a different church, which explains why they are so different.

The Bishop of Rome tried to impose global order on Christianity, but that never happened. East and West divided early, outlying bishops vied with Rome for power, and eventually nationalistic movements began in England (Church of England), Germanic States (Lutheranism), Scotland (Presbyterianism), Switzerland (Calvinism), and elsewhere.

Those national churches eventually became separate denominations. When the American continent was colonized, those divisions came along and had a large influence on early colonial life. Even Roman Catholicism, supposedly monolithic, had different ethnic expressions in the US.

In the 19th century, American Protestantism divided further with the advent of revivals, Great Awakenings, evangelicalism, fundamentalism, Northern and Southern branches after the Civil War, black denominations like AME Zion, and, late in the 20th Century, the vast expansion of non-denominational congregations like Willow Creek and Saddleback.

To see what each stands for, I suggest you start with Wikipedia, an on-line encyclopedia. Eventually, you will need to experience them for yourself. Each denomination has some uniqueness, and within each denominations are further differences (like High Church and Low Church within Anglicanism).

In the end, as Rep. Tip O'Neill said about politics, all religion is “local.” You make your home in a specific faith community, join its mission work, love its people, learn from its pastor, and find God through its community life.

—Tom Ehrich    

Answer 3

because everyone had different views, back in the middle ages in europe everyone was roman catholic and that's what held them together. then, everyone started to cross the borders and not everyone agreed with the roman catholic veiws and that's where protestant and others came from. judisium however came from people who only beleive in the old testement of the bible and are waiting for the new testement prophesices to be forfilled.

Answer 4

Wow. That is a question that you can answer in a sentence...or with a series of books.

Some denominations are very old. The Roman Catholic Church is one of the oldest. It's been around for thousands of years. It was started in its most famous form by power-hungry bishops and popes that wanted to rule.

After awhile, the Reformation caused a massive split in the Church. Calvinists, Presbyterians, and Puritan groups all come from this movement.

Pretty much every other brand of Christianity (especially in America) is a child of Reformed and Catholic traditions and doctrines.

The Wesley brothers, Charles Finney, and a few others really popularized Jacobus Arminius' view that free will exists, and they spawned the doctrines that led to modern Baptist, Nazarene, Wesleyan, and Methodist doctrines.

The charismatic doctrines (Pentecostals, etc.) are even more recent.

So you have almost a tree of doctrines...

Catholic, then the Reformation splits the church in half.

Then throughout history, different Reformed and Catholic doctrines spin off as different men disagree about what Scripture means, and they form their own groups. The names of those groups are our modern-day denominations.

Here's an article and chart from Wikipedia. As you can see, it's almost a tree of sorts, with different offshoots representing the different doctrines. (make sure you scroll down the page, there are more charts to detail smaller sections of the history)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Other_Chris...