STUPID STUPID QUESTION - Explain Different Sects

[pixydust]

I'd also say that Pentecostals aren't necessarily snake handlers. Some of my relatives are Pentecostal, and their denomination focusses around the speaking in tongues bit, based on the part of the Bible (I think it's in Acts?) where people start speaking different languages and are understood by each other with the Holy Spirit appearing as fire over their heads. They (ie, my relatives) do believe in faith healing, which I see as kind of a gateway drug to things like snake handling (because it's through faith that you can be healed and also that you aren't poisoned in the first place), but they're not into snake handling or that kind of church themselves. They also believe that mental illness is caused by demons, which was just awesome to find out when I was diagnosed with depression as a teenager.

edited to add: I don't know how true this is of Pentecostals as a whole, but my relatives believe that you're damned to hellfire unless you have spoken in tongues in a religious service- it's something along the lines of proof that God has accepted your asking for forgiveness and allowing him into your life kind of thing.

Hi Sugarloaf, i was raised Pentecostal (Assembly of God, to be exact)...it wasn't exactly speaking in tongues that was necessary for salvation, but that is proof that you are filled with the Holy Spirit and are definitely a Christian. I could see where a church would go that far, as Pentecostals believe that you can lose your salvation by sinning, and someone who isn't saved can't speak in tongues (and that is crazy stupid, because most people that I would hear at church did a lot of "walalalalala ooom baaaah" shit, they call it "prayer languages", in other words "fake ass shit that people do to feel included").

I'm not saying that you are wrong about what your relatives believe, their church could teach that, Pentecostal churches vary a lot!Just giving you a BTDT.

[samurai_sarah]

Thanks yewchapel! That was far more indepth than anything I came up with. I never knew the background behind all that, much less what all the differences were all about. Shameful, considering how long I've been living in the UK, without really bothering to learn the details. Thanks! :)

[Rosa]

I temped at an Episcopal social services agency, and we had a big chart of titles to make sure our mailings & newsletter articles were correct. Here's an article about when you say Reverent vs. Right Reverent vs. Venerable. It's only for Episcopalians, though, i don't think it translates exactly into the Church of England/Church of Ireland positions because the history is so different. http://johnemcintyre.blogspot.com/2009/ ... -talk.html

[sugarloaf]

Hi Sugarloaf, i was raised Pentecostal (Assembly of God, to be exact)...it wasn't exactly speaking in tongues that was necessary for salvation, but that is proof that you are filled with the Holy Spirit and are definitely a Christian. I could see where a church would go that far, as Pentecostals believe that you can lose your salvation by sinning, and someone who isn't saved can't speak in tongues (and that is crazy stupid, because most people that I would hear at church did a lot of "walalalalala ooom baaaah" shit, they call it "prayer languages", in other words "fake ass shit that people do to feel included").

I'm not saying that you are wrong about what your relatives believe, their church could teach that, Pentecostal churches vary a lot!Just giving you a BTDT.

Thanks! Sorry for the misrepresentation or generalisation- this isn't a part of the family we spend all that much time with (partly because of their beliefs- they've isolated themselves from the rest of my more mainstream Protestant family), so a lot of my information is old and partly built from inference, so I could well be wrong. I'm not entirely sure what brand of Pentecostal they are, but they've definitely told me that not speaking in tongues= hellfire (even though I was a Christian at the time. I loathe to think what would happen if they found out I'm an atheist now).

I have to wonder about the cognitive dissonance of believing that this is a gift given by God, consciously faking it because you want to be included, and then acting as if you were given this supernatural gift.

[gulag]

When I was little, I spent the night with a group of family friends' kids and schoolmates. All churchy, to one degree or another. Laughing and poking and talking all night, as kids do. Somewhere along the way, they began to talk about church, Bible study, blah blah blah. 'Are you saved' and 'seeing The Light' came up. They all were saved, of course. I kept quiet, not knowing what to say.

Then it was who there had "seen The Light." And they all had, but there was some disagreement and condemnation. Again, I kept quiet. Weighing out the options and the value of telling some whopping lies in order to appease. I knew it was coming. Perfectly happy to lie like crazy, but not sure at all how to go about it and more terrified of being outed as a liar.

I hemmed and hawed for a while, the artful dodger taking advantage of too many voices to evade the inevitable confrontation. I pretended to fall asleep. But no, I got dragged in. The entire group of kids focused on me, insisting on an answer. I said I didn't know. I calmly and slowly suggested that perhaps if they told me what the light looked like, I'd tell them whether or not I'd seen it.

Hostile challenges and condemnation erupted. I was so freaked out that I don't even know what they said. In survival mode, I bailed. I ran for the door. I sat in their living room, just wanting to go home, without the faintest idea of what to do. The dad came out, wanting to know what was up. I sobbed and told him the kids were mad at me because I couldn't see the light, but they refused to tell me what it looked like, so how would I know? He did his best to console and soothe, but I had no idea what he was talking about. So it just made it worse. Now the dad too, knew what a sinful loser I was.

He was a Polish immigrant, with secretive sad issues that we didn't understand. Something about politics and loved ones. He had scars and maybe injuries and we were warned never to mention it. There were inconsistencies about him that didn't add up - very educated, spoke other languages, fine manners, he could dance and played the violin well. But now he was something like an auto mechanic and poor.

He stopped trying to be nice to me, got me a blanket, and took out his violin. Their household was strict about secular music. Absolutely not allowed, gospel and hymns only. He regularly played music with my dad. So great, now I was going to be treated to church singing and some kind of punishment for refusing to see the light.

Nope. I fell asleep to beautiful haunting violin concertos and Polish folk songs and gypsy music from some long-ago mysterious secret life.

And never again felt fearful about refusing to buy into group behavior for the sake of acceptance.

[holierthanyou]

Am I the only heartless one thinking it is pretty fucking easy to just not read a thread that annoys you? The OP asked a question about religion that others seem to enjoy answering, so in that case, it seems quite appropriate.

Ah yes, the infamous "Well if you don't like my ignorance/racism/homophobia/craptastic attitude/whatever, just ignore it/me" retort.

Always brilliant.

Go fuck yourself.

[gulag]

Yeah, well, I didn't know that Anglican and Episcopalian were the same root church until I read this thread. Granted, I never much thought about. Maybe you should learn something here.

I remembered that those nasty protestant bullies called me an 'infidel' and an 'unbeliever'. Kind of funny now, I knew what an infidel was, but only in the context of Sir Walter Scott's "The Talisman."

The Talisman

They didn't read the classics. A term they heard from fundy parents and churches. They were older and bigger. They were going to punish me for being wicked and teach me to love Jesus by beating me up. Nice. Yup, that'll do it! I know now they were modeling the behaviour of their parents and the treatment they received.

It's been a lifetime of confusion for me on why protestants believe that there's some other Jesus and teachings of Christ (Christianity) specific to Catholics and Episcopalians and whatever denominations the "REAL" Christians don't like. And the burden of an ethnic/non-practicing Jewish parent, oy vey!

Add to my confusion, when this generation of fundy evangelicals has suddenly embraced Jews. What?

Who persecutes who?

[yewchapel]

Ah yes, the infamous "Well if you don't like my ignorance/racism/homophobia/craptastic attitude/whatever, just ignore it/me" retort.

Always brilliant.

Go fuck yourself.

I don't think a thread on honest questions about something which is, to be honest, really fucking complicated is on the same level as racism or homophobia or ignorance. If someone wasn't raised with religion, they do not have the vocabulary to use Google/Wikipedia to learn about it, because....it's complicated. Church history is linked in with secular history and geography and all sorts of other things that might not be apparent to someone who was raised in an environment with no religion, and especially if they don't have religious friends or family to ask in terms they know and understand (which is quite common in countries outside the US). So maybe the thread could have been made in Chatter or something, but I certainly think the thread is valuable - until this thread I hadn't quite clicked that Scottish Episcopalians are called that because they have bishops in contrast to Presbyterians who don't, so I've learnt something I wouldn't have even thought to ask about.

[sugarloaf]

I think the original idea of the thread was a bit of an impossible task, but I think the way that it's gone on has been really good. I've learned a lot too, and I appreciate that greatly.

[Hane]

Can I give everyone who contributed knowledge here a standing O? It's a wonderful way to share with folks who want to learn.

I can sympathize with the OP: In my work with my UU church's youth group, I've seen that many, many kids who've been brought up unchurched or informally churched wind up woefully ignorant of history and practices that members of more traditional religions take for granted. (For example, one otherwise intelligent and well-read eighth grader was somehow convinced that the Vatican and the Mafia are inextricably linked, and Italian-[former] Catholic Grandma here had to school Little WASP Boy about the dangers of stereotyping that's based on pop culture.) Many of the kids think "Christian" is synonymous with "extreme fundamentalism married to the farthest-right wing of the Republican party," so there's an effort afoot to introduce them to the history of various social justice movements in Christianity.

My five-year-old grandson attends a parochial school, because his parents like the quality of the education there and the small class sizes. However, I have been urging his parents (UU converts, like me) to take him to UU Sunday school, so he can get some more unbiased knowledge about religions in general.

Oh, and something I learned at church recently: the definition of "antidisestablishmentarianism." "Establishmentarianism" means "the official recognition of a church as a national institution." It was a big thing in early New England, where there was no separation of Church and State. Congregations (which eventually developed into the Congregational Church/United Church of Christ, Congregational) and local governments were tightly interwoven, generally amounting to a single entity in cases. "Disestablishmentarianism" meant forging a division between church and local governance. The "Antidisestablishmentarianists" wanted to maintain the status quo.

The Unitarian Church was an offshoot of the Congregationalist Church, and attracted people who found no Biblical or logical cause to believe in the Trinity. Traditionally, Unitarians have tended toward scholarly and intellectual sorts.

The Universalist Church was a less tightly defined web of congregations, whose central belief was in universal salvation. It attracted more rural and blue-collar folks, including industrialists (such as the ones in my town) who helped raise the funding to get it off the ground. At certain times and in certain areas, the Universalists were accused of being kind of "out there" and "Hippie-dippy," attracting people who believed in things like spiritualism, mysticism, and reincarnation.

Then it was kind of surprising when these two very disparate churches, for the sake of survival, decided to come together as the Unitarian Universalist Church in America in 1961. This song sums up what goes in in the average UU congregation:

You are theist; I am humanist

I think that you're naive--

You have no proof to offer as truth,

You simply say "I believe"

New age bubbles get you in trouble

Lost in a feel-good fluff

True understanding is quite demanding

Praying is not enough.

Totally unprepared are you

To make a case that's plain

Maybe the incense, chants, and drums

Have ruined your poor brain.

You need someone older and wiser

Telling you what to do,

You are theist, I am humanist

I--will think--for you!

I am theist; you are humanist

You're locked inside your head.

You're existential, self-referential

Claiming that God is dead,

Occam's razor, Pascal's wager

Soul-less tautology

Wisdom, traditions, not erudition

Make much more sense to me.

Totally unprepared are you

To let go of your mind.

How 'bout a leap of faith, my friend

You might like what you find.

When you find that you're out of answers

You won't know what to do

I am theist, you are humanist,

I -- will pray -- for you.

We cannot agree on anything

Each has a point of view,

I am theist --- I am humanist

That's why we're UU.

[chaotic life]

Hane, I honestly think the UU curriculum for teaching world religions to their children and youth is one of the BEST programs I have ever seen before. I've considered going UU because DH can be agnostic and I can be Christian without the hatred and garbage plus know the kids would be well educated on all world religions. However, I'm afraid doing so would cause my father to have a heart attack so we stick with Methodist, which is a somewhat compromise at this point. :whistle:

[Hane]

Hane, I honestly think the UU curriculum for teaching world religions to their children and youth is one of the BEST programs I have ever seen before. I've considered going UU because DH can be agnostic and I can be Christian without the hatred and garbage plus know the kids would be well educated on all world religions. However, I'm afraid doing so would cause my father to have a heart attack so we stick with Methodist, which is a somewhat compromise at this point. :whistle:

chaotic life, what a coincidence: I often thought that, if I weren't Catholic, I'd choose to be Methodist, as I have several wonderful Methodist friends and a great respect for the community work that church does.

I agree: The UU world religion curriculum is excellent, but some of these kids are recent members of the congregation, and have had little religious experience beforehand--we'll have to work on catching them up with the ones who've been in our religious ed program awhile. Now that we have an acting director of religious ed again, we'll be getting everyone on track.

[Irishy]

Sounds like it :) But yeah, CoI is um, interesting haha, it's not too far away from Sydney in terms of how they do Anglicanism.

Another question yew chapel if you don't mind!

I see that the Sydney church is Calvinist. Is the trend that other low church Anglicans (inc the church of Ireland) are Calvinist too? I know the Presbyterians in Ireland are Calvinist. Calvinism is abhorrent to me. In particular the notions of total depravity and predestination.

[yewchapel]

Another question yew chapel if you don't mind!

I see that the Sydney church is Calvinist. Is the trend that other low church Anglicans (inc the church of Ireland) are Calvinist too? I know the Presbyterians in Ireland are Calvinist. Calvinism is abhorrent to me. In particular the notions of total depravity and predestination.

Sorry for missing this. Yes, low church Anglicans tend to be influenced by non-Anglican evangelicals, most (but not all) of whom are Calvinist. But Calvinism doesn't mean fundie - the Church of Scotland (Presbyterian) is Calvinist but is overwhelmingly moderate to liberal, and for example has had female ministers for way longer than the Anglican church. There are shades of Calvinism. I am not a Calvinist although total depravity and predestination don't bother me as much as limited atonement ;) Total depravity isn't actually as harsh as it sounds either - it simply means that all people sin. Total in this case just means that all people are equally capable of sin, not that all people are completely evil. Total depravity is also sometimes called 'total inability', ie it's part of human nature to fuck up and we're unable to help that. Certainly, beating the 'sin' out of babies is NOT a correct interpretation of Calvinism. Like I said, I'm not a Calvinist but I do think that total depravity in particular is often misinterpreted.

[RosyDaisy]

I don't see how this is a stupid thread. It's quite enlightening. You can read all you want about different religions, but reading first hand accounts of what happen in various religious groups/churches makes it seem real.

[Irishy]

But but but.... The predestination thing is awful!

[yewchapel]

But but but.... The predestination thing is awful!

It is when combined with limited atonement, ie not everyone will be saved. But I'm a universalist (I believe that everyone will eventually be reconciled to God, for some people via a form of Purgatory or temporary Hell) and so for me predestination just means that everyone is predestined to be saved! Can you explain what about predestination you find so bad? I'm just interested. Predestination for me is comforting because it means nobody can lose their salvation.

[julie paradox]

Yeah, but that's not what most people mean by predestination.

The Westminster confession, according to Wikipedia (I know) says

By the decree of God, for the manifestation of his glory, some men and angels are predestinated unto everlasting life, and others foreordained to everlasting death.

According to the "Catholic Encyclopedia" at newadvent.org/cathen/12378a.htm

Theology restricts the term to those Divine decrees which have reference to the supernatural end of rational beings, especially of man. Considering that not all men reach their supernatural end in heaven, but that many are eternally lost through their own fault, there must exist a twofold predestination: (a) one to heaven for all those who die in the state of grace; (b) one to the pains of hell for all those who depart in sin or under God's displeasure. However, according to present usages to which we shall adhere in the course of the article, it is better to call the latter decree the Divine "reprobation", so that the term predestination is reserved for the Divine decree of the happiness of the elect.

(bolding mine, exclusive language original)

It seems that the general view of predestination incorporates limited atonement. You may wish to use a different word.

(I'm not sure about low Anglicans being influenced by Calvinists. Maybe I'm just less low than I thought.)

[yewchapel]

Limited atonement is still a separate point of Calvinism (as in, 5-point Calvinism or TULIP) but I see your point.

There certainly is a Calvinist/Reformed branch of Anglicanism although they are a small group, mostly in England (especially Sussex), Northern Ireland and Australia.

[Irishy]

I suppose I mean that some, not all, are destined for heaven and the rest for hell. Like maybe you're part of the elect but your child isn't. As a catholic, I find this whole saved or born again business quite alien. I'm a fairly rubbish catholic but I believe that if we all do our very best, we're good with the man upstairs.

[yewchapel]

That's limited atonement which I do not believe in. Predestination is tied up with that but the main outcome of predestination is to do with whether we choose God or whether God predestines us to choose Him (and I believe in the former). The whole 'born again' thing is to do with sola fidei or 'by faith alone' - that you can't do anything to be saved, it is only through faith. My problem with sola fidei is that it can reduce faith to an intellectual process, and I can't believe that God ignores the good things people do - I mean Jesus does talk about storing up treasure in Heaven with our good deeds.

Calvinism is a very logical, black-and-white sort of belief. It's not my belief but I can see why certain personality types would be drawn to it.

[Irishy]

Yew chapel you really are a fountain of knowlege and you answer every question so patiently.

[Hane]

As a catholic, I find this whole saved or born again business quite alien. I'm a fairly rubbish catholic but I believe that if we all do our very best, we're good with the man upstairs.

Yup times a zillion.

[docmom]

That's limited atonement which I do not believe in. Predestination is tied up with that but the main outcome of predestination is to do with whether we choose God or whether God predestines us to choose Him (and I believe in the former). The whole 'born again' thing is to do with sola fidei or 'by faith alone' - that you can't do anything to be saved, it is only through faith. My problem with sola fidei is that it can reduce faith to an intellectual process, and I can't believe that God ignores the good things people do - I mean Jesus does talk about storing up treasure in Heaven with our good deeds.

Calvinism is a very logical, black-and-white sort of belief. It's not my belief but I can see why certain personality types would be drawn to it.

For the record, I love this thread. It's been very enlightening. I grew up Church of Scotland (later Presbyterian USA) and until my high school history teacher said it was a tenant of my religion, I had never heard of predestination (in fact a number of us Presbyterians in the class stood up and said she was wrong!). It clearly is something that isn't emphasized in the modern liberal Calvinist churches. I now go to an Episcopalian church where you can believe pretty much anything you want which works for me!