JSchanze

Dear Kelsey,

The best way I know to start figuring out the differences between all the various Christian denominations is to look at their family “heritage” as it were. If you trace their roots back to their founding, and then just do a little Wiki work you can figure out what the difference were that caused the formation of any particular denomination.

Major differences that you will find will fall into some pretty broad doctrinal/theological categories.

For instance Justification/Sanctification:

When Luther split from the Catholic church forming “Lutherans” one of his gripes was justification. He believed that people were justified before God not by the work of man (in other words not from the intercession of a priest, or from works or penance) but that it was a gift from God. Thus you will find a major difference between Catholics and Lutherans on this point.

When Calvin formed the Calvinist churches (Dutch reformed etc.) he brought his own theology to bear on justification, known as the five points of Calvinism, which include the theology of predestination and election. Namely that God has already called those who are to be saved, and that we live in a state of depravity, or falleness, without that call. Another of Calvin’s strong influences was changing the actual worship style. Calvin believed that worship should only have elements in it that are backed Biblically, whereas Lutherans and Catholics had what is called “normative” worship, which is not all bibilically based.

The list could go on and on, but really my point is when you want to learn about a particular denomination the best thing to do is to go look at its historical beginning. Almost every denomination is born out of some strife or disagreement about a particular doctrinal issue. They range from how are we saved, to the work of the holy spirit, and in inner-denominations (such as Missouri Synod Lutherans vs. The Evangelical Lutheran Church) you start to see very specific things causing denominational splits, such as the role of women in the church etc. Major differences generally fall into Justification/Sanctification; the role of the pastorate, the role of the Holy Spirit, and beliefs about scripture (IS the Word of God vs. CONTAINS the Word of God), and of course dozens of others.

My personal opinion on all of this is to make lemonade out of lemons. I do not suppose that all of the schisms in Christianity’s past makes for the unified body of believers that I believe the Bible espouses. However, it does give us a great opportunity. At the end of the day I think being the best Christian you can be is about having a personal relationship with Jesus. The advantage to having so many denominations is that you should be able to find one that will build that relationship, to make it personal and help it grow. The trick is to figure out where you are in that relationship and surrounded yourself with a Church family that will help you grow.

I hope that helps answer your question, at least in part.

Eric

Very nicely stated, thank you for posting that.

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