Sunday, September 2, 2007

Categorizing Churches

Do denominations really make that much of a difference? Within the Catholic church, there's a wide array of local parishes that worship as differently as night and day. We can say the same for many of the Protestant denominations like the United Methodist, Presbyterians, Baptists, etc.

I have a theory:

The real distinctions between local parishes/congregations, irregardless of denomination, is that they can be categorized into one of three different groups: fundamentalist, evangelical, and charismatic.

Fundamentalists focus on adhering to the fundamentals of the faith: the inerrancy of the Bible, Sola Scriptura, the virgin birth of Christ, the doctrine of substitutionary atonement, the bodily resurrection of Jesus, and the imminent return of Jesus Christ. Basically, it's yielding to the call of the Father to pursue holiness.

Evangelicals focus on completing the Great Commission that Jesus commanded the disciples before His ascension.

Charismatics focus on the being moved by the Holy Spirit.

It's really a focus on the call of one of the three God Head.

Of course, no local parish/congregation is completely Fundamentalist or completely Evangelical or completely Charismatic.

It's more of a spectrum within a triangle in which each corner of the triangle represents one of the far end of spectrum: Fundamentalist, Evangelical, and Charismatic. And each local parish/congregation falls somewhere within the triangle.

A well balanced parish/congregation would fall smack in the middle of the triangle.

It's just a theory. I don't have any Biblical reference to back it up.

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