Following Jesus's Example of Comparing All Traditions with the Word of God (Mark 7)
Following Jesus's Example of Comparing All Traditions with the Word of God (Mark 7)
[I apologize that is taken me so long to get back to this earlier article. It really needed editing for grammar and further clarification. As usual with these older articles, I found some things that could be misleading and rewrote them. I hope these revisions will help the reader better understand this topic. Having Grammarly […]
Baptism, Universally Accepted, Widely Disputed Read More »
This web is a look at primitive, original Christianity, how it developed over time into innumerable denominations and divisions, and how original Christianity compares to current practices. It is a resource for looking systematically at the beliefs and practices in the original Christian church, numerous movements and churches since, and the modern Christian church, with discussion about how all these changes happened and especially focusing on how well each of these compares to scripture.
"Jesus Christ is Lord" is the common belief of billions of Christians. But there are tens of thousands of denominations. (Denominations are not just the big guys like Roman Catholic and Southern Baptist; they include all the little groups of churches under the same authority, even if they claim to be nondenominational.) While ancient denominations like the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox claim to be the original and consequently "true" church, innumerable churches and denominations have started citing errors in these ancient bastions or the leading of the spirit to reform or restore the church.
There are numerous disputed issues. Cessation doctrine (prophecy and the gifts of the spirit ended with the apostles), infant baptism, the inerrancy of Scripture, the form of Church government, the role of women in the church, and currently, the acceptance of homosexuality are just some of the many disputed doctrines that cause the Christian body to be so divided.
The Reformation movement performed an invaluable service. But instead of simply reforming the church or creating one more correct alternative church, the Reformation movement increased the number of disputes over scripture, and consequently, the number of splits has increased exponentially.
The problem with examining all the denominations is that it can become confusing to compare this church or denomination to that one. The complexity of examining all the theological implications can become overwhelming. For many busy people, that means making the best, less-than-fully educated decision they can and staying with the church of their heritage or finding a church where they feel they can grow. Just finding the information can be an overwhelming task. Putting it into some understandable framework is an even more complicated task.
This website, rather than trying just to compare all the current positions on the differences, goes back to the beginning (primitive, original Christianity) and evaluates Christianity starting at that point. This includes looking at the gospel accounts, early church documents, and other secular and religious ancient documents. (There is also a section on Philosophy because its profound impact on Christian theological development.) The articles have numerous references to works both in print and online.
Next, the website looks at the developments in Christianity from original Christianity forward to see how the church developed over time, comparing each development with what we know about original Christianity. The goals are:
For an overview of the articles by category, go to the Table of Contents Page.
This is a work in progress. I pray that sharing my journey is helpful to you and that together, we can grow in the faith that Jesus Christ made available some two thousand years ago.
Also, Please Pardon our Dust. There are hundreds of posts, some of which still have typos. If you find any typos, you can contact Mark at webmaster@originalchristianity.net. Please be so kind as to mention the name of the post. if you could kindly copy and paste the section with errors in your message, that would be fantastic. Thank you, and God Bless You.