Thursday 24 January 2013

What are Christian denominations? Ways of Christian life

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Exclusivism is not really about truth claims, but about practice, about living. If you are living a Catholic life, then you are not leading a Protestant life; and vice versa - and there are many subdivisions within this.

Each denomination has a different ideal of how to live, and that ideal is exclusive - at most you could switch from one to the other, or back and forth; but that would limit the degree of attainment within any one of them.

Each way of life has pros and cons, and would be more or less suitable for different individuals (who have different faults and abilities); each is incomplete and distorted - but each could be organized around the same simple principle. What is it? 

As WmJas said: "Faith does not mean “accurate knowledge.” It means trust. That’s why Christ said little children are capable of it..." 

Trust in Christ as Lord and Saviour. 

Different ways of life, built around that simple principle. 

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3 comments:

Alan Roebuck said...

WmJas was reacting to something that I said in that post at Orthospere, but I didn't say "Faith = Accurate Knowledge."

I said that biblical faith is trust in a trustworthy Savior about whom one has accurate knowledge.

Knowledge is important because it is possible to trust in one who is not trustworthy. And the little children can go astray unless they trust the parent who tells them to trust in Christ.

Bruce B. said...

“Trust in Christ as Lord and Saviour. Different ways of life, built around that simple principle.”
This phrase “trust” means different things to different denominations. To Catholics and Orthodox (and perhaps Mormons if I remember the lessons I received from Mormon missionaries correctly) it means obedience to Christ and to His Father. To Protestants (or at least many Protestants) it means trust in a particular set of propositions about Jesus and His work. In this regard, I think Mormons are more like Catholics/Orthodox than Protestants.

Bruce Charlton said...

@BB - What I mean by trust is much more than obedience-to - a loving child's trust of his loving parent is much more than obedience.