Community and Christianity

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Community and Christianity
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Religious Community

• Religion is inescapably social
• Not primarily about individual belief, but what
  the community values about the sacred and how
  this shapes individuals in the community
• Religion vs. spirituality
• Liturgy work of the people
• Lex orandi, lex credendi

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Types of Community

• Church invites all to join, engaged in
  well-being of larger society
• Sect demands conformity of members, exclusive in
  its membership, in tension with larger society
• Cult focus on personality of charismatic leader
  claims new revelation viewed with extreme
  suspicion

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Breaks in the community

• Occur over disagreements about beliefs, practices
• Reform return to origins
• Accepted when it focuses on recovering
  authentic core tradition
• Rejected when seen to threaten core tradition
• Heresy illegitimate doctrine or practice
• Schism division without major doctrinal
  disagreement
• Formation of new religions

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Why three major branches of Christianity?

• East-West split
• 1054
• Over authority
• Catholic-Protestant split
• 1500s
• Over doctrines

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Eastern Orthodoxy

• Right worship
• Sacramental
• Mystical
• Authority not centralized
• Most traditional

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Roman Catholicism

• Sacramentality
• Mediation
• Priesthood, saints
• Communion
• authority
• Somewhat open to adaptation while placing
  strong value on preserving tradition

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Protestantism

• Reform through scripture as norm
• Continuous need for reform
• Salvation by grace through faith
• Focus on laity
• Varied ideas on sacraments
• Most open to adaptation