BRANCHES OF CHRISTIANITY
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Roman Catholicism
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Church as Teaching Authority
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The Church guarantees the proper interpretation
of the Bible
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Importance of Church tradition and authority
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Pope as the successor to St. Peter – guarantees
continuity in apostolic succession
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Papal infallibility regarding faith and
morals
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Hierarchically structured administration
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Church as Sacramental Agent
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The Church empowers believers to live
in the likeness of Christ
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Sacraments as the means of empowerment
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Seven sacraments parallel the cycle of
human life:
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baptism/birth
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confirmation/coming of age
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marriage/vocation
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holy orders/religious vocation
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extreme unction/death
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confession
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Eucharist
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Eastern Orthodoxy
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Formal split with Roman
Catholicism occurred in 1054 CE
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Authority is given to the
Bible as the revealed Word of God, and the seven Ecumenical Councils
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Do not accept doctrinal
‘innovations’ which are not explicitly stated in either the Bible or in
the Church Councils
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Distinguished by its ‘corporate
view of the Church’
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e.g., "One can be damned
alone, but saved only with others"
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one’s individual destiny
is bound up with the entire Church’s destiny
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Corporate Church is responsible
for helping to sanctify the entire world of nature and history
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Administration centered
in the hands of the laity
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Patriarch of Constantinople:
"first among equals"
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Actively encourages the
mystical life
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Deification – the
aim of every Christian life
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Protestant
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Justification by Faith
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Faith as "a totality-act of the whole
personality" – a posture of love and trust; the belief that "God is for
me"
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Martin Luther’s protest against religious
observances as insufficient in providing a ‘saving knowledge’ of God
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Good works follow naturally from
life of faith, not vice versa
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Protestant Principle
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Ongoing self-critique of the Church and
its theology
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Warning against idolatry or the human
tendency to absolutize the relative
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Allegiance belongs to God alone
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Response to the absolute sovereignty/transcendence
of God