Fractured Faiths
Posted: Sun Aug 27, 2023 1:54 pm
Christianity is fracturing into many new divisions. Here is a rough draft outline of some of these changes. They cover a wide range of beliefs and moral systems including who belongs under the Christian umbrella. There's plenty of room for more categories or details on each one.
Catholicism
Catholicism
- Traditional Catholicism after Vatican II.
- Aulde Schoole Catholicism (my term) for those who reject Vatican II, attend mass in latin, and so on. They are in conflict with the following.
- Pope Francis is attempting to modernize the church by opening it to divorced and civilly remarried members, immigration, outreach to gay catholics, restricting latin mass, and so on.
- Opus Dei or “Work of God” is a movement to implement christian ideals in occupations and general society. That sounds OK on the surface, but carries new meaning when five SCOTUS justices are members. (Barrett, Roberts, Thomas, Kavanaugh, Alito)
- Fundamentalists – those who believe everything in the Bible is literally true including a 6 day creation = 144 hours, the Noah’s Ark story, etc.
- Mainstream denominations such as Presbyterian, Episcopal, etc.
- There are many, many segments of the Baptist denomination. There are even more splits based on LGBT issues.
- Almost 6000 churches have split from the Methodist denomination over LGBT issues.
- Conservative groups that believe God is using Trump to accomplish Christian goals. They are abandoning traditional principles to follow an authoritarian in pursuit of power. 7 Mountains Dominionism is one example.
- A small number of ultra-conservative churches that believe Trump is The Messiah.
- Televangelists who are openly scamming members while promoting fundamentalism. (Huge media visibility in the US)
- Liberal churches that are open to LGBT issues and immigration. Certain sectors of the Episcopal church for example. (Scant media visibility in the US)
- Mormons (Latter Day Saints) There are several divisions. Some ultra-conservative groups still practice polygamy.
- Jehovah's Witnesses
- Seventh Day Adventists, Quakers, and other "special interests" if you will.
- The bickering behind this splintering may be part of the rapid increase in folks with a vague spiritual faith, but no institutional affiliation.
- Agnostics and atheists are excluded from this category for this discussion since they have left these fractured faiths.