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Differences between the
Christian Churches ... (Key Stage 3)
Teaching
The Protestant Churches usually will
accept no other authority for Christian truth than Scripture (the Bible).
These churches will mostly encourage individuals to use their faith and
reason in a prayerful way to understand biblical teaching but some will also
insist on a particular confession of faith, not exactly a creed but rather
an official summary of that denomination's teaching (eg the Westminster
Confession of some Calvinists or Reformed Christians).
Most of the Protestant Churches do not accept any significant role for
Tradition in Christian teaching, with the exception of Anglicanism, but even
in this Church Tradition always takes a very much second place to Scripture
and even then its role is not accepted by all Anglicans in practice. (For
"Tradition" see "Orthodox and Roman Catholic Churches.")
Protestant churches tend to emphasise a personal relationship between God
and the believer based on God's saving work on the Cross in dealing with
sin. The resurrection of Christ from the dead is seen as a confirmation of
this but is a deferred benefit for the saved at the end of time. The
Pentecostal Protestant churches additionally emphasise the work of the Holy
Spirit in a believer's life and salvation.
The Orthodox and Roman Catholic churches
also accept the Scriptures as the first authority in the Church but not
without Church teaching or Tradition as a guide to how the Scriptures should
be interpreted and applied today. Tradition is mainly expressed through the
historical ecumenical Creeds and decisions of the Councils that produced
them, (the Canons).
Additionally, the Roman Catholic Church asserts that the Pope has a teaching
authority that is universal whereas the Orthodox Church claims that such a
primacy could only be truly exercised in collaborative harmony with other
senior bishops as equals.
Tradition also includes for both churches unwritten memories and other
written records handed down the centuries of events, teachings and persons
in Church life that are considered also to be received as authoritative
Christian teaching.
The Roman Catholic Church tends to share with the Protestant churches an
emphasis on God's saving work from sin on the Cross with the resurrection as
a future hope. The Orthodox Church, however emphasises the goodness and
natural character of humans' capacity for God and faith as made in his image
and likeness. For Orthodox Christians, therefore, the Cross is not so much
a satisfaction of God's wrath against sin but the victory of love in
overturning death in the resurrection. The Incarnation and the Easter
victory of the Risen Christ therefore tends to gain more prominence in
Orthodoxy.
Church, Life and Worship
The Protestant Churches mostly claim
that the Christian life is lived as a grace-full response to God's
historically complete saving work in Christ and does not contribute to
salvation as such. Life in the Church is characterised therefore more by a
believer's association with other believers as saved persons rather than a
sacramental incorporation into a body (the Church) that is necessary for
salvation as a final goal as well as a present reality. For this reason,
Protestant Christians do not usually feel a particularly strong allegiance
to any one denomination within the Protestant world preferring to see the
true Church of the elect as an invisible association of all Christians.
Both Orthodoxy and Roman Catholicism
believe that salvation is a process and that a growth in holiness within the
Church is an indispensable part of that. The sacraments are a vital part of
that process and, consequently, they are stressed much more in Orthodoxy and
Roman Catholicism than in Protestantism. This tends to affect the visual
aspects of Church design, decor and the use of physical objects and symbols,
with these being much more in use in Roman Catholic and Orthodox than
Protestant churches. In the Orthodox and Roman Catholic Churches the
physical realm is seen as a vital vehicle for the encounter with God ...
less so in the Protestant churches. Differences between the
Christian Churches ... (Key Stage 4) - 15+
More information in greater depth is linked from this page ...
http://ocab.netfirms.com/stepping_forward.htm
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