Why Are There Or What Is The Need For So Many Flavors Of Christianity?

The UMC is still big on "works." I think it is a good thing. I think it is what we are called to do. Looking at the UMC website, at a high level some of what Corporate skims from the individual churches funds goes to The Africa University Fund, The Black College Fund, The Episcopal Fund, The Interdenominational Cooperation Fund, The Ministerial Education Fund and the World Service Fund. As an aside (because our offerings go into these endeavors), the UMC also gets involved in things like "Social Justice" [racism is a sin, they say], global warming, international politics [peaceful transition of power], etc. This is not felt at the local level in the churches I was attending. I've never heard anything of any of it ever. The supra-Christian stuff is like some far off business unit we fund but never hear from.

There are special financial drives for entities such as The Society of Saint Andrew, a cross-denominational organization focused on ending hunger that still goes out and does things like gleening fields to gather food for the needy.

Locally, we put together clean-up kits (buckets full of supplies) to be sent to disaster areas in the states, we buy & assemble birthday party kits (small gift, balloons, cake mix & candles in a party bag) to take to the local food banks to hand out as needed, we help local families in need as-required when we hear about it. We bought a woman a new stove when we heard hers had crapped out, we've helped families recover from fires, stuff like that. On Shrove Tuesday (pre-COVID) we have a pancake/BINGO social and bring in the folks from the local special needs rehab program to join us.

A few nearby UMC churches have pooled resources and done some Stop Hunger Now/Rise Against Hunger events, where we have bulk food brought in by the Stop Hunger Now people (rice, dried veggies, protein powder), and then they set up assembly lines where we portion the stuff out (each component by weight) into smaller servings in mylar bags and seal them, then send them out for distribution. They get stuffed into the boxes that the bulk food was delivered in, and the company that manages all this takes it away and distributes it. We did about 10,000 meal kits per hour...it went crazy fast. I think we did 30,000 meal kits (4 meals per pak, as I recall) that afternoon.

 

New Baptist congregations are often formed from the ashes of conflicts within an existing congregation, so some of them stay and the rest go off and start a new congregation. They divide as so many amoebas.

It's amazing how many baptist churches there are in the south. I've generally not been interested because my impression is that anyone who "feels the call" can stand up and be a preacher, whereas the Methodist ministers go through extensive biblical training (not that I've agreed with everything said from UMC pulpits, but at least there's some theological reference point from which to converse.) And if you read my response to Don Alaska, you can see that the UMC is hardly politically centrist, but that really is at the corporate level and does not bleed down into the individual churches.

 

***I am not a theologian***​

I had not heard of them before and took a quick read on the web. It seems that if each individual's salvation is preordained ("The Elect"), does that not make them as the Puritans were? Wouldn't there be some fatalistic streak or "why bother" running through the community? It also begs the question as to why anyone would spread the word and evangelize...what's the point??? Heck, preordained salvation obviates the point of God sending his son to atone for the sins of all mankind...doesn't it??? One would assume that The Elect were determined long before God sent his son to atone for our sins, so "Why Jesus?"

<sidebar>Of course, there are other things one could engage rhetorically, such as their rejecting anything not mentioned in the New Testament, yet having indoor plumbing, electricity, etc (if, in fact, they do have those things) or celebrating the co-opted Pagan holiday we now call Christmas (as the Jehovah's Witnesses do not.) Are they Amish-lite?</sidebar>

What I really finding interesting is these Baptists saying that baptism has no part in salvation...that there is no ceremonial washing away of the sins and a rebirth. Perhaps they believe that since Jesus was sinless and Jesus still got baptized by John, it is universally a superfluous act. In fact, it might even be blasphemous, as though Man feels the need to approve of what God has ordained (when they happen to baptize one of The Elect), or Man is defying the will of God (when they happen to baptize one who is not of The Elect.)

 

I can see the attraction to that, although that is a very long day. Perhaps doing that monthly makes it an anticipated event and not a resented obligation.

When I first started going to the 3 Church Charge here, I was in a small congregation (most Sundays there were 4 adults and one daughter.) My favorite Sundays were when the then-pastor (a great man I miss dearly) would pull out his sermon, put it back in his pocket, say "I don't feel like doing this today," then pull up a chair and sit with us and we would all discuss the Bible.

I imagine that being in a church with no electricity or plumbing meant that you were all there together, sharing whatever the environment was that day (stormy days must have been quite the event), versus being individuals sitting together as an audience.

 

Baptist churches are more likely than many other mainstream Protestant factions, to be autonomous, not just the American Baptist Conference, and many Baptist churches are wholly autonomous. Some Baptist churches are Arminian, while others are Calvinistic. This is why you're likely to come across a wide range of seemingly contradictory Baptist policies, requirements, and leniencies. Generally, Baptist congregations hire their own pastors, often without even consulting with their denomination or association, although most will require theological education and professional degrees.

 

Hey, Joanna. Welcome to the forum. Just to get this out of the way...we have an Introduction area if you would like to let us know a little about yourself. You can see the backgrounds of others there, too. Purely optional. Click here.

Your comment reminded me of a couple of things. I was at a brief talk regarding folks in the Middle East who are much more receptive to/less suspicious of people who referred to themselves as Followers of Jesus (an individual thing) versus being "A Christian" (a member of a [suspect] institution.) That kinda gets to the core of individual faith versus being a church-goer when churches are theologically all over the place.

Regarding Bible translations: one thing that bothers me are funerals where pastors claim that "Your loved one is with Jesus right now," mostly a fib said to comfort people. But the Bible says there is a period of sleep after we die waiting for Jesus' return. People point to the story of Jesus on the cross surrounded by the two thieves where he says "I tell you this, today you shalt be with me in paradise", the implication being they will be in Heaven in a few hours. Some have said that this is an instance of a misplaced comma (which would be a teeny transgression given the path that translations have taken to finally arrive at English.) To maintain consistency with the scripture that tell us "We sleep awaiting the return of Jesus," those people would construct his statement on the cross to be "I tell you this today, you shalt be with me in paradise", the implication being they will be in Heaven at some point in the future...which would be in line with the overt statements made elsewhere in the Bible.

 

I had a friend who said that your personal Bible study (alone or with others) is the main course, with church being dessert. Besides lack of motivation (I have read the entire Bible several times using various tools but am currently not a daily reader), the Bible is not something you can just read and understand. Right off the bat, the first book throws a mind-numbing overwhelming genealogy at you of people with unrecognizable names for whom you have no frame of reference "begatting" each other. I can't imagine why any of us kept on reading with that intro.

The Bible was the first (and most prevalent) instance of "You need an expert to tell you what it means." Sure, Gutenberg put it in the hands of the common man, but it takes an effort and some "expert" (in the form of study guides and tools) to grasp what you are reading. And even then there is disagreement. So who's to judge a person for not reading the Bible when it's so murky and unclear, yet is often used by Man to control and judge as though the words are absolute? And if it takes an expert to interpret it, how dare anyone judge others for not obeying that which has no clear standards and which they are purportedly incapable of understanding in the first place??? It's completely understandable why people reject church.

Heck, when our pastor was fielding topics for a Bible Study class, I tried to get him to give a class on an overview of the Bible, because my Quest study Bible taught me the historical context of each book, told me the author, told me who the audience was, etc. In other words, it gave me a much-needed frame of reference/context for each book. He did not think that was important.

During our services we have one person read a brief passage from the Old Testament and one from the New Testament. I requested that each person briefly preface it with "From the Book of XXXX, written by XXX around XXXX date, giving XXX audience the following information"...and then reading once folks had that frame of reference. It is valueless for someone to read 2 sentences of random Olde English to a passive audience...nobody knows what the heck it means. My request was rejected.

I am envious of those Jews who will vigorously debate their belief with each other and part company being better friends after that encounter than they were beforehand. With rare exception, you cannot do that within the realm of Christianity. There is no one with whom you can refine and then test your beliefs, because there is some supposed standard of Absolute Right & Absolute Wrong (that people disagree on), with Eternal Damnation being the stated penalty for picking the wrong one...yet look at all the choices.