Divisions in Christianity explored at OST tri-faith event

Dr. Scott Woodward of Oblate School of Theology outlines the many branches of Christianity at tri-faith event. Carol Baass Sowa | Today's Catholic

SAN ANTONIO • “There are serious divisions in Christianity,” observed Dr. Scott Woodward of Oblate School of Theology, addressing attendees at OST’s biannual Evening of World Faith on Oct. 29. Some of these divisions, he noted, date back to the time of the apostles, while newer ones continue to crop up in modern times. Thankfully, there is much energy being devoted these days to trying to unite Christianity, with Pope Benedict XVI continuing the work of Pope John Paul II in this respect.

Disagreement over what it meant to be Christian began as early as 56 CE, said Woodward, which is when the different Orthodox churches diverged, the first major disagreement being over the nature of Jesus — was he fully God, fully man or a mix of both.

The contention reached a point where riots occurred until, finally, the emperor ordered a meeting of the bishops to resolve the problem. This Council of Nicaea resulted in what we now call the Nicene Creed and led to the excommunication of Bishop Eusebius and his priest Arius, who held that Jesus, while first among humans, was not God.

They were excommunicated, which in those days meant being escorted by the Roman Legion to the edge of the Roman Empire and thrown out, but they and their followers became known as the Arian Christians. While they eventually faded away, remnants of their beliefs can be found in such groups as the Unitarian Universalists and Jehovah’s Witnesses, Woodward noted.

Those who held to the Nicene teaching called themselves Orthodox, with many branches developing. Centered in the East, these included the Greek Orthodox, Russian Orthodox, Rumanian Orthodox, Coptic Orthodox, Ethiopian Orthodox and more. Typically, they all shared similar forms of worship and got along with each other, though in recent times two of these Orthodox groups have made the news, coming to blows regarding ownership of the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem.

A major split in Christianity between the East and West occurred in 1054. The church in these two parts of the world had already diverged in various practices and traditions, such as celibacy for priests and use of leavened or unleavened bread, but when a papal representative was sent to discuss issues, things escalated into his excommunicating the Patriarch of Constantinople, a division that remains to this day. Woodward described it as “fighting each other over how to be Christian.”

The next major division came 500 years later with the Reformation, set in motion with the posting of a set of theses by a monk named Martin Luther, who was upset with the practice of selling indulges and hoping to stir debate. German nationalism was set off in the process, with those who protested certain practices or teachings of the Church being called Protestants, and by the end of the 18th century the Reformation was in full swing, Woodward noted, with Lutheranism, Calvinism, Anabaptism and Anglicanism springing forth.

In the United States, he said, this would include the Lutheran Church, Congregationalists, Presbyterians, Mennonites and Episcopalians — all communities of the Reformation. “It is out of these Reformation communities,” he said, “that all these other Christian groups that we have today have sprouted,” one of the most important historically being the Wesleyan movement which came from Anglicanism. This was the work of John and Charles Wesley, but predominantly of John, who developed a “method” to assist the average Christian in attaining holiness — hence, the name Methodism.

After that, divisions proliferated at an amazing rate, Woodward related, with many of these newer communities having little or no central structure and looking to the Scriptures as their authority.

The problem was that there was often disagreement on what the Scriptures meant, what books were included and what translation was used. Some Christian groups wrote translations to suit their own teachings.

By the mid-19th century, a movement began to form interdenominational Christian churches, since it was becoming increasingly difficult to pinpoint just which church was “right.”
These new churches had no affiliation with any denomination, but served people from many denominations and it was from this the modern Evangelical movement sprang.

These Christians believed man had strayed from the fundamental foundations of faith, particularly in allowing modern science (such as Darwin and Freud) to be an influence, so they issued a series of documents called The Fundamentals, thus acquiring the name Fundamentalists.

Woodward admitted it is far easier to say what Christians agree on, rather than the many ways in which we disagree. “We disagree on who Jesus is,” he said. “We disagree on the Trinity, whether there is one or not. We disagree on the number of inspired books. We disagree on what inspiration is, how God acts.” And this is only scratching the surface. On the hopeful side, there is more agreement within Christianity today than there was 500 years ago, he noted, pointing to the ecumenical movement.

While it is difficult to classify the various Christian communities, they can be roughly broken down into three categories: those rooted in the apostolic era (Catholicism and Orthodox); communities of the Reformation, which have much in common; and the more contemporary evangelical non-denominational churches, which have little in common.

In the early 20th century, World War I pointed up a new problem in Christianity, which had previously been associated with temporal rulers. In the past, leaders had been able to call such anomalies as Christmas and Easter truces during times of war, but World War I changed that. Here, the Allied nations, predominantly Protestant, were leery of looking to the pope for guidance, seeing him as aligned with the Axis countries, who were Catholic. Afterwards, the pope (Benedict XV) sadly admitted that Christianity had failed Europe.

From this, however, the various branches of Christianity began to reach out to each other. In Canada, Methodists, Baptists and Calvinists came together to form the United Church of Canada.

In Europe, the pope worked with two Anglican women in founding Feed the Children to serve the war torn areas there. The World Council of Churches was also formed, though the Catholic Church refused at first to participate, seeing it as giving legitimacy to the Protestant churches that had broken away from them.

Today, the Catholic Church has entered into the spirit of ecumenism, however, Woodward noted, with Pope Benedict the XVI continuing Pope John Paul II’s work and that of Vatican II in seeking the reunification of Christianity.

Here in San Antonio, this includes a coming together of Christians every January to pray for this unity.

“And so we work together because we are concerned with the human dignity that God has granted to us all,” he said, “so that we all achieve greater fidelity to the Gospel.” He added, “Till we do that, we are going to have division — but there is hope.”