Re: [asa] some questions on doctrinal differences

Wendee -

The site you reference is a poor resource. Anything that begins by
stating
that Roman Catholicism is non-Christian is in pretty dubious territory.
(Yes, I believe that the Doctrine of Justification by grace through
faith,
as stated in Article 4 of the Augsburg Confession, is correct.)
Insisting
that Jesus was raised "physically" (as distinguished from "bodily")
is at
best careless - cf. I Cor.15:44. Relegating the Doctrine of the
Trinity to
secondary status, while monotheism is said to be primary, is another
serious
problem. & saying that "women pastors" is heretical is nonsense. &
there
are other problems.

I gather that what you're looking for is a brief list of issues that
have
been divisive in the history of the church rather than (like that
site) a
list of rights & wrongs. As you know, sometimes relatively trivial
issues
have been divisive so it's hard to know just how far to go in making
such a
list. But looking at the broad picture of church history, I would list:

The divinity of Christ and the Trinity (I Nicea)

The nature(s) & person of Christ (Chalcedon & other councils)

Papal authority (the East-West schism)

Justification (the Reformation)

Baptism (post-Reformation) (This may seem like an odd thing to list
but the
refusal of large groups of Christians today to recognize the validity
of the
baptisms of other Christians by its very nature makes genuine church
fellowship impossible.)

This is off the top of my head & certainly other important doctrinal
matters
could be listed. The question of what matters are necessarily "church
dividing" (kirchentrennende) has of course been discussed in ecumenical
dialogues.

Shalom
George
http://web.raex.com/~gmurphy/

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Received on Fri Jul 20 11:13:29 2007