by Renee Mcknight

Created on: November 14, 2008

Christianity in todays society includes many churches and organizations, whether a person claims they are Catholic, Protestant, United, Anglican, Lutheran, or Pentecostal, etc.., they all have only one thing in common and that is to belittle each other, there doctrines are much different though most stem out of the Catholic faith, which was the founding church for Christianity.

Catholic Believers have strict ritualistic traditions that include praying to the "Saints", each have a specific day of prayer. Birth control being unaccepted, Female repression.But that is not the topic at hand.

I was born into a Roman Catholic family, and decided at an early age not to participate in "Catechism", the tradition placed upon all children in the Catholic church, you complete your first Confession, then you complete your first Communion, then in the teenage years you complete your Confirmation. These traditions are not part of the other Christian churches that I have attended. The point to what I am Writing is that Christian doctrine is different in all Christian churches.

When speaking of the Christian doctrine, we must look at the book itself "The Bible". You have already many different opinions about what is authentic and what is not. The Apocrypha is included in Catholic and Orthodox doctrine, yet the Lutheran church believes it is good reading material to help increase ones faith, while the Anglican church uses the Apocrypha for edification purposes. The reformed/Presbyterian, Methodist/Wesleyan, Baptist, or Pentecostal have a bible (King James Version) which omits the Apocrypha.

Christianity throughout the years has become the most divided Religion, so many different churches with there own set of beliefs. Which include some of the below listed.

Purgatory which exists only in the Catholic faith as a place one goes after death. If a person is not purified you enter Purgatory to purify yourself to enter Gods Kingdom. All other churches reject this belief, as it has no relation to the Bible.

The means of salvation are different amongst the churches. Catholic faith is that salvation is received upon baptism, it may be lost by mortal sin but regained by penance. Acceptance of Christ as Savior is the means of salvation for the Orthodox Christians, Baptist and Pentecostal. Faith in Christ is salvation in the Lutheran church and the Wesleyan church believes that salvation is in judgement according to good works upon death. I can continue on about other topics such as the Trinity, Angels, and the end times. But I am sure you as the reader have a good idea by now that these churches are divided by beliefs and doctrine.

When entering any church that falls under Christianity whether it is Catholic, Protestant etc..., There is one thing you can find that they have in common. If you look closely and listen to some of the people speak you can hear them criticize and belittle others who don't attend there church. I ask you the reader to go ahead and ask a Pentecostal what they think of Catholic beliefs, or any of the people attending a church to think about another Christian Church and there beliefs. You will hear it for yourself.

The essential principles of Christian doctrine are non existent. Through my studies I have found that most principles associated with one church are looked down upon by other churches, what really makes a person looking in at all of this think, is that they all claim they fall under Christianity. I guess the real topic is asking them to define what Christianity truly is. Then we can write pages trying to explain there definitions.

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