User:Neonchameleon/Draft/Christian Glossary

Basic Christian Glossary

Christianity is a vast and confusing religion with dozens of different branches, each claiming to be right. Saying that "Christians believe" is like nailing jelly to the wall, and responses can leave you lost in a loop of sophisticated theology. The best we can do is attempt to indicate what Christians believe when they use certain specific terms (of which there are a lot) and who believes which things.

Faith, Works, and Approach to being a Christian

Evangelism

Used by almost all Christians - although some call themselves Evangelical Christians

Evangelism is the idea that you should help people be saved by spreading the Gospel (literally "Good News") so they too join your social club.

Faith

Used by: All Protestants, many Catholics

Faith is belief beyond evidence or in the face of doubt.

Salvation by Faith Alone

A Protestant Shibboleth

Almost all Protestants believe that it isn't what you do that saves you, it's what you believe. This was originally meant to be tied to "By their fruits shall ye know them" and that those who believed would automatically do good works. It doesn't always.

Forgiveness

Believed by all Christians

Christians are told to forgive those who hate them. In benign form this allows them to let go of what was done wrong. In malevolent form this can be twisted by the heads of churches to order people to forgive their abusers so no action is taken against the powerful, or by people like Mother Teresa to tell people to forgive disasters like Bhopal ... so no action is taken against the powerful.

The Afterlife

Christians believe that there is an afterlife; life beyond death.

Heaven

Used by almost all Christians

Heaven is where good people go after they die. It will be bliss.

Hell

Used by most Christians

Hell is a place of eternal punishment where you are continually tortured. Somehow God isn't responsible for this. Modern ideas of Hell tend to owe more to Dante than to

Universalism

Believed by: Liberal Christians (including Unitarian Universalists)

Heresy to: Conservative Christians

Universalism is the belief that no one is going to go to Hell, and everyone is going to be Saved

Annihiliationism

Believed by: Conservative Christians who don't want their God to be that evil

Annihilationism is the belief that when God throws you into the lake of fire at Judgement Day your existence will end then and there and you won't actually be tortured in Hell.

Purgatory

Believed by: Middle of the Road Christians

Purgatory is the belief that most people don't deserve heaven and aren't evil enough for hell so are going to be sent to a classroom until they qualify for heaven.

Limbo

Formally abolished by the Roman Catholic Church in 2007

Unbaptised babies couldn't go to heaven. They had done nothing to deserve hell. So they were sent to Limbo - and nothing happened to them.

Eschatology or the End of the World

Eschatology is the studly of the End of the World and the Apocalypse.

Judgement Day

Believed by just about all Christians in various forms

Judgement Day is the day at the End of Time when God will judge the living and the dead.

The Judgement of Nations

Believed by many Christian Socialists

According to the Sermon on the Mount it won't be individuals judged, but nations on how they treated those who needed help. Not an interpretation the Christian Right is remotely fond of.

Millenialism

Believed by some Fundamentalists and some Charismatics Heresy to: Roman Catholics and Eastern Orthodox among others

The Millenium shall be a thousand glorious years Jesus will reign directly over the world before Judgement day. Where this fits with the Tribulation and the Rapture is a source of internal Fundamentalist argument that is little more interesting than reading books like Left Behind. (It used to be a popular doctrine in the first couple of centuries AD).

The Rapture

Believed by some Fundamentalists and some Charismatics

Invented by John Darby in the early 19th Century, at the Rapture, true believers are all whisked off to heaven and the rest of the world becomes horrible. Normally to prevent Christians having to live through The Tribulation. Even by the confused standards of the bible this appears to be a complete fabrication.

The Tribulation

Believed by the same people who believe in the Rapture

The Tribulation is a period of trouble outlined in the Book of Revelation and other places. Signs of the end of the world.

The Trinity

Trinity

Believed by almost all Christians

The Trinity is the idea that God is one being in three parts. God the Father, God the Son (a.k.a. Jesus Christ), God the Holy Spirit.

Unitarian

Believed by Unitarians (duh!)

Considered heresy by Everyone Else

There is only one God who isn't really three.

Arian

Believed by some Mormons and Unitarians

Considered heresy by almost everyone else

Jesus Christ was subordinate to God the Father.

Nature of Jesus, Mary, and the Incarnation

Immaculate Conception

Believed by Catholics, many Orthodox

The Immaculate Conception is not, as many think, the belief that Jesus was born without sin - but the belief that Mary was so that Jesus as born in a flawless vessel. This does not, apparently, iterate.

Incarnation

Fundamental to almost all Christians

God became Man in the form of Jesus Christ.