Look It Up

Reference

Every list in one place: supposed contradictions, misused verses, prophecies, names, parables, creeds, and the rest. With no section picked you see all of them. Pick one or more sections to narrow it, then filter by words, verse, kind, or tag. Unroll a row for the answer.

Looking for a word? The Glossary has its own page, and so does The Covenants with its teaching.

A first map of the churches and groups that use the name of Christ: what each one teaches, and where it differs.

  • The Apostolic Churches

    · ·

    The first churches: the apostles' teaching, the breaking of bread, the Scriptures they left us, and believers meeting in homes and cities.

  • Eastern Orthodox

    · · · · ·

    The eastern churches in communion with Constantinople: the liturgy, bishops, and the seven councils.

  • Oriental Orthodox

    · · · ·

    The churches that did not accept the Council of Chalcedon: Coptic, Syriac, Armenian, and their sister churches.

  • Coptic Orthodox

    · · · ·

    of Egypt, led from Alexandria. It is an Oriental Orthodox church.

  • Ethiopian Orthodox

    · ·

    of Ethiopia, Oriental Orthodox, with a larger and an ancient liturgy.

  • Church of the East

    ·

    that spread east of the Roman Empire, once called Assyrian or Nestorian.

  • Roman Catholic

    · · · · · ·

    The western in communion with the bishop of Rome: the Mass, the sacraments, and tradition, and the claims of the pope.

  • Old Catholic

    · ·

    Western Catholics who refused the First Vatican Council's teaching that the pope is infallible, and who still keep a Catholic liturgy.

  • Waldensians

    ·

    A movement of poor preachers in the western Alps, older than , that later joined the Protestant churches.

  • Lutheran

    · · ·

    The churches of the Augsburg Confession: by , infant baptism, and Christ present in the Supper.

  • Reformed

    · ·

    The churches of Zwingli, , and the Swiss and Dutch confessions: Word, sacrament, and government by elders.

  • Presbyterian

    · ·

    Reformed churches governed by elders, often under the Westminster Standards in the English-speaking world.

  • Anglican

    · ·

    The English settlement: Catholic forms of worship, Protestant articles, a book, and a broad family.

  • Congregational

    ·

    Reformed churches where the local congregation, not a bishop or presbytery, has the final say.

  • Christian Reformed

    · ·

    Dutch Reformed churches in America that kept the Three Forms of Unity.

  • Swiss Anabaptists

    · ·

    The radical edge of the Reformation: believer's baptism, a gathered , and a costly break with the city government.

  • Mennonite

    · ·

    Anabaptist churches that follow Menno Simons: peace, a gathered people, and believer's baptism.

  • Amish

    · ·

    A stricter Anabaptist stream, known for separation from the world, the Ordnung, and a slow life together.

  • English Baptists

    · ·

    Churches in England that baptized believers. Some were General (Arminian) and some Particular (Reformed).

  • Southern Baptist

    · ·

    The largest Baptist body in the United States: missions, self-governing churches, and believer's baptism.

  • Independent Baptist

    · · ·

    Baptist churches that will not join a convention. Often a strong pastor, a school, and a strict code of conduct.

  • Free Will Baptist

    · ·

    Baptist churches that stress the freedom of the will, and in many cases, that a believer can fall away.

  • Methodist

    · ·

    The Wesleyan revival inside of England that became its own church: Arminian, holy, and preaching to the poor.

  • Holiness Churches

    · · ·

    Nineteenth-century heirs of Methodism who pressed for a second work of and a life set apart.

  • Church of the Nazarene

    · · ·

    A : Wesleyan, Arminian, and committed to missions around the world.

  • Salvation Army

    Founded in 1865 in East London by William and Catherine Booth.

  • Pentecostal

    · · ·

    Heirs of the movement in the early 1900s who taught a baptism in the Spirit with tongues as its sign.

  • Assemblies of God

    · · ·

    The largest Trinitarian Pentecostal fellowship: missions, and in its official teaching, tongues as the first evidence of Spirit baptism.

  • Church of God in Christ

    · ·

    A large -Pentecostal born in the American Black church. It is Trinitarian.

  • Churches of Christ

    From the Stone-Campbell movement on the American frontier in the early 1800s.

  • Disciples of Christ

    ·

    The more open branch of the Stone-Campbell family: ecumenical, and in recent decades often mainline.

  • Plymouth Brethren

    · ·

    Nineteenth-century assemblies with a weekly Lord's Supper, no titled clergy, and often a dispensational reading of .

  • Non-Denominational

    · ·

    Independent evangelical churches that do not take a historic name. Their teaching still belongs to a family, even if their sign does not say so.

  • Evangelical Free

    · ·

    Free- evangelicals from Scandinavian roots: congregational, evangelical, with a short statement of .

  • Calvary Chapel

    · ·

    A loose fellowship born in the Jesus Movement: verse-by-verse teaching, a relaxed style, and usually a pre- in the older teaching.

  • Seventh-Day Adventist

    Organized in 1863 in Battle Creek, Michigan.

  • Jehovah's Witnesses

    Grew from Charles Taze Russell's Bible Students near Pittsburgh in the 1870s.

  • Latter-Day Saints

    Organized in 1830 by Joseph Smith in Fayette, New York.

  • Oneness Pentecostal

    Began in 1913 and 1914 among Pentecostals in the Los Angeles area.

  • Unitarian Universalist

    Formed in 1961 by the merger of the Unitarians and the Universalists.