Is the structure of Christianity self cleansing?
Christianity has a long history of going astray. And when it goes astray, most often, some group of peoples split themselves from the main body of whatever is the established Christian theology at the time. Also, as often as not, the people responsible for the nastiness eventually die or are overthrown and some semblance of sanity returns to the original sect.
The first schism was between the RC church and the eastern rite. Luther, Calvin, others through the years either saw a church going astray, or wanted to bend it’s followers to their own means. Even now, even within individual parishes, congregations, there are people who dislike the actions of their spiritual leaders, and wish to return to the teachings of Christ and away from a purely materialistic culture, or away from what they consider heretical beliefs. Many of those peopel are total nutbags, but far greater numbers of them are prople just trying to be decent to one another.
So: Do you think Christianity is self cleansing?
I’m not sure about self-cleansing, but the number of spinoffs is one for the record books.
I think that so long as you are following the teachings of Christ you’re all good.
My sediment exactly, Richmond.
I really am unqualified to comment on this, not being a Christian and having only the vaguest understanding of the differences between the groups. I would guess that a little honest religious debate is good for the soul, and Christianity has been willing to debate itself.
While it’s still relatively small, there’s a quite lively Traditional Caqtholic movement out ther ethat’s trying to bring the RC church away from some of the wackiness that has occurred post Vatican II.
Probablt the most famous of these is Mel Gibson.
Some of them are way out there, but for the most part they are trying to reclaim the faith from the far left that took over the institutional church in the 60’s and 70’s. Much like the conservative movement in US politics, they are fighting the leftist feel-good politics that they feel has resulted in some of the recent problems, i.e., the molestation scandal/homosexual priest issues that continue to haunt the church.
Try Catholic World News, Seattle Catholic, One La Catholic, The Cafeteria is Closed, and, for more hard conservative Catholics, Traditio and Novus Ordo Watch.