ALL Christian Denominations EXPLAINED in Under 40 Minutes | Live Free with Josh Howerton

If you take every single denomination that has ever existed, every Christian that's ever existed, there is one thing and one thing only they will all agree on, that Jesus was the Christ, the son of the living God. So what I want you guys to do, help me understand every single Christian denomination in the next 20 minutes. Yes. Well, hey, Live Free Nation, before we jump into the episode, this podcast is recorded right here at Lake Point Church in Dallas, Texas, but the Live Free Nation is spread all over the country and all around the world. So if you've been watching and thinking, man, I wish I could be part of something like this, we wanna invite you to take a simple next step, and that is join us for Church Online. Every weekend, we stream our services live on YouTube, Facebook, and our Church Online platform, and it's more than just watching a service. There are live hosts in the chat, prayer teams ready to stand with you, and people all around the world worshiping together in real time. And so whether you're exploring the faith, coming back to church, or just looking for a place to start, Church Online is a great way to jump in and experience what God is doing here at Lake Point.

We would love to see you in the chat this weekend, and now, enjoy the podcast. All right, dude, this is gonna be a blast. We're gonna rapid fire this sucker. Let's go. So we get this question so frequently now, because the listenership of Live Free Nation is so broad. We get the, here's the two questions we get. Man, isn't the existence of so many denominations a horrible thing? And dude, the church is just so divided. It's so divided, you know? And then the other one is, okay, well, hey, I started listening to Pod or whatever. Which one should I go to? Okay, so let me just set this up, and then for real, what we're gonna do is we're gonna run through every Christian denomination explained, and the goal is 20 minutes, and let's shoot for it. So let me set this up. Let me set this up. First of all, we're gonna answer at the end, are denominations a bad thing? So you bookmark it, make sure we come back there. Are denominations a bad thing? We're gonna answer that later. So here's what I'd say if you're listening, is you need to understand Christianity in terms of, we're gonna use the analogy of continental boundaries,

national boundaries, and state boundaries. Continental boundaries, national boundaries, state boundaries. So continental boundaries, what I would say is that's the very broadest. It's everyone that we could call Christian. And what I would say there is that includes even the three very broadest categories, Protestants, Catholics, and Orthodox. And we're gonna talk about this here in a second. I would say we're all on the same continent. Now, sometimes it feels like Canada and the US. Who did you say was Mexico? I said Catholicism might be Canada, similar to the US, but not really, not really. And then Mexico was Eastern Orthodox. I really wanna ask why, but I don't know that we have time. No, it's just a little different, but same piece of mass of land or whatever. So here's what I'm saying. It's like the very broadest, this is really fun. The very broadest is, hey, man, we're all on the same continent, what I would say. And you would be going, okay, well, hey, why are they all called Christian? Well, here's the delineating factor, okay? They're all called Christian because they all agree on Jesus Christ. That's right.

They're all called Christian because they all agree on Jesus Christ. If you go back to the Nicene Creed and the Apostles Creed, and you mentioned some of the other creeds. Yeah, the Chalcedonian Creed, there's many like that. You go back to the, the Nicene Creed is specifically primarily about Christology. So that's why I point that one out. But they all agree, Jesus Christ, son of God, resurrected from the dead, from thence he shall come to judge the living and the dead. There will be a, he will return and judge, all those things. So there you go. That's the continents. Now, what I wanna point out is, hey guys, there are other continents. And in the same way, when you get in a world war or something like that, hey man, it's continent against continent. There are some things that are not on this continent. Anybody that does not agree about who Jesus Christ is, I'm gonna talk actually from the scriptures about why we put all those on the same continent. Anybody that doesn't agree on that, hey man, we're not on the same continent. So I'll just go ahead and say this. This is the delineation between Christianity and other religions and cults. So Mormonism is not on the same continent.

They do not, and I, dude, people wig out when we say this, but we're gonna keep saying it because our job is to tell you the truth. We love you, we're gonna tell you the truth. They do not agree. They do not agree with the Nicene Creed. They do not agree. In fact, what Mormons will say is that they are not, quote, creedal Christians. They disagree with, quote, creedal Christianity. Now you really gotta pin them down to get them to say that. So they say, why? They disagree about who Jesus is. Muslims, not Christian. They disagree about Jesus Christ. Buddhism, not Christian. So continents. Now, national boundaries is where we might, let's drill down a little farther. And that's where, okay, now we're dividing between Protestants, Catholics, and Orthodox. So those are the three primary. If you wanna do nations, national boundaries, we put it right there. And we're gonna talk about what those are here in a second. Radical disagreement, and I need to set up a. theological category for everybody that's listening

that's gonna make, when we run through all the denominations in a second, I make Paul force rank them. Oh, stop. I love it. When we do that, when we do that. What you're gonna see, let me give a theological category that you're gonna need to make the rest of this podcast make sense. The National Boundaries, Protestant, Catholic, Orthodox, radical disagreement on what theologians have historically called second tier issues, and some disagreement about the specifics of what are called first tier issues. Now, let me set up the theological triage category, and then Paul, I'm gonna start rapid firing us and we're gonna run through these denominations. Every Christian denomination explained in 20 minutes. Now, here's what I mean by first tier issues and second tier issues. Theologians have historically, I'm gonna do it real fast. Theologians have historically categorized the doctrines, the essential beliefs of Christianity into first tier issues, second tier issues, third tier issues. First tier issues are issues where it's more important to be right than to be together. So I'll just say this, man, there are some issues worth splitting a church over, and I will say this, there are some issues worth kicking somebody

out of a church over. These are first tier doctrines. This is all the things germane to salvation by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone, with the words properly defined. You can also load the basics and reality of repentance, the necessity of repentance. So we're gonna theology nerd out here for a second. It's not just issues of orthodoxy, right belief. This is also at least the basics of orthopraxy, Christian ethics. So for instance, I'm gonna, we'll say this in a second. There are entire denominations that we will mention here in a second that have become what theologians call apostate denominations. They used to be on team Jesus. They can no longer be considered on team Jesus. The New Testament would actually use the phrase, they now walk as enemies of Christ. Because for instance, they became affirming of things like LGBT issues, and they openly practice gay marriage. They got lesbian bishops baptizing cats in Portland, it's that kind of stuff. Well, hey dude, that's worth dividing. In fact, I'll just say this, and I don't need to mention the guy's name. We have removed, we have kicked church planters out of our church planting organization, who they caved on their convictions to first tier issues.

And I lost no sleep over it. Do you know what I was losing sleep over? When we had not kicked them out. So the first year issues are issues where it's more important to be right than to be together. And you may say, man, Josh, but that's really mean. No, no, here's what's mean. What's mean is allowing someone to continue to preach and teach things that if believed will send somebody to hell. To give just even some biblical and theological categories around this, the same apostle Paul, who in first Corinthians said, why do you have divisions in the church? He then said in Galatians that if anyone preaches a different gospel than I am, let them be accursed, even if it's an angel. So it can be both. We shouldn't divide over things like pride or preferences, but we can divide when it comes to a central truth that we have to agree on to be able to say that we're on the same continent. And it's interesting you say that. So let's theology nerd out for even in the same book. Bro, in first Corinthians one and two, why are there divisions among you? First Corinthians 15, what does he say? Fried delivered to you as of first importance. And then he just gives the basics of the gospel that Christ died in accordance with the scriptures,

that he was raised on the third day. So some people will hear the theological triage categories and they'll go, man, that's not in the Bible. Y'all are just making that up arbitrarily. No, we're not. No, actually the apostles in the New Testament treated some doctrines. All doctrines are equally true. Not all doctrines are equally important. Now, secondary issues, let me do this fast. Secondary issues are issues where it's more important to be together than to be right, but it might be uncomfortable. As you're gonna see when we rifle through the denominations, you get down to things like mode of baptism. Like, hey dude, if you're at Lake Point, we believe in what's, we'll talk about this in a second. We believe in what's called credo baptism. The baptism is a public profession and a symbol of personal saving faith in Jesus Christ. So what that means is we ain't dunking kids. We ain't sprinkling, we ain't dunking infants. If you believe in what's called, now we don't have time to go into it. If you believe in what's called pedo baptism and you're like, hey man, I just had this infant. I want my three month old to be christened. Well dude, I'm real sorry we don't do that here. If you got a strong belief in that, hey, we're all on team Jesus

and you're welcome to stay at Lake Point, but you can't teach the doctrine contrary to our doctrine and bro, we're never gonna baptize you. you're three months old, you might be uncomfortable. That's right. Third tier issues are issues where it's more important to be together than to be right and it shouldn't be uncomfortable. That's right. This is stuff like, hey dude, it's eschatological views. Are you pre-mill, post-mill, you know, age of the earth. Like, hey man, we can passionately, I got beliefs on that and I'm probably the most conservative you can believe on that stuff. Hey bro, Whataburger, In-N-Out. I mean, we're gonna be okay, yeah, we're gonna be okay. Is that a third tier? No, I'm just messing. You feel second tier, you feel second tier. Fair enough, we can debate that, we can debate that. I'm just messing, I'm messing, I'm messing. So, hey dude, if you're walking around into life groups and like dividing churches and life groups over your eschatological position, you need to get a life. Maybe put these in a different way and then if it'd be good, I maybe need four or five things on that second tier issues that denominations have usually differed on that I think will help color the rest of them. You do that and then let's start rifling through.

The first tier, a first tier issue is something that if we disagree on, we have a different faith. That's good. Even if we use the same words, we have a different faith. A second tier issue is something that if we disagree on, it would actually probably be good if we're in different churches or if we would call a cluster of those churches a different denomination. So, first tier issue, we have a different faith. Second tier issue, we have the same faith, but we probably should be in different churches. A third tier issue is something that we just have different opinions. Bro, that's really good. But we can have it in the same church. That's really good. You're so smart. Cha-cha-pulse-y, cha-cha-pulse-y. Oh, gosh, I'm getting embarrassed. I'm turning more red than I usually am. Oh, this old thing, stop it. How is he so smart, man? How does he do it? Oh, my gosh, no, stop it. He's literally turning red right now. I really am. He's literally turning red. I can feel I'm increasing my hue of redness. All right, anyways.

Paul, can we start? Oh, you do it. Let me get these five things, because what I was thinking of to keep this simple, because there's so many differences, I think it'd be good for most of the denominations to say, hey, here's what they believe on these different things. So, usually denominations disagree on or rise out of disagreements on authority. Who or what governs the church overall? Who gets to decide what we believe on these first, second, and third tier issues? Second thing is salvation. How are we saved? But sometimes it's on the nuances of it. Is does baptism save you? Can you lose your salvation? Things like that. Number three is some people would call sacraments, other people would call it ordinances. Those are things like baptism and communion. Number four, church government. How is the church run? And then number five is sometimes there are just distinct beliefs and characteristics or convictions that a group of people hold. And it gets kind of awkward if they hold it and all the people that are in the church they belong to don't.

And so sometimes they'll form it. So let me go through those five again, because they'll be prominent as we're going through the different denominations. Authority, who or what governs the church? Salvation, how are we saved? Number three, sacraments and ordinances. Number four, church government. How is the church run? And number five, specific, distinct beliefs and characteristics. All right, now we wanna start. Now, we have set the table. Here's what we're gonna do. Every Christian denomination explained. All right, now, number one. Now, what we're gonna do is, and I need to preface this. So before the podcast, we went into Grok image generation and I just need to say this with a preface. We put nothing in. We just, all we did is I typed in, give me a stereotype of, and I put the denomination and we are presenting them without any editing or any comments. If you will be offended by these things, you should not watch the next few minutes. Join us on Spotify now. Join us on Spotify. And we're gonna make fun of ourselves here too.

You use Grok? I use Grok. Blame Elon Musk. That's it, blame Elon Musk. All right, number one, let's do Baptist. Here we go, Baptist. Now, let me read his little quote up here. It's a red face preacher that says, if you ain't saying it, I ain't saying it's a sin, but if your shorts are shorter than your testimony, you're going to hell in a handbasket. And then he's got a sign on his pulpit that says, no dancing, no drinking, no exceptions, except church potlucks. And then the sermon title is, the devil wears skinny jeans. All right, now, by the way, I'm a third generation Baptist pastor. Yeah, I'm second generation. All right, Paul, tell us about these guys. Yeah, so Baptist, a little bit of context, emerged in the 1600s out of what's called the English Separatist and Puritan movements. They were influenced by an earlier group called Anabaptists, but also have some big distinctions from them. So let's go through some of those categories I mentioned earlier. So let's actually think through nations. So Baptists belong to a group called Protestants. Let's think of them as US.

What unites Protestants is the idea that the ultimate authority is scripture alone. Doesn't mean we can't consult church tradition to get some good ideas of how to interpret it, but ultimately scripture alone is the authority. Some other things, in terms of how Baptists run their local churches is that's it, it's local church autonomy. So Baptists might belong to a denomination like Southern Baptist or American Baptist or things like that, but each church gets to decide what they specifically believe there and how it is run. Like Southern Baptist can't call a Baptist church and say, hey, you can't put that pastor. in authority. You can't elect this person. They have local church autonomy. In terms of salvation, a strong emphasis on personal faith and conversion. And because of that, and there's a big reason why they're called Baptist, they believe in what's called believer's baptism. You ain't dunking any babies in a Baptist church. Exactly, or credo baptism. So if the emphasis is on personal faith and conversion, if a baby cannot have that personal faith and be converted, you shouldn't baptize the baby. So they would say that you should only baptize people who have already personally placed their faith in Jesus and that you should do it by immersion only. There's much more that can be said about this, but we're doing this in a rapid fire thing. Rapid fire thing. What I will point out, so you'll talk and then I'll point out maybe one thing on each. What I will point out is what Paul pointed out earlier, you're going to see a lot of distinctions among the denominations based on what's called governance structure. The theological term for that is church polity or ecclesiology. So Baptists believe, and this is, I will say almost every conviction I have is Baptistic except this one. This is the

only one. Baptists historically believe in what's called a congregational ecclesiology, that the highest authority in the church is essentially just mass vote by member. I heard somebody else say this, there's more evidence for unicorns in the Bible than congregational church polity. I just don't see it like literally anywhere. Now what you're going to see to Paul's point, and this is going to start to make more sense as we run through these. So local church autonomy. Yeah, big thing. Very different from one of the next denominations we're going to do. For instance, in an Episcopal denomination, it specifically is run by a governance structure of bishops that are over large groups of churches. Baptists would go, absolutely not, local church autonomy. Exactly. So there we go. One or two more quick things. If you go to a Baptist church, probably going to be what people call is a low church experience, meaning that we'll get into these with others with high church usually means like set liturgy that you read the same thing every week that you always say or always do. Baptists would usually be more of what's called a low church, more informal, not always the same thing that you're going to say every week, very sermon centered. And then finally, one big thing that I almost slipped up, but it's actually really important. While this actually has not always been true, now the dominant view of Baptist towards communion is that it is only symbolic. That's really important to say now, because there's other denominations that will massively disagree. They would say that when you take communion, the Lord's supper, if you've heard it called that before, that you're simply remembering what Christ has done, but that's all that there is to it. Again, that's not always been the view of Baptist, but it's the dominant view now. Okay, let's go to the next one. So let's talk, I just want to apologize in advance. This is just what Grog gave us. Let's talk about the Episcopal denomination. Now, if you want to point out here, this is just what Grog gave us. It's just what Grog gave us. Now, one thing I want to point out that will lead into the Episcopal church is in the top right, you have Queen Elizabeth, that's Queen Elizabeth, because the Episcopal church came out of-

The Anglican church is really the Episcopalian- But explain why that's tied to England. Yeah, because the Anglican church was birthed in England. The church of England. Yeah, the church of England. So let me just, I'll say one thing. First of all, then Paul, I want you to answer the question, is the Episcopal church officially affirming? Because for some reason, Grog decided to give us a stereotype of a guy waving a rainbow flag. It kind of looks like N.T. Wright a little bit. Whoa, hey man, listen, we're not tying those things together. You're going to get us in trouble. And he's Anglican. Let me point one thing out, and then you dive into this real quick. So this is a great contrast to Baptists, especially when it comes to church polity. Baptists, local church autonomy. The word Episcopal, it literally comes from a compound Greek word, epi means over, skopos means watcher. So the Episcopal church is literally named after its governance structure. It is overwatched by bishops that oversee groups of churches. That's exactly right. Now you talk and answer the question, they're not officially affirming, are they? Actually, parts of them are. That's why I did that. Yeah. So Episcopalian and Anglicanism has a lot of overlays because you said Episcopalianism is basically the American version of Anglicanism. Although again, there are some differences. Some things in terms of authority for them, they would say they're kind of basically trying to make a middle way, both Anglicans and Episcopalians, between Catholicism and Protestantism. That's yes, big time. Very big time. In a few ways. First, they would say, hey, scripture is the ultimate authority, but also we should consult tradition and we should consult reason. So they're kind of trying to have it every which way. Also, where you would see this is if you go to an Episcopalian or an Anglican church service, it actually, in many places, is going to look and feel like a Catholic service. If it's more of a high church.

High church, lots of liturgy, stand here, kneel here, read this, recite this. And so, but what they did is, is they substituted the of Protestants into the language that people recite. So it's kind of basically trying to have both worlds and the best of both. As you mentioned, it's more of bishop oriented. So instead of, for example, at a Baptist church, if you go to a Baptist church, you're gonna elect your own pastor. Episcopal church or Anglican church is going to appoint that person for you. They do believe in infant baptism. They do believe in infant baptism, very big difference between them and Baptists and a few others. But I will say in worship style, it can be very Catholic looking, but it can also be very, look more like an evangelical service or a mixture thereof. Yeah, high church evangelical. Yes, exactly. I actually went to, true story for a year out of college, before I went on seminary, I went to an Anglican church. Of course you did, Paul. But they were not open and affirming. They were very conservative in their theology of ethics. But it was actually, I just, I wanted something different. And it was actually a good example,

you know, in your continent analogy, it's a little different because they're Protestant as well. It's like, maybe that's a better thing. It's like, man, I love Texas, but it's also good to occasionally visit another state and I just needed something different. What was it? What state was it? What state was this Anglican church? Oh gosh, I don't know. You put me on the spot. I say like in Montana, really beautiful, but still kind of conservative. All right. I think that's the thing. Now let me say one last thing and let's move to the next one because we got to rifle fast. What I will say about the Anglicans, that honestly, I found helpful at times in my, they are huge. They're more big on tradition than Baptists. So for instance, things like the Book of Common Prayer. 100%. Stuff like that is going to come from the Anglicans. Super helpful. Great devotional book. All right, let's move to the next one. Here we got, wait, wait, wait. Yeah, Anglican.

That last, oh, that last one was Episcopal. I skipped ahead. So wait, let's do, yeah. So Anglican. Now we got Anglican. Okay. Now, wait, are we doing these right? Is this right? You're good, you're good. Do Anglicans. Well, no, no. Here's what I'd say is, so here's the difference. Anglican would be another word for the Church of England because this began in England during the reign of Henry VIII. There was a king that really wanted a divorce. Exactly. And the Catholics wouldn't do it. Initially, this really was about a political break. Basically, he was trying, it is a fact, he was trying to assert his independence from Rome, but later they did begin becoming theologically Protestant under later people. And so there's honestly not a ton of differences in the terms of practice that I just mentioned. The idea is that the Anglican Church is based in England. Episcopalian is the American version of that. There you go. Yeah.

Often, something that feels similar, let's talk about the Methodists. Here we go, Methodists. I'm gonna point this out. There's so many things here. This is wonderful. So, Paul, tell us about the Methodists. Yes, and when I say this, we have to, I think, even clarify that we're describing big denominational, I would even call branches, out of which different limbs can come. And some of those limbs are healthy and some of those limbs are very unhealthy. And so that's why when we say some of these things, there can be examples of good churches and bad churches. So let's talk about Methodists. Methodists are a good example of denominations being born out of revival. And so this actually started as a renewal movement within Anglicanism in the 1700s. And so you had a group, especially John and Charles Wesley, that emerged out of this and developed, it's called Methodism. The reason they called it Methodism is because they had a very specific and structured method of sanctification, of trying to become more like Jesus. That's why, I'll just highlight this, that's why they're called Methodists

because John Wesley had a very specific discipleship program that was called a Method, Methodists. And so they're seeing all these massive conversions. At this time, the Church of England is kind of stale and dry, it's not happening. So eventually they just break away and kind of do their own thing. Again, I'm kind of simplifying. In terms of church government, they're also Episcopal. Usually, usually local pastors appointed by bishops, high emphasis on sanctification and holy living. So one distinctive, especially at what's called a holiness church, which comes out of Methodism as well, is they actually believe Christian perfection can be achieved in this life. When I was in high school, I read John Wesley's book, The Doctrine of Christian Perfection. I completely disagree with it. But so they actually, for listeners, they genuinely have a belief that there is a level of sanctification that a Christian can attain at which they literally no longer sin. Exactly. The Doctrine of Christian Perfection. Exactly, so huge. And it's kind of a big deal for them. It's a really big deal, is the idea of it can be achieved in this life.

So therefore, while salvation is by grace, you must strive with effort and go by the more structural methods to get there. This is an important one in terms of salvation. They definitely believe we're saved by grace through faith, but they have what's called more of an Arminian theology, which puts a heavy emphasis on the idea of free will. Whereas where we'll get to in a little bit with Presbyterians and Reformed churches, they have an emphasis on what's called predestination. So it's a few distinct things. Anything else you want to hit with this group? The only thing I'll add here is when John Wesley splint, from what I understand, splintered off, he splintered off from Anglican church. Isn't that right? That's exactly right, Church of England. So the reason he did that is there were two things that were. primary drivers to him. By the way, John Wesley was a stud. Now, let me say two things. One, in 2024, the United Methodist Church, which is the largest, if I understand correctly, is the largest group of Methodist churches in the United States, right? In 2024, they officially became an apostate denomination and are now officially affirming, officially LGBT affirming in the United States. So what's tough is, historic Methodists, we would go, man, they're actually within the state boundaries of Protestantism, or national boundaries of Protestantism. Modern American United Methodists, now we're on different continents. Time for you to move to Europe. Yeah, because they went affirming and are literally an apostate denomination. They walk as enemies of Christ. Now, so that's one thing to know, okay? It also should be said that the Methodists in the other parts of the world violently disagreed with the theologically

liberal Methodists of the United States. It caused a schism. It does, because part of the issue, and we may be getting too much in the weeds here, but the United Methodist Church owned the property of these churches. And so you had churches that once these official stances were changing, they're like, well, that's not where we're going. This is an actual example of why multiple denominations actually can be important, because if yours is being compromised, at some point you may have to leave. Jump ship. You may have to jump ship. And so that's been happening the last few years. And so yeah, other denominations now of Methodists are springing up. So when we think of Methodism, don't equate Methodism solely with affirming and heretical viewpoints. It's more, again, about a system of governments, where they come from. They came from John Wesley and some specific things that they hold dear, like sanctification. Ironically. But I'll just say, you should not be attending an American United Methodist Church. You should not be doing it because the denomination is officially LGBT affirming. That's good to know. Ironically, John Wesley is known to coin the phrase, agree to disagree. Oh, really? Okay. Two other things let me say about this, because it leads into the next one. Well, hey guys, as you know, Lake Point Church is a movement for all people to know Christ, live free and change the world for God's glory. But here's the thing, movements by definition move. And so if you're not moving, then the question is, are you really being a part of the movement? In fact, somebody once said that too many churches are like football games, 22 people on the field in desperate need of rest being watched by thousands of people in the stands in desperate need of exercise. Hey, listen, we refuse to be a church like that. And so if you call Lake Point Church, your home church, and if you have not yet joined a serve team, I want to invite you to take your next step right now. Text the word serve to 20411 and we'll help you find your spot where you can serve in person or online on whichever serve team you are being called to serve. Hey, thank you for being obedient to God's calling in your life. And let's keep doing this together. So don't put it up yet. The next one we're going to talk about are holiness and Pentecostal churches, Pentecostal churches. Now, the reason I'm saying this is large parts of the Pentecostal church came out of the Methodist church. Here's

why. John Wesley, whereas the Anglican church had what was called a triad of authority, where they believed, hey, let's balance scripture, reason, and tradition. So there were three things, let's balance them. John Wesley wanted to add a fourth, and I actually, I still use it. He called it the Wesleyan quadrilateral. So John Wesley went, actually, there's four things that should all have different levels of authority in our life. Scripture, reason, tradition, and then he added experience. The reason he had experience is he wanted his people in the discipleship method to have a living and active relationship with the Holy Spirit. Which is why, can you toss that Methodist logo up real quick here? That's why the historic Methodist logo has that little flame on it. That's from Acts 2, the following of the Holy Spirit. It's because of their original emphasis on an experiential relationship with the Holy Spirit. Now, that's really not as big of a thing now with modern Methodists, but that's how they started. Quick story, guys, quick story on this guy. If you can make it quick, you got to make it quick. Perfect example of this in John Wesley's life. So he comes over on a missionary trip to America to share the gospel of Native Americans, and he's on the boat over. It looks like they're going to go down. He's freaking out, afraid he's going to die. He looks over and sees this missionary group called the Moravians. Don't have time to get into them, but the Moravians. And they're just at peace. And he's like, something's missing. And then later he writes, I'll paraphrase a little bit. He's like, I'm over here to save the Native Americans, but who in the world is going to save me? And so he begins wondering, am I actually saved? Because he had the right theology. He knew the Bible. He knew the tradition. He used his reason, but something was missing. And so eventually he's speeding it up. He goes back over and he has this powerful conversion. a moment where he talks about a warming and fire in his heart. I found my heart strangely warmed, is what he wrote in his term. And that's the idea. I just want to say it because actually it's a good example. We can take great things from each of these. All right, let's keep going. Okay, so because of their emphasis on experience and a relationship with the Holy Spirit. Interesting. A large part of what the modern Pentecostal, let's go ahead and toss this up here now. I just want to point this out.

We put nothing in chat. These are all unedited. We don't know why it's the only black one. We don't know, but these are just random. And let me just read this sermon title for the Pentecostal churches are, it's your time to catch the spirit or catch these hands. I don't know why that's it. Lots of fire is going on here. But the original, a lot of the Pentecostal movement was originally came out of Methodism. That's right. Paul tell us about it. Came out the holiness movement, which originated from Methodism, specifically really just exploding. What's called the Azusa street revival in 1906 in Los Angeles under William Seymour. So man, Pentecostals would say, Hey, our ultimate authority is the Bible, but they also do put a huge emphasis on experience and on the experiential nature of it. And so that's sometimes where they can kind of go into is being, they would even interpret, Oh, my experience says this, but the Bible may say this. They may put a little bit more emphasis on experience. That's the bad version. It doesn't always happen though. Government similar to Baptist and non-denominational churches, salvation, huge emphasis on conversion. But here's the big one, a huge emphasis on the subsequent empowerment by the Holy Spirit, often known as spirit baptism. Spirit baptism, second or a second filling. Exactly. A subsequent to salvation filling with the spirit is often a mark here. Now I will say it's really tough to pigeonhole that to just Pentecostals, like literally the Puritans. You had Puritans in the 16th and 17th hundreds that believed in a subsequent salvation, filling with the spirit, tons of Baptists, that kind of thing. But this is a hallmark, which is why, and you may have said this, I'll say it, and then I'm going to kick back to you.

If you ever see a church sign that says full gospel church, that's a Pentecostal church. Why do they say that? Because they add the filling of the Holy ghost. I'm going to use their language as part of the end part of the gospel. And they feel like, man, other denominations do not emphasize seeking that filling. So our quote unquote full gospel is to seek that. And obviously there's variations because anything we say, we'll say, I don't believe it. But for the most part, the idea is, hey, when you put your faith in Jesus, that is part of it. But then they would say, you are not filled with the spirit until later. So it's not at the exact same time for many of them. And many, if not, most would say that accompanying the filling, the spirit would be the sign of speaking in tongues. They call it the initial physical evidence of being filled with the spirit is what their official doctrine says. Exactly. And so with a huge hallmark that is unique, and this is an example of how it also came out of revival, but also this was just a distinctive part of their experience was, whereas many other denominations had said things like speaking in tongues, healings and miracles. Those three things had ceased as the time of the apostles, the Pentecostals were like, oh no, no, no. The power of acts is still available for us today. One other hallmark, I'd say you mentioned it earlier, but it's important to say in terms of salvation, they do believe in salvation by grace through faith. And they also, most of them believe that you can lose that salvation. It's an important thing to highlight of where, hey, if we don't agree on that, it may be hard for us to be in the same church together. That's right. Worldwide, this is the fastest growing segment of Christianity. I'll double click on that.

It is the fastest growing movement in church history. I just want to pause and let that sink in. Modern, charismatic. So by the way, if you've ever heard the word charismatic and Pentecostal, they don't exactly mean the same thing, but they're related. The modern charismatic movement, we call it the charismatic movement because the Greek word for spiritual gift is charismata, charisma or charismata. So, you know, speaking in tongues is the initial physical evidence. It's a spiritual gift because of the emphasis there. Generally, they'll call this group of churches the charismatic church. And to Carlos's point, the modern charismatic church movement is the fastest growing movement in church history. Yeah. Africa, Latin America, and Asia. I have a theory as to why, you know, because again, a lot of these places, they actually don't have necessarily the resources to study theology, but what they do have is a passion to pray and seek the Holy Spirit and be filled. And so they lean all the way into that and then they experience healings, work, supernatural miracles. And And so, again, this is where we would tell you, hey, we want both. We wanna be in the Word and we want the Spirit as well. That's right. Dude, I'll give a compliment to this. This movement, I have high respect for the, really, theologically, the people with their feet on the ground in this movement. I heard somebody say one time about the charismatic movement.

It began as an experience in search of a theology. Yes. And honestly, man, in some ways, not all, that is a high compliment. These people experience the living God. That's good. Okay, I love that. All right. Now, Paul, you wanna talk about Lutherans, which, by the way, back, I had the poster in the top left corner. I had that exact same poster in my college dorm room. That's Martin Luther. And the Lutherans came from? Martin Luther. Tell us about it. He looks German. Really creative in their naming. That's because he was. Oh, I'm saying the guy. Oh, not the guy there. No, I'm aware. Martin Luther looks German. I don't know. I don't know what that means, but, okay, I mean. I'm saying this guy. I assume it's a compliment of some kind. He looks German. By the way, for those of you who are only listening, on his little whiteboard, it says,

sermon series, why we don't clap during hymns. Week four. Week four. Week four. We need four weeks to unpack that. All right, so Martin Luther in the 1500s protested and wanted to reform abuses in the Catholic church, especially indulgences. And also he would say, hey, there's doctrines that had been added to the Catholic church over time. And he wanted to get back to what does the Bible say? And then what did the early church say? This ultimately culminated in that moment in 1517 where he nailed the 95 theses to the door at Wittenberg to protest. So a few things about Lutherans. They would say scripture alone is the final authority. They were absolutely adamant on that. In terms of how they were governed, it was really more of a local governance. Now they do have what's called a synod, which is the idea of these are larger organizations that Lutherans can join and cooperate together. Salvation, Luther is adamant on salvation is by grace alone through faith alone. And so even when he would read scripture, a huge emphasis on the idea of there is law and there is gospel. Law is what you must do, but that whole reason that it is there is to show you what you can't do and to show you what Christ did do on your behalf.

Can I give you my favorite little law gospel tidbit? Please. So I don't know, you wouldn't be able to truly consider John Bunyan who wrote the Pilgrim's Progress. You wouldn't really be able to consider him a Lutheran per se, because it wasn't quite a thing yet. But he's got a little poem about the law and the gospel. I'll say this and I'm gonna give it back to you. He said, run, John, run, the law demands, but gives us neither feet nor hands. A far better message the gospel brings, it bids us fly and gives us wings. John Bunyan, John Bunyan, there you go, fun fact. So a few other things about Lutherans. When it comes to communion and baptism, they have really, really high views of these things. They think that they are means of grace. So they would baptize infants. And then with communion, so we'll get into this in a second, we'll get into Roman Catholics. Roman Catholics believe in what's something that's called transubstantiation. That is where the body and bread become the literal, I mean, sorry, that is where the bread and the wine become the literal body and blood of Christ. That's why it's a big deal if you drop one of them little wipers at a Catholic church. It's a big deal. It's a very big deal.

Luther would say they don't magically turn into that, but instead still Christ somehow is truly present. He called it consubstantiation. Hoc est corpus meum. That's right. Hoc est corpus meum. I love it. You remember all these things, man. Translate that for normal people out here. This is my body. So when he was actually debating against somebody who has like a more baptistic view of communion that we believe is a symbol that points to the body and blood of Jesus. Well, Lutherans and Catholics believe that, no, no, no, like there is a, and this is a whole thing, they believe it in different ways, but they believe there is a quote, real presence. Yes, real presence. Which both of them will use. There's a real presence. And so Luther was debating somebody who believed that they were just a symbol. And in a very famous moment, he stood at a podium in a courtroom and pounded his fist. And in Latin was hoc est corpus meum. This is my body, which is what Jesus said. This is my body. Exactly. Wow.

So one other thing about them in terms of. It's a little intense. A little bit, yeah. Sorry. Luther was an intense guy. You need that to start a Protestant revolution. That's right. Yeah, you do. Actually, that's a good point. People always think, oh, we're going to reform the church to the sound of polite golf clubs and everybody's going to love it. Usually prophets have an edge. That's what I'll say. Prophets have an edge. And a little bit thing on their worship. They retained more liturgy than other Protestants. So again, he was not trying to get rid of all the worship form of the Catholic church. he was trying to get the correct theology within it and get the correct doctrine of salvation within it. Presbyterians. Here we go. No, no, no, the other one. Presbyterians. That one. Gavin Ortlund. We love you, Gavin. Go to the other one now. Gavin Ortlund is a Presbyterian YouTuber. Kindness and embodiment of a Presbyterian right there. So this is the, and he's got the Sole Deo Gloria, and I just want to point this out. I want you to explain it, Paul. His little thought bubble is, now let's not get too excited about predestination, but also we must. Did you see this, like three ladies falling asleep in the back? I didn't see that. Oh, that's rough. No, man. So yeah, so the reformative Presbyterian tradition originated mainly in Zurich, Geneva, and Scotland. Main theologian that most people would know is a guy named John Calvin, who we all often refer to his theological system known as Calvinism. John Knox was the main leader of this in Scotland. Great place. Half of my lineage is from there. And he was actually the one who, they were the one who's coined Presbyterianism. The reason it's called Presbyterianism is that that denotes the type of church governance, their polity, as you said earlier. So a few things here. They're elder led church

government. So within each local church, there's a group of men, specifically men, who are called elders. But then there is a large group called the Presbytery, and they get to help govern what happens at those churches. Because here's the thought is, well, man, if you have a local church, and their elders go off the rail, and they start believing heresy and these awful things, you need a bigger governing body who can say, no, we're actually going to replace those elders and put faithful men who love the Lord and who love the Bible in. So that's the Presbyterian church is that each local church belongs to a Presbytery. A few huge emphasis, you kind of referred to it earlier. Huge, huge emphasis on God's sovereign grace in salvation. The two words Presbyterians love the most are sovereignty and covenant. Sovereignty and covenant. You beat me to the other one. You beat me to the other one. And so huge emphasis on the idea that God elects us from eternity, those who would be saved. Most of the time, they would also believe, not most of the time, all the time, they believe in... I was like, wow. In terms of baptism and communion, they believe in infant baptism. And they would say is the real presence and communion, but it doesn't contain the physical body and blood of Jesus, but what they would call the spiritual presence of Christ, that He is there in a spiritually special way. A few other distinctives, heavy emphasis on what's called covenant theology and the regulative principle of worship. This is a little weedsy. We should move on. Okay, we should move on. Keep going. Thank you, sir. I gotta be careful. No, that is weedsy. Regular principle is weedsy. Now, what we just finished talking about is everything we just said. We're about to wrap this up. That's good. All of these would fit under the broadest term of Protestant churches. Yes. So let me just say a couple of things about Protestant churches. So Protestant churches is basically every non-Catholic church. If a church isn't Catholic and it's not Orthodox, it's a Protestant church. Every denomination we just talked about are some form of a Protestant church. Once upon a time, what marked every Protestant church were primarily the five solas of the Protestant Reformation. I guarantee I'll miss them off the top of my head. Sola Fide, Sola Gratia, Sola Christus, Sola Scriptura, and Sola Deo Gloria. So faith alone, Christ alone, grace alone, scripture alone, for the glory of God alone. That's right. And by the way, all of those were specifically crafted as a differentiation point between some aspect of the Catholic church at the time. Every one of those five. And today, if you just want to—God found this really helpful—if you want to go, is there anything that every single Protestant church has in common? Yes, there is. Here it is. The Bible has more authority than the church. Exactly. That's the one thing every Protestant church has in common. The Catholic church does not believe that. They believe in an equality in general. Different Catholics may quibble with a different language. But in general, Catholics believe that tradition and the church are on the same level of authority with the Bible itself. Protestants are like, do not pass go, do not collect $200, scripture is highest authority. Anything else you'd say there, that pretty much— That hits it. Okay, real quick, because this is not our nation. You want to talk real quick, Orthodox and Catholic, real fast? Yeah, I'll hit these quickly. So really even building off what you just said, a difference with Catholics. First, they would claim that they can trace their lineage and succession all the way back to Peter, who they would say is the first bishop of Rome. That sounds really cool. The only problem is with reality. And that actually did not happen.

Instead, what happened is the Western church gradually centralized around the person called the Bishop of Rome. who often then would become known as the Pope. A few unique things about them. Can I say something about that? And then we'll, yep. So all of this boils down to the key passage is Matthew 16. I'm gonna read it because this passage right here is the split, by the way, between Protestants and Catholics. There's others, but this is the one. So this is when Jesus goes, who do you say that I am? Who do people say the Son of Man is? And you remember, some say John the Baptist, others say Elijah. Some people say Jeremiah, one of the prophets. And then Jesus goes, well, what about you? And Peter's the one that pipes up who they believe was the first Pope. Yes. This is why this becomes important. Peter goes, you are the Christ, the Son of the living God. Now, Jesus responds saying this. Catholics take this very literally. And Jesus replies, blessed are you, Simon, son of Jonah, for this was not revealed to you by flesh and blood, but by the Father in heaven. And I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock, I will build my church. What the Catholics do is they say, Peter is the rock. What Protestants historically do is we say, no, no, no, the confession that Peter made.

So when Jesus says on this rock, Jesus is going, the confession that you just made, that's the rock on which I'll build my church. Now, I'm gonna make a one-sentence argument for Protestantism really quick. Why I think the Protestant interpretation of that is correct is if there is one thing and one thing only, if you take every single denomination that has ever existed, every Christian that's ever existed, Catholic, Protestant, Orthodox, and you stick them all in one room, there is one thing and one thing only they will all agree on that Jesus was the Christ, the Son of the living God. That's right. So I think there it is. That's the rock. So you finish and let's wrap up. So a few brief distinctives with them is, and now even maybe juxtaposed as I'm going with this, because Eastern Orthodox and Catholic are very similar, just with a few differences. In Roman Catholicism, the Pope has unique authority. He is the head of the church. So scripture is an authority and on par with tradition, and then specifically mediated through what's called the magisterium, which is the authoritative teaching arm of the church, and ultimately the Pope has this unique and ultimate authority. A few other distinctions.

The Roman Catholics would say, yes, we're saved by grace and through faith, but that salvation and that grace must be maintained through works, specifically, primarily through the sacraments. It's through- They believe there's seven, we believe there's two. Exactly. They believe there's seven sacraments. And this is how grace is maintained. So baptism, for example, it actually saves you, they would believe. They believe it regenerates you. Communion becomes the body and blood of Christ and it continues to give you grace. A few other distinctive beliefs, and we'll go to Eastern Orthodox. They believe in the veneration of Mary and the saints and this idea of a purgatory, a place where you must go to to purge your sins before you can go on to heaven, if you are a believer in Jesus. Eastern Orthodox- Let me do Eastern Orthodox. Yeah, you wanna do that? And then I want you to ask the, are denominations bad? And then we're gonna be done, because I gotta go on a date with Jana. All right, so I'm gonna vary.

This is not fair to the Eastern Orthodox brothers and sisters but I wanna wrap it up. And there's just not a ton of them in Dallas. Honestly. So let me just do this. So basically, the Eastern Orthodox Church, here's the easiest way to say it. The Eastern Orthodox Church had a divorce with the Catholics 1,000 years ago. That's pretty much how you got the Eastern Orthodox Church. And they have very strong, they believe in two different, essentially papal successions. And the Catholics believe here was the family line of the popes. And then after the divorce, they believe, no, no, here was the true family line of the popes. Both of them go, we're the original. No, no, we're the original. They do that. And then they have a really, really high emphasis on mystery. It's very high emphasis on mystery and sort of experience. Talk a lot about theosis, which means oneness with God. And it's very mysterious and you might just say mystical. So that's it, that's all we'll do there. Okay, wow, so I have a question after that. I thought it was gonna go a little longer but I guess we gotta wrap it up. Pastor Josh, are denominations a good thing or a bad thing?

Okay, I think they're a wonderful thing. And here's why I say this. You do get a lot of Christians that they point at denominations like, look at all this division in the church, how awful. I actually think denominations are a way of preserving unity. And here's why I say that. You use the analogy of the federalist system in the United States. All of these states, when our nation was formed, they had some very strong differences of opinion for governance. So then you go, well, man, how do we keep people with strong differences of opinion? I'm gonna dovetail this in our, on second tier issues. How do you keep people with strong differences of opinion on second tier issues moving in the same direction? and towards the same mission. Well, what you do is you create little sub, you create state boundaries. That's why we use the analogy we did. Different states, same nation, it gives us the ability to all move towards the same mission, know Christ, live free, change the world for God's glory, and not be constantly infighting in the churches over how we ought to baptize people and infants or not. So I'll just give an example. I do this at Lake Point all the time. If somebody grabs me in the lobby,

and they're like, man, Josh, I love this church. I really need you to baptize my kid. Or I love this church, but we, man, I need, is there a possibility that my wife could ever become an elder here? What I'm gonna say is, bro, I love you. Here are two churches that you need to go to, and this is not one of them. And that's a way, watch, that man, he can be over there and not have this constant inner turmoil in his conscience, but they're over there working for the events of the gospel. We're over here working for the events of the gospel. And it's actually, instead of causing disunity, it's actually a way of maintaining unity in the accomplishment of the Great Commission and unity in the gospel. So I actually think it's a good thing. It's great. Any other comments there? When people bring this up with me, I usually joke around with them and give them a scenario. I'm like, okay, well, if you don't like disunity, I've got a solution. I'm gonna humbly volunteer to be the head over every Christian in every church in the world. That's kind of what the Pope is meant to be about, right? Well, you said it like me. And I say, well, you know what? I'm gonna decide what everyone has to believe

and what everyone has to do. And if you disagree, well, I'm sorry, but you gotta get in line. And if you continue to disagree, well, I'm gonna kick you out of the church, but because every church believes what I believe and does what I do, you're not gonna find another one to go to. And if you don't get in line long enough, I'm just gonna excommunicate you, meaning I'm gonna say you're going to hell. And so would you prefer that? And they're like, no. I'm like, okay. Well, maybe if there's places you disagree with me, you could just go your own group of people and form your own church around your own beliefs. And I guess you could go start more churches that share those beliefs, and those would be called denominations. And so the point is, is this sounds really good out loud, but the whole point is, is that, hey, on some of these secondary issues, you may have a strong conviction for everything. And I may disagree with you on it, but hey, you have a strong conviction. Okay, go to a place that loves Jesus, that believes the Bible. We're still one in the faith. We're still brothers and sisters in Christ.

And that's awesome, because you know what? A lot of different churches can reach a lot of different kinds of people. And you clarified it was on secondary issues. It's not like we're just saying, if you just disagree with the Trinity or on Jesus's resurrection, you can just go ahead and start your own church. That's not what we're saying. No, you're not starting a new church. You're starting a new synagogue of Satan if you do that. And that's the accusation, I think, from our Catholic friends that are like, oh, well, you Protestants just start your own things. Well, Carlos, we're supposed to wrap the podcast up. I know. But what I will say is, this is a little, all right. We're gonna say one last thing. I'm asking you to pray to close. You're praying to close this time. So Catholics do this. They'll point at Protestants and be like, oh, which one of the 30,000 denominations is right? That's what they do. Well, if you start looking inside of the Catholic church, there's a million different little, what do you call it? You know, the little orders of mom. There's just as many little niche factions. You know, they just have a little sign over the door

and they got a guy with a funny hat that everybody points to. That's the only difference. Carlos, will you pray for us? I'd love to. Heavenly Father, thank you so much for this time, for this conversation, for this podcast. Thank you because 1 Corinthians 15, three to four is true. For I deliver to you as a first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures. Thank you because that is true. That is our hope. Lord, help us live in light of that truth. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen, amen. Amen. Live free, brother. Live free. Live free, brother. free.