SOURCES OF DENOMINATIONS -- III

Churches Formed Since the Time of the Reformation  Click  here for printable blank diagram (keyed to the numbers below) 

In the 1700’s, an important church figure was 19. John Wesley.  He was an Anglican priest who preached to the needy and formed them into Bible study groups.  His followers created the 20. Methodist church.  This church got its name from the fact that Wesley was very methodical in putting believers into small Bible study groups.  The Methodist church exemplifies the "Arminian" (free-will) approach.

Also in the mid-1800's, some Methodists who hoped to recapture Wesley's emphasis on striving for maturity in the Christian life founded the 21. Holiness churches.  The Holiness Churches teach that after God's work of grace in Justification (God pronouncing that believers are not guilty in his sight), God means to do a second work to bring the believer to "entire sanctification." (achieving a life of love and obedience). The “Church of the Nazarene” is a Holiness church.  Use this link to see other groups.

In 1900, some members of the Holiness church who wanted to recreate the activities found in the Book of Acts such as speaking in tongues and praying for miracles founded the 22. Pentecostal churches. They felt they had received a "third work" of grace, and gave it the label "Baptism in the Holy spirit."  One well-known group is the “Assembly of God.”  By the 21st century, Pentecostal churches were the fastest growing of the Protestant churches, and had reached half a billion members worldwide, second only to the Catholic church in membership size. Starting in the 1960's, some church members in the major historic churches adopted Pentecostal teachings that the gifts of the Holy Spirit are for today, beginning the “charismatic” movement (charisma is the Greek work for "gifts).

 In the twentieth century, individual Christians who felt that their churches were moving away from the traditional view of the Bible broke away to form new churches.  Churches with names such as “Bible Church” and “Community Church” sometimes can be traced back to this movement.  To understand the church today, it is important to see how denominational differences are overshadowed by the differences in all the large, historic churches between liberals and conservatives.

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For more details on the formation of denominations, see your library for a copy of the reference book Encyclopedia of American Religions, edited by J. Gordon Melton. If has several pages of background information on each of the church "families," and then has descriptions of 1285 different church groups. For an online reference, see the Christian Cyclopedia

To see how the church spread through the ages, go to Spread of Christianity