What is the difference between various religions?

Question

What are the differences between Episcopal, Lutheran, Congregational churches? How do their beliefs vary from that of the Catholic church?

Answer 1

Those are not different religions.

They are all denominations of Christianity.

Religion is man-made and there seem to be almost as many
religions as there are men. True Christianity comes from God.
There are many people who call themselves (wrongly) Christians because they think it will benefit them in some way.

Answer 2

I could only really tell you about the differences between the Lutheran Church and the Catholic Church as I am Lutheran.

There aren't a great deal of differences since the Catholic Church has corrected a lot of the reasons Martin Luther broke away from the Church. I'll try to list a few off the top of my head.

Baptism and Communion are the only two sacrements as Lutherans view those two as the only two acts that are both acts of saving grace and a direct commandment by Jesus.

Lutherans do not recognize the authority of the Pope nor his infallicy when speaking from the chair.

Lutherans have pastors instead of priest and they are allowed to marry and have children.

Lutherans do not confess to their ministers but are still required to confess their sin to the Lord.

They do not view believe the bread and whine become Christ's body until they are actually in the body. ( only a very slight modification here)

There are more, but those were the key differences I was taught in my confirmation class.

I think as Christians we should be concentrating on our similarities rather than our differences though. You'll find Catholics and Lutherans have far more in common than they are different. That goes for pretty much any denomination.

Answer 3

Since no one's given you a decent answer yet, I'll add what I know. (amendment -- good answer for the Lutheran part came in while I was writing.)

Episcopalian is very similar to Catholicism in practice. However, they put much more emphasis on the Epistles (hence the name) of Paul. The joke is that they're Catholic lite.

Lutheran tends to be Germanic and is the not-practiced state religion of a few Scandinavian countries. The official line is salvation by God's grace alone; an individual's actions, including repentence, count for nothing. Good works spring from grace, rather than leading one to it. For Catholicism, faith without deeds is meaningless.

Congregationalism is an old New England movement which differentiated itself from the other Protestant denominations of its day by its governance structure. Presbyterians were governed by the Presbyters (Elders), Congregationalists by the congregation -- which means that each congregation is independent and there is no central authority. Actually, it's an new Old England denom, as well, but I don't know about that part of the history. Because of the founding democratic ideals, UCC/Congregationalists tend to be on the liberal side.

Answer 4

They have different interpretations of the Bible, but with the exception of one, they all make the same fundamental mistakes. They observe man-made holidays and rituals, that are not sated in the Bible. They involve themselves in the politics of nations, knowing that God's intend to destroy them. They don't give everyone a complete knowledge of the Bible, instead withholding it for just the elite. They don't teach everyone how to preach and teach the Bible, as Christ instructed. They rely on physical symbols or idols, ignoring what happened to the Jews when they created a symbol of God at the foot of mount Sinai. And they have made their churches into places of money changers.

Take all that away, and you will find everything else will fall into place, but change is hard, and they would rather take the easy path.

Answer 5

It is different interpretations of the Bible. It is also the fact that just like God made us all different, yet the same, He made different religions to meet our individual needs for hearing/understanding His word. If we were all driving to Dallas, we would hop in our "cars" and set off in our own way/path. It doesn't matter what car we are driving. We all have the same destination and hopefully will reach Dallas in due time. See you in Dallas! P.S. This is the short version...think on it, about all that can happen along the way.

Answer 6

the only differences between any Religious Belief System and another are the NAMES by which they refer to GOD along with the various Rituals and Ceremonies which are performed. all the Religious Belief Systems you mentioned are Christian based. however, in my answer tried to answer the question so it would cover non - Christian Belief Systems also.

Answer 7

IF the churches do not teach the true word of God, and wavered off to their own doctrine, they are nothing short of cheep imitations and counterfits created by satan.

Answer 8

Your question is much too broad to answer here. Google the different denominations and find out for yourself.

Answer 9

they have different bank accounts.