[ 3 / biz / cgl / ck / diy / fa / ic / jp / lit / sci / vr / vt ] [ index / top / reports ] [ become a patron ] [ status ]
2023-11: Warosu is now out of extended maintenance.

/lit/ - Literature

View post   
File: 75 KB, 400x552, SeraphimRose.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
4092246 No.4092246 [Reply] [Original]

What are the best or most interesting branches of Christianity?

>> No.4092250

Sufism

>> No.4092253
File: 76 KB, 185x366, StAnthony.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
4092253

Coptic Orthodox

>> No.4092256

scientology

>> No.4092267

Gnosticism
Hermeticism
Mysticism

>> No.4092271

Gnosticism is the one where you can ascend to Godhood right? Whatever that one is, it's pretty cool.

>> No.4092274

Catholicism

>> No.4092310

>>4092274
Wouldn't consider this a branch, but rather the roots of Christianity. The original 'Way' cf. Acts.

>> No.4092316

>>4092274

Definitely Catholicism.

If you were studying Catholic dogma and history, you wouldn't be asking this question OP because you would never ever finish.

>> No.4092334

The earliest state-organized Christianity (unless I'm missing some earlier examples in maybe Ethiopia, we're talking Constantine's Late Antiquity) is really interesting. Very different traditions develop in different regions, North African Spiritualism or Irish/Northumbrian Asceticism (St.Aidan, Chad,Cuthbert) and it's not about so-called confessional conflict as there has been no schisms and church doctrine has not developed fully. Early heresies like Arianism etc.

>> No.4092335

>>4092250
There's a Sufism branch of Christianity as well, or are you just grouping it in as an interesting Abrahamic religion?

>> No.4092338

>>4092310
It's like you know nothing about Christianity from ~1200 onward.

>> No.4092345

catharism

>> No.4092351

>>4092267

Hermeticism has completely separate origins from Christianity and Gnosticism is a shit-tier misanthropic rip-off of Platonic thought. But, I'd read gnostic scripture just to understand it is to put your 'faith' in the 'truth' of these fables.

I'd also recommend reading Rabbi Hillel so you can fully understand the climate within and the nature of Judaism during the turn of the epoch.

>> No.4092353

>>4092351
>understand how ridiculous it is**

Oops, typo.

>> No.4092363

>>4092351
And read John Allegro for an interesting dissenter perspective.

>> No.4093119 [DELETED] 

assyrian orthodox

>> No.4093123

>>4092274
>>4092310
>>4092316
>Catholocism
laughingprotestants.jpg

Protentantism is the way to go, Catholicism has nothing to do with the Bible

>> No.4093129

>>4092351
>Gnosticism is a shit-tier misanthropic rip-off of Platonic thought

What the. . . I don't even . . . HOLY FUCK YOU'RE SO WRONG MY HEAD EXPLODED.

>> No.4093155
File: 87 KB, 500x500, bigdogpleb.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
4093155

>>4093123
>implying the beauty of ritual and art isn'tt more important than the dry moralism of the New Testament
Stay pleb. Anglo-Catholic reporting in

>> No.4093169

Any of the Oriental Orthodoxies

>> No.4093174 [DELETED] 

>>4093169
why

>> No.4093182

>>4093174
They're the oldest churches

>> No.4093192
File: 24 KB, 230x343, 11[1].jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
4093192

>>4092246
>What are the best or most interesting branches of Christianity?

Hesychasm. Don't know why this hasn't been mentioned yet.

And for Western Christianity, see Meister Eckhart and the Rhineland mystics.

>>4092335
>There's a Sufism branch of Christianity as well

There's something very close.

>> No.4093222
File: 16 KB, 266x328, 266px-Johann_Sebastian_Bach[1].jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
4093222

>>4093155
>ritual and art based on silly folklore rather than God's holy scripture
>You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth.
Pic related: Protestants are also superior in the arts

>> No.4093239
File: 17 KB, 344x400, euler.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
4093239

>>4093222
Don't forget mathematics.

>> No.4093264

>>4093129
But I'm not. In the Timaeus the demiurge is the crafter of the material world based upon the forms. In Gnosticism the material world and the demiurge are characterized as evil. It's a strange perversion of Platonism from a Judeo-Christian perspective. What is referred to by historians as Neoplatonism was intrinsically tied to the early gnostic movements.

>> No.4093268

Why should anyone believe scripture is true?

>> No.4093276

>>4093268
why should anyone give a fuck about ur onions

>> No.4093284

>>4093276
Are you mad? Why? What onions?

Did you mean to write 'opinions'? I only asked a question.

>> No.4093285

>>4093284
nice shitty onions, nerd
go cry over 'em

>> No.4093286

>>4092351
Philo is the closest to Jewish thought any God-fearing Christian ought to read. Gnosticism is only misanthropic insofar as letting a temple go to ruins shews respect to it.

>> No.4093294

>>4093192
Maybe you are thinking of Christian mysticism, not Sufism. Or maybe you're just thinking of Gnostics.

>> No.4093308

>>4093264

Gnosticism is a wide brush friendo. Wikipedia scholars represent!

>> No.4093312
File: 72 KB, 396x691, 1367016041885.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
4093312

>>4093123
>Protentantism is the way to go, Catholicism has nothing to do with the Bible

I'm glad that Protestantism is all about the bible, considering God came to earth in the form of a book.

>> No.4093315

>>4093264

If, according to you, the Gnostics characterize the material world as evil, then why did Valentinus and the Brethren of the Free Spirit find sexuality so Kocher? Material bodies slipping and sliding and grinding against each other certainly doesn't seem like a rigid holding the philosophy of the evil of the material/physical.

>> No.4093332

>>4093315
I wouldn't characterize Valentin as Gnostics. The gnostic traditions Had dissolved much earlier in history.

Do you mean to say that you use the term 'gnostic' loosely to represent any non-conformist tradition?

>> No.4093468

>gnostics

http://www.brusselsjournal.com/node/4440


ps. east side orthodox in the house

>> No.4093563
File: 768 KB, 1228x1637, UtrechtIconoclasm.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
4093563

>>4092274
>2013
>being a pagan.

>> No.4093597

>4093123
>>Protentantism is the way to go, Catholicism has nothing to do with the Bible

You realize the bible is the product of the Church? (orthodox + catholic), they voted on what books to keep, how to translate them, what to add and delete and censor. etc.

>> No.4094625

Orthodox have best spirituality

>> No.4094682

catholics seem the most interesting to me coming from a non-christian. the history, its fanaticism, its passion.

>> No.4095172

Catholic scholasticism, I've been getting into Aquinas and Augustine a lot despite not caring for the religion much before (being raised as a catholic probably caused that, but I'm getting out of my spiteful phase).
The whole idea to use logic and reason to supplement faith is fascinating to me and Aquinas is really a genius. Maybe I'll read... a fifth of the Summa.

>> No.4095190

the branch that thinks the old testament god is evil, and a separate entity from the good new testament god

>> No.4095211

>>4093264
Greco-buddhism.

>> No.4095218

>>4095211
Buddhism doesn't regard the world itself as inherently evil. Just the misunderstanding of said world that leads to dukkha, which, while often translated as "suffering" could more accurately be called "longing" or "dissatisfaction."

>> No.4095233

Definitely Scientology if you'd count it as Christian-based. I don't really.

Failing that, Society of Friends (Quaker church)

>> No.4095237

>>4093468
>http://www.brusselsjournal.com/node/4440

Hurr durr all leftism is liberalism. Go drown in a shark tank.

>> No.4095241

>>4095233
Quakers are pretty boss.

>> No.4095275

>>4095241
>>4095233
melvyn bragg did a good show abotu the quakers on his "in our time" radio slot

bretty good

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01f67y4

>> No.4095283
File: 16 KB, 624x437, voc-vlag-verenigde-oostindische-compagnie-vlaggen.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
4095283

>>4092246
Calvinism.

>> No.4095457

"The Moravian Bretheren are particularly fascinating. Their leader, Count von Zinzendorf, developed the peculiar doctrine that the wounds of Jesus on the Cross could become the foci for erotic magic. He believed that in erotic rapture his followers could visit the hole in Jesus' side caused by the spear of Longinus (referred to as the `Seitenholchen', or `Little Side Cave'), in the forms of Kreuzluftvoglein (`Little Cross Birds of the Air'), Wunderbeinelein (`Little Wonder Bees'), Blutwundenfischlein (`Little Fish of the Bleeding Wound'), Wundertaucherlein (`Little Wonder-Divers'), or Wunderwurmlein (`Little Wonder-Worms')! Incredibly enough, the Moravian Bretheren constituted a fully functioning Masonic order as well, forming the nexus of Zinzendorf's Masonic attempts to create the Kingdom of Heaven on Earth."
- `The Fire in the Shadows: The Roots And Aims Of Modern Magickal Sexuality' by Timothy O'Neill, from GNOSIS 17

>> No.4095973

the Old Believers

/thread

>> No.4095983

the one that's based on lies

>> No.4096099

>>4092246
Swedenborgians

>> No.4096103
File: 149 KB, 719x599, 1363863583201.png [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
4096103

>>4095283

>> No.4096107

I'm partial to social gospel and liberation theology, any branch that attempts to tackle issues of social justice. I also really enjoy a lot of the more mystical strains. And Greek Orthodoxy in general has a beautiful and unique take on the Fall and Redemption.

>> No.4096115

>>4093123
Catholics wrote the Bible.

>> No.4096116

>>4093312
To be fair, In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God...

But it's not like any Protestant understands John anyway. Luther was just as much reacting against scholasticism as he was against indulgences. The Reformers didn't like their Bible being interpreted alongside some dogeared old Greek tomes, even though that's what it was written alongside in the first place.

>> No.4096286

gnostics

>> No.4096297

>>4092274

>> No.4096503

The adamites are pretty interesting OP. They were a nudist sect that practised free love.