Nondenominational Christianity Warning: You are not logged in. Your IP address will be publicly visible if you make any edits. If you log in or create an account, your edits will be attributed to your username, along with other benefits.Anti-spam check. Do not fill this in! ==Criticism== [[Boston University]] religion scholar [[Stephen Prothero]] argues that nondenominationalism hides the fundamental theological and spiritual issues that initially drove the division of Christianity into denominations behind a veneer of "Christian unity". He argues that nondenominationalism encourages a descent of Christianity—and indeed, all religions—into comfortable "general moralism" rather than being a focus for facing the complexities of churchgoers' culture and spirituality. Prothero further argues that it also encourages ignorance of the Scriptures, lowering the overall religious literacy while increasing the potential for inter-religious misunderstandings and conflict.<ref>{{cite book|last=Prothero|first=Stephen|author-link=Stephen Prothero|title=Religious Literacy: What Every American Needs to Know - and Doesn't|year=2007|publisher=HarperOne|location=[[New York City|New York]]|isbn=978-0-06-084670-1}}</ref> Steven R. Harmon, a Baptist theologian who supports [[ecumenism]], argues that "there's really no such thing" as a nondenominational church, because "as soon as a supposedly non-denominational church has made decisions about what happens in worship, whom and how they will baptize, how and with what understanding they will celebrate [[holy communion]], what they will teach, who their ministers will be and how they will be ordered, or how they relate to those churches, these decisions have placed the church within the stream of a specific type of denominational tradition".<ref name=Harmon>Steven R. Harmon, ''Ecumenism Means You, Too: Ordinary Christians and the Quest for Christian Unity'' (Cascade Books, 2010), pp. 61-62.</ref> Harmon argues that the cause of Christian unity is best served through denominational traditions, since each "has historical connections to the church's [[catholicity]] ... and we make progress toward unity when the denominations share their distinctive patterns of catholicity with one another".<ref name=Harmon/> [[Presbyterian]] [[Dogmatic theology|dogmatic theologian]] Amy Plantinga Pauw writes that Protestant nondenominational congregations "often seem to lack any acknowledgement of their debts and ties to larger church traditions" and argues that "for now, these non-denominational churches are living off the theological capital of more established Christian communities, including those of denominational Protestantism".<ref name=Pauw>Amy Plantinga Pauw, "Earthen Vessels: Theological Reflections on North American Denominationalism" in ''Theology in Service to the Church: Global and Ecumenical Perspectives'' (ed. Allan Hugh Cole: Cascade Books, 2014), p. 82.</ref> Pauw considers denominationalism to be a "unifying and conserving force in Christianity, nurturing and carrying forward distinctive theological traditions" (such as [[Wesleyanism]] being supported by Methodist denominations).<ref name=Pauw/> In 2011, American evangelical professor [[Ed Stetzer]] attributed to [[individualism]] the reason for the increase in the number of evangelical churches claiming to be nondenominational Christianity.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Stetzer |first1=Ed |title=Do Denominations Matter? |url=https://churchleaders.com/pastors/pastor-blogs/154507-ed_stetzer_do_denominations_matter.html |website=ChurchLeaders.com |access-date=30 December 2021}}</ref> Summary: Please note that all contributions to Christianpedia may be edited, altered, or removed by other contributors. If you do not want your writing to be edited mercilessly, then do not submit it here. You are also promising us that you wrote this yourself, or copied it from a public domain or similar free resource (see Christianpedia:Copyrights for details). Do not submit copyrighted work without permission! Cancel Editing help (opens in new window) Discuss this page