Invisible Church

Examples of Invisible Church in the following topics:

• The Christian Church

  • The Christian Church is the assembly of followers of Jesus Christ; in Christianity, a church is the building where its members meet.
  • The Eastern Orthodox Church and Oriental Orthodoxy each claim to be the original Christian Church.
  • The Eastern Orthodox Church bases its claim primarily on its traditions and beliefs of the original Christian Church.
  • By contrast, the Catholic Church teaches in its doctrine that it is the original Church founded by Christ on the Apostles in the 1st century AD.
  • Churches of Christ are autonomous Christian churches associated with one another through common beliefs and practices.

• The Ecclesia

  • A slight modification of the church type is that of ecclesia.
  • The state churches of some European nations would fit this type.
  • The Anglican Church of England, for example, is a state church that does not have the adherence of all English citizens.
  • Although the word "ecclesial" itself stems from the Greek word for "church" or "gathering," ecclesias are not necessarily churches.
  • The Catholic Church applies the word "Church" only to Christian communities that, in the view of the Catholic Church, "have true sacraments in light of Apostolic succession" and that possess a priesthood and the Eucharist.

• Catholicism

  • The Catholic Church in the United States is part of the worldwide Catholic Church, or the Christian Church that is in full communion with the Pope.
  • By far, most Catholics in the U.S. belong to the Latin Church and the Latin Rite of the Catholic Church.
  • However, the Vatican II document Orientalium Ecclesiarum "Of the Eastern Churches" acknowledges that these Eastern Catholic communities are "true Churches" and not just rites within the Catholic Church.
  • There are 14 other Churches in the U.S. (23 within the global Catholic Church) that are in communion with Rome and fully recognized in the eyes of the Catholic Church.
  • Most of these Churches are of Eastern European and Middle Eastern origin.

• Ecumenism

  • As a term, it usually only refers to predominantly Christian denominations and churches separated by doctrine, history, and practice.
  • The Oriental Orthodox and Eastern Orthodox churches are two distinct bodies of local churches.
  • Within each body, the churches share full communion, although there is not official communion between the two bodies.
  • Within the Anglican Communion, each member church is allowed to make its own decision with regard to intercommunion.
  • They do not want the Orthodox church to play a part in this more general movement.

• Protestantism

  • These early Protestant settlers represented a diversity of Protestant sects, including Anglicanism, Baptism, Congregationalism, Presbyterianism, Lutheranism, Quakerism, the Mennonite Church and the Moravian Church.
  • In 1787, Richard Allen and his colleagues in Philadelphia broke away from the Methodist Church and, in 1815, they founded the African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church.
  • This church, along with independent black Baptist congregations, flourished as the century progressed.
  • In 1950, the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the USA (usually identified as National Council of Churches, or NCC) represented a dramatic expansion in the development of ecumenical cooperation.
  • As the center of community life, Black churches played a leadership role in the Civil Rights Movement.

• The Church-Sect Typology

  • The first type of religion is the church.
  • The classical example of a church is the Roman Catholic Church, especially in the past.
  • A slight modification of the church type is that of ecclesia.
  • The state churches of some European countries would fit this type.
  • The denomination lies between the church and the sect on the continuum.

• Religion

  • Members of the middle class tend to belong to more formal churches.
  • Religiosity is measured by tracking frequency of church attendance, church group involvement, frequency of prayer, and other such markers of strength of religious practice.
  • Jehovah's Witness, Church of God, and Seventh Day Adventists are at the bottom of the income distribution, with $24,000, $26,000, and $31,000 respectively .
  • Religion is also linked with education. 72% of Unitarian and 67% of Hindu adherents are college graduates, while only 12% of Jehovah's Witness and 15% of Church of God members graduated from college.

• Religious Denominations

  • In Christianity, non-denominational institutions or churches are those not formally aligned with an established denomination or those that remain otherwise officially autonomous.
  • Some non-denominational churches explicitly reject the idea of a formalized denominational structure as a matter of principle, holding that each congregation is better off being autonomous.
  • It is used predominantly with reference to Christian denominations and churches separated by doctrine, history, and practice.
  • Within this particular context, the term ecumenism refers to the idea of a Christian unity in the literal meaning: that there should be a single Christian Church.

• Religion in the U.S.

  • The separation of the church and state has allowed the private practice of diverse religions.
  • Bellah has argued that, although, the separation of church and state is grounded firmly in the Constitution of the United States, this does not mean that there is no religious dimension in the political society of the United States.
  • Kennedy: "Considering the separation of church and state, how is a president justified in using the word 'God' at all?
  • The answer is that the separation of church and state has not denied the political realm a religious dimension. "
  • Wood has argued that the United States is a model for the world in terms of how a separation of church and state—no state-run or state-established church—is good for both the church and the state, allowing a variety of religions to flourish.

• Career Development: Vocation and Identity

  • This idea of vocation is especially associated with a divine call to service to the Church and humanity through particular vocational life commitments, such as marriage to a particular person, consecration as a religious, ordination to priestly ministry in the Church, and even a holy life as a single person.
  • In the broader sense, Christian vocation includes the use of one's gifts in their profession, family life, church, and civic commitments for the sake of the greater common good.