Religion Families
Religions
Pew Research Center (2011) counts Catholics at about half of Christians worldwide, Protestants at 37 percent, and Orthodox communions at 12 percent. The Catholic Church , the Eastern Orthodox churches , and most Protestant churches confess one God, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, the doctrine of the creed of 381 . Separate groups with Christian roots reject that confession. Other religions follow, grouped by family. A shelf appears here only when this site has a page for it. Sunni Islam and Shia Islam stay on the Islam hub. Moral Questions and the reading guide stay on Beliefs.
Trinitarian Christianity
The Christianity shelf and the denomination shelves hold the Nicene doctrine of one God, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
Seventh-day Adventists are often asked about beside these churches. Their official Fundamental Belief 2 says, “There is one God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, a unity of three co-eternal Persons” ( The Trinity, North American Division of Seventh-day Adventists ). The shelf is Seventh-day Adventist, and the article is What Do Seventh-day Adventists Believe?.
Non-Trinitarian Groups With Christian Roots
Non-Trinitarian means Bible-based groups that deny the Trinity and do not mix in other religions.
Biblical Unitarianism is a shelf in this family. It confesses the Father alone as the one God and Jesus as the human Son. Unitarian Universalism is in New Age and Mixed Spirituality. Its covenant does not require that confession (Biblical Unitarianism, Unitarian Universalism).
Abrahamic Religions With Deep Connections to Christianity
Judaism and Islam share scripture and history with Christianity and do not confess the Nicene doctrine that Jesus is God.
New Age and Mixed Spirituality
Mixing Christianity with other spiritual or metaphysical systems is New Age or mixed, with manifestation and modern pagan religion.
Christian Science is in this family. Tenet 5, as the church prints it from Science and Health, ties the crucifixion and the resurrection to “the nothingness of matter” ( What a Christian Scientist believes ).
Unitarian Universalism is in this family. The association says that although Unitarianism and Universalism began as liberal Christian traditions, today it embraces “diverse teachings from many different global religions and philosophies” ( What We Believe, Unitarian Universalist Association ).
Freemasonry is a fraternal order with esoteric rituals, listed in this family. The United Grand Lodge of England says “Masonry is neither a religion nor a substitute for religion,” and that belief in a Supreme Being “is essential and admits of no compromise” ( Information for the Guidance of Members of the Craft, United Grand Lodge of England ). The shelf is Freemasonry.
Distinct World Religions
Hinduism and Buddhism are separate world religions on this site.
No Religion
Atheism, agnosticism, and the question of whether God exists are beliefs, not religions.