If a mainstream media outlet raves about a movie or a restaurant or a book, you’d expect that its reviewer did due diligence in checking it out. One would hope that the reviewer actually saw the movie or ate the meal or read the book. Why then, I wonder, does Time magazine praise a new religion website that is so essentially flawed?
That’s the question I have after reading Time’s promotional story on Patheos.com, which is titled “What Do Religions Believe? A Website with Answers.” Time gushes:
Its founders, husband and wife Leo and Cathie Brunnick, have created a library of the histories and belief systems of 50 (and counting) of the world’s faiths. … Moreover, all the content on the streamlined, reader-friendly site is written and peer-reviewed by divinity scholars and other experts, including theologians at Harvard and the University of Southern California, where some undergrads will be using Patheos in introductory religion classes this fall.
Given all that peer review from the divinity schools it is hard to imagine why Patheos got so many things wrong. One of our regular readers, the omnipresent Jerry, points out flaws in the entry on Sufis. He writes:
The article started with the comment that Sufism is an offshoot of Islam which is not held by all Sufis. The founding date for Sufism is similarly not accepted by all since some say that Sufism predates Muhammad. … Sufis taking vows of poverty and celibacy is plain wrong for many if not most because the teaching is “in the world but not of the world.”
A quick check on some comparative religion books proves Jerry right on all his Sufi points and Patheos wrong. I decided to check out what I know best, Judaism, and found numerous mistakes. The site, for example claims that Conservative Judaism is the largest of the Jewish branches. That was once the case but hasn’t been true in years. Reform is the largest.
Errors abound when it comes to the Orthodox Judaism too. Orthodox, the site claims “originated in response to the innovations in Jewish practice introduced by the Reform movement.” They’ve got it backwards. Reform emerged in response to Orthodoxy, which is traditional Judaism. Their understanding of ultra-Orthodox Judaism is even more muddled. Here is part of the entry:
Ultra Orthodox Judaism (aka Jewish Fundamentalism) refers to several different strands of Judaism that stress the necessity of strict observance of Jewish religious laws and moral code as taught in the Torah and Talmud. Primarily found in Israel, Jewish Fundamentalism includes many within the Zionist movement (a militant religious sect), Haredi Judaism (an ultra-Orthodox sect), and Shas (a Sephardi political party). These groups formed after of the establishment of the nation of Israel in 1948.
There is so much wrong with this explanation that I don’t know where to begin. Suffice it to say that you can’t lump all these groups together as “fundamentalists” and to use 1948 as their birthdate. To do so does a disservice to Jews and to Patheos.
I could go on, but I invite readers to check their own faith out at Patheos.com and let me know how they did.
Patheos isn’t totally pathetic, however. It is easily navigable, reader-friendly and does have beautiful art. It also had ads for things like flowers for Mother’s Day and spiritual books for sale related to each faith.
Patheos is the new kid on the block, apparently trying to do what Beliefnet.com did with its mix of faith and commerce. Beliefnet went through some hard times, including Chapter 11, but emerged healthy and was bought a couple of years ago by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp.
Time quotes Steve Waldman, the founder of Beliefnet, as graciously welcoming Patheos to the mix, saying that there is plenty of room in the internet religion market.
Perhaps the most curious thing about the Time article is the reason the Brunnicks offer for establishing Patheos. The article notes that they come from “different Christian faiths” and collectively have four children from previous marriage that they are wedding into a family.
“Bringing our kids together, deciding what to teach them and how and where to take them for Sunday school — we weren’t taking this lightly,” says Leo Brunnick. “In your 20’s, it’s easy to say, ‘I’m spiritual, without specific tenents, whatever.’ That feels great until you’re staring into the eyes of a 2-year-old and realize you have to give them some moral compass.”
I wish them luck finding that moral compass on the Web.
 | Posted at 5:34 pm |  Print
| Permalink | Trackback |
Comments (47) |
May 7, 2009, at 6:10 pm
Ummm, yeah, Patheticos.com. They don’t even have a “gateway” for Orthodox Christianity. Fortunately they don’t say enough about it to be totally wrong (outside the 1054 start date… try 33 AD
).
May 7, 2009, at 6:56 pm
I searched “Eastern Orthodox Christian” on patheos. Just the summary page was loaded with errors. I feel sorry for the undergrads who are going to be using this site. If it can screw up so badly on the second largest group of Christians how badly is it going to treat the Jains, Mandeans, and 7th Day Adventists? I commend them for trying, but execution leaves much to be desired.
I have to wonder if Jeninne Lee-St. John, the reporter for TIme knows anything about any religion at all. But she does seem to know journalism. I appreciate hur liberal use of quotes to tell the story. Hmmm. I wonder if she wrote the story based on quotes, without actually looking at the site?
May 7, 2009, at 7:20 pm
I had a look at the entry for Roman Catholicism; it’s not too bad - sorry, Jeff, they attribute the 33AD date to us!
But at least they haven’t the “The Romish church was a perversion of pure Primitive Christianity due to the encroachment of pagan elements after Constantine made Christianity the state religion” attitude.
They use the “Common Era” usage which drives me mad, but I do understand why they do so; they get a bit wibbly over Vatican II but *sigh* a lot of people do; their entry on Purgatory wasn’t too bad, though they could have made it clear that the souls in Purgatory are already saved and it’s not some kind of second chance/do-over after death, but that’s a minor quibble.
The one part that made me roll my eyes was this:
“The label “Tridentine church,” referring to the Council of Trent that had concluded in 1563, was used to label and sometimes slander a Church set in stone and backward in thinking, but in reality it had only been during the last two centuries or so that the Catholic Church had closed herself off from modern developments stemming from the Scientific Revolution and Enlightenment of early modernity.”
Nice to see the Council of Trent spoken of in terms other than “Boo! Hiss! nasty anathemising council that tried to drag Europe back into the Dark Ages” but unfortunately, they then lose all that credit with the next sentence. Yeah, guys: from the seventeenth to the early twentieth century, the Church frowned on presumptuous human reason as A Bad Thing (I think you’re confusing us with the Lutherans?)
Still, in their “Recommended Reading” list of Catholic books, they include the Catechism - and you can’t ask more than that
May 7, 2009, at 7:24 pm
I wonder if the errors are down to the contributors? From the very cursory glance I had at the site, it seems that they rely heavily on contributors - and if the people putting up the entries are either pushing their pet theories or just looking it all up from secondary sources, then that might account for the rest of you having bad experiences?
Either the contributors for the Catholicism entry were very good (all things considered - it could have been a Jesus Seminar graduate who did it!), or I’m a very bad Catholic, because it didn’t seem too horribly off base to me
May 7, 2009, at 8:01 pm
Besides all the errors, the big issue I have is that Time said they claimed to have been peer reviewed by knowledgeable people. If that is knowledge, I’d hate to see ignorance.
The basic idea for the site is reasonable, but they would have been a lot better just putting in links to Wikipedia. We can discuss how good or bad Wikipedia is, but any site that claims expertise should be at least as accurate as Wikipedia.
May 7, 2009, at 8:03 pm
I hope you don’t mind me posting, Ari and team. This is Leo Brunnick - CEO of Patheos. Sorry we couldn’t meet with you when we were in New York a few weeks ago, Ari — I believe you were in Ireland at the time.
First, thanks for checking out Patheos — and thanks for letting us know where you think we got some things wrong. We will fact check these now, as we will with all of our feedback.
I hope that all of the readers on GetReligion do exactly as you say, and dig through the traditions with which they’re familiar to see if they think we got it right. We have links throughout the site to send feedback and comments to make the information better.
One of the things that we are doing at Patheos — perhaps the thing that is hardest — is to boil down a complex world of information into a consumable format. Some of the scholars on the team bridle at the thought of trying to represent a religion, a complex lived tradition, in only a paragraph like we do in our Summaries you quote, which is then supported by 75 additional pages on the tradition. And yet that is exactly what we are doing for 100 traditions, as a way to have a baseline for what we really care about — raising the level and quality of the conversation.
We really do believe that there can be a credible source on the Web, and one that listens as much as it talks. Although there are probably no two academics who will agree to the exact wording and facts of any writings - we will try to be as close to that as possible.
There are 100 million Americans using the Web to find information and outlets for religious or spiritual matters. So as crazy (or even compass-free) as it is on the Web, we certainly want to be in a place to make finding that stuff both easier and better.
Thanks,
Leo
Leo Brunnick
CEO, Patheos
lbrunnick@patheos.com
Office: (303) 792-0170
Fax: (303) 792-0359
http://www.patheos.com
May 7, 2009, at 8:35 pm
“Place of Origin” for Eastern Orthodoxy listed as Constantinople, and “Date Formed” as 1054… by some measures this is valid, but valid only if “Place of Origin” for Roman Catholicism is listed as Rome, and “Date Formed” also 1054 for that Church. But Patheos puts the Catholics in Palestine in the year 30.
“Headquarters” for Eastern Orthodoxy as Constantinople is also rather biased.
Perhaps if the information were provided by practicioners of these faiths as well as divinity-school scholars? Of course you can’t expect practicioners to be unbiased, but they will be informed.
May 7, 2009, at 8:43 pm
<— looking more deeply into what the site says about Eastern Orthodoxy— it’s remarkably thorough and accurate. The quick stats are pretty dubious, but the essays about the faith are rather solid.
May 7, 2009, at 9:34 pm
Pathos isn’t alone in suggesting that Orthodox Judaism formed in response to the Reform movement. The Wikipedia entry on Orthodox Judaism alludes to this as well.
Perhaps the best way would be to say that they are both responses to Jewish Emancipation during the Enlightenment. Or, to put it another way, before Emancipation, there were just Jews. After, there were movements. As a result, Orthodox Judaism as a movement is no older than Reform.
May 7, 2009, at 10:35 pm
Of course, I immediately checked out their entry on Paganism. It’s not live yet. But I am concerned that the reading list contains a couple of titles that are anti-Pagan tracts. I’ll look again a bit later, when the site is more complete.
May 7, 2009, at 11:52 pm
The Catholic portal wasn’t too bad, except for a couple of nits I would pick:
I think he meant “apostles”, which is significant for historical rather than ecclesiological reasons.
I questioned the 1.1 billion number, but went checking and found it to be pretty close. A google search on “number of Catholics worldwide” turned up a bunch of links with numbers from 900 million to 1.31 million. The Vatican numbers for 2006 were 1 billion and 86 million, so 1.1 is probably a good number.
I wasn’t familiar with most of the recommended reading titles, but did see a conservative voice (Mother Angelica) and the Catechism.
I also spent some time looking at comments left in the Catholic section. Over time it would be interesting to see what the cadre of regular commenters ends up “looking like”.
May 8, 2009, at 12:21 am
The info on Roman Catholicism was surprisingly accurate. I’d quibble over a few things, but overall it’s good.
Martha’s objection is a good one. The article ignores the fact that any number of modern scientific discoveries are attributable to Catholic clergy, including the Big Bang theory.
Fr. Philip, OP
Rome
May 8, 2009, at 12:39 am
I was prepared to not like the Catholic portal, but I did find it a very positive experience. It reads much like a book by Fr Andrew Greeley called the Catholic Imagination or something like that. Rather than getting bogged down in doctrines and hair splitting, it pretty accurately portrays how Catholics look at life and the world. I liked that it presented dissenting tendencies and various influences in a factual non-inflammatory manner.
The bit about the Vatican closing itself off and withdrawing in the 1800s might have been better presented if it included the historical circumstances of first the French Revolution’s Terror killing off priests and nuns and destroying church property; followed by Napoleon and his successors militarily controlling the hierarchy and even the Popes; followed by Garibaldi and the unifiers of Italy forcibly taking the Papal States resulting in the Pope being the “Prisoner of the Vatican”; until finally coming to an accomodation with Mussolini government in the 1920s. Some of this was mentioned, but not the fact of 100 years or so of fighting to stay independent while being constantly militarily beleagured. This situation goes a long way in explaining the other-wise inexplicable actions of Pius IX and the defensiveness of his immediate successors.
Otherwise, I’d recommend it as an introduction to someone who didn’t know anything about Catholics.
BTW since the movie Angels and Demons is coming out soon, here’s a useful tidbit. Some of the news reports are marvelling at the nerve of the Vatican in not allowing filming in churches outside of Vatican City. Reporters forget that all of Rome was until recently part of the Papal States. The agreement with Italy described above allows the Vatican state to retain some of that authority for some important churches outside Vatican City borders. This is similar to how ambassadorial residences are treated all around the world - as the soil of the ambassador’s country.
May 8, 2009, at 12:47 am
PNP, OP:
Good point, Father. And let’s not forget the Augustinian monk Gregor Mendel, the father of heredity and genetics, and his studies of inherited traits in peas.
He lived 1822 - 1884.
May 8, 2009, at 1:06 am
I only began to glance a bit more at their essays on Eastern Orthodoxy, and think there are additional problems (not to mention outright contradictions where on one page Orthodoxy dates back to the apostles, yet is founded in 1054). Asserting that Eastern Orthodoxy is entire Constantinopolitan, with it appearing to have separated both from Rome (the West) and the Oriental Churches, forgetting that there are 3 other major See’s involved here is really quite inaccurate.
If Patheos is attempting to be the Wikipedia of religion I might buy it. But given that the premise is a site verified by scholars, I think they fail miserably.
Mr. Brunnick, if you want the public to check the accuracy of your site (which it seems to be failing at), then be honest about what the purpose of the site is. Its Wikireligion, and even that is probably offensive to Wikipedia.
May 8, 2009, at 2:53 am
Jeff,
The more detailed essays about Eastern Orthodoxy outline the four ancient sees as well as all of the autocephalous and autonomous Churches, providing a decent explanation of what these terms mean and how the Churches operate in relation to one another; even the OCA and Orthodoxy in East Africa get mentioned. The pages on spirituality and practice are likewise thorough and nuanced. But the introductory summaries are rather misleading, and the initial stats are downright incorrect.
I get the impression with this site that the scholars produced quite a bit of very detailed and accurate information, but that the way the summaries gloss this information is problematic.
May 8, 2009, at 4:28 am
James:
Well if you look on the “tree lens” they have both Eastern Orthodox and Catholicism branching from “early christianity” in 1054.
Anyway I can’t comment on the specific accuracy of articles, from the above posts it looks like they have some work to do. But sites like this are a good idea in general I think, just to give people an unbiased source to learn about and compare religions.
May 8, 2009, at 8:56 am
I would be interested to find out who the contributers are to the sufism article. I would recommend they consult with Dr. Alan Godlas if they haven’t already - http://www.uga.edu/islam/Sufism.html - and consider subdividing into “universalist” vs. “orthodox” subsets.
May 8, 2009, at 9:55 am
The whole “the Vatican was closed off to modernity in the late 19th century” meme is a useful tool of the Catholic Left to pick at the First Vatican Council and undermine its major teaching, papal infallibility. What they tend not to talk about much is the VC1’s teaching on infallibility is actually a teaching about the reasonable limits of infallibility not the whole-clothe invention of infallibility itself. Infallibility was invoked in the 1854 solemn definition of the Immaculate Conception and in 1336 by Pope Benedict XII in “Benedictus Deus.” Before VC1 in 1870, there was no defined limits on the papal use of the Church’s gift of infallibility. Fr. Philip, OP
May 8, 2009, at 10:02 am
I have a quibble with the Unitarian Universalist overview. It says the UU deny they are a Christian denomination, as though some court procedure could determine otherwise. UUism includes Christians, but a lot of other theologies as well.
The Pagan overview was up when I looked in. It errs in citing 1965 or “the 1960s” as the foundation date. Wicca emerged in the late 1930s and its founder published in the 1950s once Britain had rescinded its old anti-witchcraft laws.
May 8, 2009, at 12:01 pm
One more quibble about the Catholic information;
Initially the term “Catholic” is used for the portal and in much of the extended essays, but the Lens headings and some summaries switch to “Roman Catholic” without explanation. This is not what the church calls itself. It’s a term invented in England some time past that is the equivalent of “papist”, or “romish” or “roman”, etc. The church sometimes refers to itself as the
, but officially it is Catholic not Roman Catholic.
The Catholic Encyclopedia has a long entry on the subject with many citations, but the following two excerpts will suffice to get the point across:
and the last paragraph
Source: http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/13121a.htm
The only place you will see “Roman Catholic” used is in English-speaking countries or in articles influenced by English Protestant usage. It only appears in Vatican documents that concern talks between the Holy See and the Church of England - probably as a courtesy to Anglican sensibilities.
Most American Catholics do not understand the derivation of this term because they see it so frequently in this former colony of England.
May 8, 2009, at 12:09 pm
I appreciate Leo Brunnick stopping by to offer his perspective. But, of course, the main issue remains - Time’s reporter should have done some fact checking. And, while it’s true that some will dispute almost any fact, obvious errors should be eliminated.
May 8, 2009, at 3:25 pm
Agree that the Eastern Orthodox summary and quick facts is appallingly misinformed. The detailed articles aren’t too bad, though I didn’t go through them with a fine tooth comb. The ‘quick summary’ of Orthodox beliefs is also mostly accurate (if you check out their ‘compare traditions’ feature). My main issue is that they spend too much time in the history section acting as if the Great Schism is the only thing of note.
I think this is due to the typical western bias most religious scholars have when dealing with Christian History in general and European History is specific. I also noticed that none of their content team specialized in Eastern Orthodoxy, all though many seemed to focus on Catholicism.
May 8, 2009, at 5:58 pm
Julia,
Notre Dame in Paris uses the term “Roman Catholic” on its internal signage.
May 8, 2009, at 11:37 pm
Looking at the Pagan section, I see a list of ‘experts’ on Paganism. They are:
Chas Clifton, Jacob N. Kinnard, Carl McColman, Kathleen A. Mulhern, Ph.D.
Who are these people? I have never heard of any of them. By their biographies, only one is involved in Paganism. Very odd, when we have a large number of living teachers who could have been involved.
I also find this difficult to navigate.
May 9, 2009, at 12:14 am
Well, judging by the other comments on here, we Catholics seem to have gotten off lightly - we really only have quibbles as to details, which in a quick’n’dirty type introduction to a particular faith or denomination isn’t too bad.
May 9, 2009, at 12:21 am
Like dalea, I couldn’t find the articles some others cite. I only saw one level in the first page of the portal.
May 9, 2009, at 8:34 am
As others have noted, the TIME article was kind of superficial and didn’t really get into the detail required to show the obvious shortcomings of the site - or ANY Web-based attempt to fully explore religion. Or, even more, the pitfalls of trying give a 2-year-old moral guidance via the Web, as Ari correctly noted.
His quote that “I’m spiritual, without specific tenents, whatever.’ That feels great until you’re staring into the eyes of a 2-year-old and realize you have to give them some moral compass.” is a rare realization that “spiritual” doesn’t really cut it as a moral compass. I note the article repeatedly uses the term “spiritual” rather than “religious” even in this case where RELIGIONS are being featured. (As a side note, either “tenents” was changed to the correct “tenets” in the article or our GR scribe mistyped it here.)
As for the site itself, it was a lot like others online: beautiful technologically, but a bit shallow in content, as many have noted.
The “Wikipedia” model that relies mostly on outside feedback has several serious flaws, among them being the danger that those with axes to grind, or those who have zero knowledge (or false knowledge) will be editing articles. They also could be teenagers who get all their information, say, on Catholicism, from Googling it, and using hate sites as well as the official ones to “inform” these articles.
May 9, 2009, at 8:43 am
Dave (20 above) is right in saying that the Unitarian Universalist entry labeling them a Christian denomination is incorrect (though historically this was true.) The UUA Website says that “Unitarian Universalism is a liberal religion with Jewish-Christian roots.” In fact, the site is labeled “Unitarian Universalist Association of Congregations - Representing over 1,000 Liberal Religious Congregations.”
May 9, 2009, at 9:46 am
ReligionFacts.com is not quite as flashy, but it seems to have a far higher degree of accuracy.
What amazes me is how sites like patheos.com turn to scholars for their facts, but somehow get so many things wrong that even moderately educated believers in these various religious all know well. Such an approach does nothing to dissociate the academy from its “ivory tower” reputation.
May 9, 2009, at 1:41 pm
pen brysina:
I checked the website for Notre Dame in Paris.
The only place I could find the phrase “Roman Catholic” was in a section meant for non-Catholic English speakers on how to conduct yourself during a visit since the place is entirely devoted to religion. Presumably many of these English speakers are presumed to be English Anglicans
You must have seen signs in English meant for foreigners since the phrase “Roman Catholic” is not French. The French version of preparing for a visit says “Catholique Romain”.
http://www.notredamedeparis.fr/Preparing-for-your-visit
The church identifies itself as the cathedral of the Eglise Catholique Diocese de Paris. [I don’t know how to do the phonetique marking at this site]. I could find no reference to “Roman Catholic” or “Catholique Romain” on the site.
http://catholique-paris.cef.fr/
I attended the Sorbonne and don’t recall ever seeing “Roman Catholic” or “Catholique Romain” at Notre Dame, my own parish St Charles de Monceau or St Severin where I did some work.
May 9, 2009, at 1:44 pm
For those who can’t find the extended essays we’re discussing.
Look at the “Lens” section and then click on the name of a religion - that’s where the longer pieces are. It’s confusing.
May 9, 2009, at 1:58 pm
The sign at my parish says “St. Mary of the Assumption Roman Catholic Church. Among other things, this reduces confusion between us and an hispanic Episcopal parish down the road, whose sign announces that it is “una sancta,catholica, apostolica” (pardon the spelling).
It used to be that the marital status of the priests was used to distinguish us as well, but then we got a former Episcopalian, married priest, so there you go.
May 9, 2009, at 4:48 pm
Like I said, the use of Roman Catholic by Catholics is either out of ignorance of history or as a result of the influence of English usage. It would seem that your parish is reacting to English/Anglican/Episopalian usage.
It is not what our church has prefered to call itself historically.
I found the extended articles about the Anglican Church at the Patheos site (Lens area) very interesting. The history sections make it more understandable why Anglicans insist on calling us Roman Catholics when they don’t dispute Baptists calling themselves Baptist or Orthodox calling themselves Orthodox without a qualifying adjective determined by Anglicans.
May 9, 2009, at 5:55 pm
In the Midwest, the use of ‘Roman Catholic’ is to distinguish from the various National Catholic churches. The Polish and Ukranian National Catholic churches do exist.
May 10, 2009, at 1:57 am
Someone needs to tell the three Church of Rome parishes in my neighborhood that “Roman Catholic” isn’t what they call themselves —- since they all have that on their signs.
I’ve seen some Catholic churches without the Roman designation but the vast, vast majority that I’ve seen have that on their signs.
The style I was taught was to use Roman on first reference and simply Catholic thereafter unless you need to keep on using Roman to distinguish between other people who self-identify as Catholics.
I am curious, though, why ‘Church of Rome’ would be fine but ‘Roman Catholic’ wouldn’t be …
May 10, 2009, at 2:24 am
I find “Church of Rome” silly, since I belong to the Catholic Church of Fort Worth. Moreover, it seems to me that focusing on “Rome” somehow minimizes the fact that Catholicism is a worldwide communion of Churches.
It probably is fair to say that “Roman Catholic” is not proper to the Eastern Rite Catholic Churches, but I’m Latin Rite.
I would note that the sign at the parish predates our current pastor and appears to be quite old. The Episcopal parish in question (San Juan Apostol)is probably not as old as the sign.
It’s fair to note that local usage is sometimes a little different. For example, I have been taken to task for calling the Mass of Paul VI (the current rite) the “Novus Ordo”. The term is offensive to many folks, but locally, it’s just what we call it.
May 10, 2009, at 2:50 am
As a former Unitarian, I was surprised to see that a denomination we dated back to at least 1568 when King John II Sigismund Zápolya of Transylvania (Hungary) made it the state religion, was dated as of 1961. (My sister’s UU church still has a sister church in Transylvania.)
My Brooklyn Unitarian church, built in 1833, had such early Unitarians as Michael Servetus (1511-1533)and Faustus Socinus (1539-1604) in its stained glass windows. The Unitarian church was well established in Britain before the founding of the United States and a number of early presidents of the US were Unitarian. The Universalist Church dates from 1866, when it was known as the Universalist General Convention, although the theology is rooted in earlier eras.
As early as the 1890s the Unitarian theology liberalized when the American Unitarian Association began to allow non-Christian and non-theistic churches and individuals to be part of their fellowship. However there are many Unitarian Christians and even some churches within the fold which are primarily Christian. The merger with the Universalists was in 1961.
When denominations merge, it does not cancel out their origin.
May 10, 2009, at 3:18 am
I noticed that Hasidic (Charedi) Judaism is not listed at all- perhaps due to your comments on Jewish “fundamentalism”. The movement derives from the Baal Shem Tov (1678-1760)based on an ecstatic form of worship. The movement started in the Ukraine, spread to Poland, Russia, Hungary and Romania. There are 9 major Hasidic groups, 30 smaller ones and a hundred or two minor groups, all centered around dynastic rebbes. These include the Bobov, Ger, Chabad-Lubavich, Belz, Satmar, Breslov, Vizhnitz, Seret-Vizhnitz, Nadvorna, and Toldos Aharon. There are close to half a million Hasidim worldwide and 180,000 in the US, although the population grows at greater rate than the population in general. The headquarters of each group varies, but include several in Brooklyn, NY; Jerusalem, Ramat Beit Shemesh and Bnei Brak in Israel.
May 10, 2009, at 8:09 am
dalea:
There are a number of churches that call themselves various kinds of Catholic.
That doesn’t change the fact that the Church of Rome has called itself the Catholic Church from time immemorial. That’s the official name of the corporate body of all churches in union with the Pope. Any addition of “Roman” in signage at a particular church building is in reaction to or influenced by English usage. It doesn’t make any difference what an individual parish puts on its sign out front - Catholics aren’t congregational.
The Patheos site has a “Catholic” portal and then mysteriously changes to “Roman Catholic” as the category in the “Lens” section - although the extended articles continue to use “Catholic” almost exclusively. If it’s not needed in the main menu to indicate which religion we’re talking about, why tack it on later? Is it different writers or editors? It can’t be to distinguish Catholics from the Anglicans or Episcopalians, because “Catholic” does not appear in their name. And I couldn’t find any mention of the Polish National Church or the Old Catholics etc. anywhere on the Patheos site. These very modern offshoots are not likely to be confused with the billion plus member church from which they split.
There are several Mormon offshoots, but Patheos continues to use the term Latter-day Saints for the original church and doesn’t add “Salt Lake” to their name. Why the different treatment for the Catholic Church?
I give up. I think this issue stems from ancient political battles with the Church of England, which wanted to emphasize Catholics’ foreigness, and is not theological.
May 10, 2009, at 8:31 am
Mollie:
Church of (or at) Rome is reference to the ancient patriarchal churches. There is/was also the Church of Jerusalem, the Church of Antioch, the Church of Alexandria, and after Constantine, the Church of Constantinople.
FW Ken:
I agree that the use of “Roman Catholic” is slighting the Catholics of the Eastern Rites. They are in communion with the Pope and full members of the “Catholic Church” which is headquartered in Rome. However, they are not members of the Roman/Latin Rite. They do not use the “Missal Romanum”, but they are Catholics - in Iraq, in Lebanon, in Syria, in India, in Greece, in Jerusalem, in the U.S., etc. using their own rites and languages.
May 10, 2009, at 6:59 pm
I checked the Presbyterian/Reformed where I am an elder and was quite satisfied with the write-up.
FW: Ken. I also would like to see something on the Catholics of the Eastern Rites. We have a Greek Melkite Rite Catholic church here, with a Lebanese congregation where I visit for Good Friday services. I am quite curious about the similarities and differences.
May 10, 2009, at 7:13 pm
I could not find anything on Patheos on Eastern Catholics. Searches for “Melkite” and “Maronite” came up with nothing and a search for “Chaldean” did not mention the Catholic Chaldeans.
May 17, 2009, at 6:26 pm
The chain of sufi transmission begins with Mohammad, Peace be on him, and his companions. They did not receive their (sufi) practice and teaching from elsewhere, as they maintain, and there is no evidence to contradict their assertion. - On asceticism: moderation nearing asceticism is important in sufi groups almost universally. At times in their lives those on the sufi path may engage in pronounced asceticism, and later relax this ascetic state.
May 18, 2009, at 1:07 pm
[…] sections, and the lack of trained religion-beat reporters who “get” religion (and are avidly critical of the new-media […]
May 19, 2009, at 9:52 am
Karen, UUism *does* date from 1961. Before that time, it was two Christian denominations - Unitarianism and Universalism. As I noted in a previous posting, 21st Century UUism barely resembles either of these previous groupings. They seem to mention them in a religious context only to praise the free-thinking and rebelliousness of their beliefs.
May 19, 2009, at 10:04 am
Stephen, UUism was not created de novo when the UUA was formed. I went to a UU Sunday School in the decade prior to 1961 because the church was affiliated with both denominations.
Unitarianism had been a Christian denomination prior to the merger, but for some time leading up to the merger it had included both Humanists and Christians. History doesn’t repeat but sometimes it rhymes: Early in the 20th century the Unitarian church was stressed by a debate over whether Christians could co-exist with Humanists; in the 1980s the UUA was stressed over whether Humanists could co-exist with Pagans. Faithful church membership sometimes requires a robust sense of humor.