Denominationalism presents the denomination as a voluntaristic ecclesial body. It is voluntary and therefore presupposes a condition of legal or de facto toleration and religious freedom–an environment within which it is possible, in fact, willingly to join or not join and that provides “space” to exist alongside or outside of any religious establishment. Th denoination exists in a situation of religious pluralism, typically a pluralism of denominations. It is *ecclesial, *a movement or body understanding itself to be legitimate and self-sufficient, a proper “church” (or religious movement.) It is *a *voluntary church, a body that concedes the authenticity of other churches even as it claims its own. It need not, however, concede that authenticity indiscriminately; it need not, and typically does not, regard all other denominations as orthodox. And it is an ecclesial *body *or form, an organized religious movement, with intentions and the capacity for self-perpetuation, with a sense of itself as located within time and with awareness of its relation to the longer Christian tradition. It knows itself as denominated, as named, as recognized and recognizable, as having boundaries, as possessing adherents, as having a history. In these several regards, the denomination differentiates itself from reform impulses that may take similar structural form but construe themselves as belonging within; fro teh church that does not regard itself as voluntary or as sharing societal space with other legitimate religious bodies; from the sect, which, although also voluntary, does not locate itself easily in time or recognize boundaries or tolerate other bodies or concede their authenticity.
The term denomination and, if Winthrop Hudson is correct, the theory antedate the phenomenon itself. The term was used initially in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries to identify religious postures that could be identified and hence named, such as Arminians. The theory derived from the ecclesiology of the Congregationalists or Independents, a view of the church as institutionalizing itself plurally (and locally) but not in separation or schism, as distinct but not schismatic.
Denominationalism, on the other hand, is a term of more recent vintage, considerably postdating the phenomenon itself. It now functions to describe both denominational theory and the resultant condition or situation of institutionalized division. The accent, particularly in theological and ecumenical hands, tends to fall on the latter part of the definition–“institutionalized division”–and seemingly requires no further comment. While not ignoring division, we will attend here to the condition or situation and its (often implicit) theory. Our argument is that, like democracy or capitalism, denominationalism persists as a complex of theory and practice, of process and form, and has taken very different complexions over its life. Indeed, one feature of denominational complexion has been its relationship with society, commerce, and the state, the “face” that the denominations presented to the culture within which they functioned.
Denominations as we know them may well be breaking up. If so, it need not mean the end to the religious movements now denominated, many of which (for example, Lutherans, Presbyterians, Mennonites, Baptists, Congregationalists) had a predenominational ecclesial existence and have no reason to confuse their essence with its current denominational expression. Denominationalism is a relatively recent phenomenon and may have outlived its usefulness. It may, on the other hand, be simply going through another of its metamorphoses.
Is it not a “sect of Christianity”?
…really I’m trying my best to understand how it is not or not an oxymoron…
