A common misconception about Christianity and the Catholic church

A common misconception that I think many of us here in Asia hold is that Christianity and Catholicism are two separate religions. This is really a bit similar to saying that birds and chickens are two separate things.

In truth, Christianity covers all religious sects which believe in Jesus Christ, of which the two most major are Catholicism and Protestantism. What many of us think of as "Christianity" is really Protestantism. The blame may partially lie with the prevailing Chinese translation of the two, rendering Catholicism into 天主教: "The religion of the Lord of Heaven" and Protestantism into 基督教: "The religion of Christ". Viewed in this light, the misunderstanding is quite understandable.

Originally, the Catholic Church was the only major stream of Christianity. About 500 years ago, a fellow named Martin Luther raised some complaints about how the Church was handling things, as it had some corrupt elements. This led to some areas of Europe breaking away from the mainstream Church and forming their own churches, due to this movement starting with Martin Luther's protest it was called Protestantism. This has led to a lot of killing back and forth between the two divisions, but now everything is largely okay, so you can go to your friend's Catholic church without worrying about anything other than having to wake up extremely extremely early.

Most of the non-Catholic churches we are familiar with today reside under this banner. There are also branches which broke off for other reasons, the Eastern Orthodox church broke away after some sort of argument which I am unfamiliar with and too lazy to look up, so we will discuss that another day. The Anglican Church of England broke away because the then king of England could not get permission from the Pope to divorce his wife so he started his own church which would of course permit him to do so. Then we have some interesting groups like the Mormons and the Moonies, which would require their own article to do them justice.

Anyway that is the gist of it; if you wish to learn more about either religion please consult your friendly neighborhood pastor or priest. I myself don't go to church very often so sorry can't help there...