Branches
Among the main groups of Christianity, there are Catholics, Orthodox, and Protestants. In the Catholic Church and Eastern Orthodoxy, Sacred Tradition, but not "ecclesial traditions", is considered official doctrine and of equal authoritative weight to the Bible. Among conservative Protestants, the Bible itself is the only final authority (see sola scriptura and prima scriptura), but tradition still plays an important supporting role. All three groups generally accept the traditional developments on the doctrine of the Trinity, for instance, and set bounds of orthodoxy and heresy based on that tradition. They also have developed creedal and confessional statements which summarize and develop their understanding of biblical teaching.
Read more about this topic: Christian Tradition
Famous quotes containing the word branches:
“A good word is as a good tree—
its roots are firm,
and its branches are in heaven;
it gives its produce every season
by the leave of its Lord.”
—Qur’An. Abraham 14:29-30, ed. Arthur J. Arberry (1955)
“There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the root, and it may be that he who bestows the largest amount of time and money on the needy is doing the most by his mode of life to produce that misery which he strives in vain to relieve.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Go to the adolescent who are smothered in family—
Oh how hideous it is
To see three generations of one house gathered together!
It is like an old tree with shoots,
And with some branches rotted and falling.”
—Ezra Pound (1885–1972)