Midterm Practice

Question 1

What percentage of Americans are Christian?

Answer 1

77%

Question 2

How many Christians are Protestant?

Answer 2

50%

Question 3

Explain the Protestant percentage breakdown:

Answer 3

Evangelical: 25%
Black Churches: 7%
Mainline: 18%

Question 4

What percentage of Americans are Catholic?

Answer 4

24%

Question 5

How many are Mormon? Orthodox? Jehovah’s Witness?

Answer 5

Mormon: 2%
Orthodox: 0.05%
Jehovah’s Witness: 0.05%

Question 6

What are the percentages for other religions (outside Christianity)?

Answer 6

Total: 23%
Jewish: 2%
Muslim: 0.05%
Hindu: 0.05%
Buddhist: 0.05%
Unitarian Universalists: 0.05%
Other: 1%
Nones: 18%

Question 7

What is the role of stories in religion?

Answer 7

Morality and judgement vs. equality in God’s eyes.
Tradition vs. Progress
Law vs. Ministry
Trusting Institution vs. Trusting Individual
Accountability vs. Forgiveness
Wrath vs. Gentleness

Question 8

What is Historical Interpretation?

Answer 8

Original purpose, historical context, author intention, and what really happened. Typically scholarly.

Question 9

What is Literal Interpretation?

Answer 9

Attempt to look at text literally, doesn’t take historical context into account, can’t apply all texts. For example, Islam doesn’t eat pork, Christian women not speaking in Church.

Question 10

What is Tradition Based Interpretation?

Answer 10

High regard for dominant traditions in community. For example, Buddhism is based on lineage, Catholicism, Islam women wearing hijabs.

Question 11

What is Identity Based Interpretation?

Answer 11

Based on position in society (though often not acknowledged) to rationalize desire. Slavery in the south, for example.

Question 12

What is Post-Structuralism/Post-Modern?

Answer 12

Not one particular meaning to text, hard to know historical context and author intent, and predominantly academic. Primarily applied to Christian text.

Question 13

What is Literary Interpretation?

Answer 13

View texts as literature, learned through narratives, complex documents, and focuses on the author’s stories. The creation story as mythology, for example.

Question 14

Revelatory/Experimental Interpretation?

Answer 14

Religious experience helps interpretation of texts. For example, fundamentalists reading the Bible together, prayer, singing hymns, etc.

Question 15

<20% of American Christians are…

Answer 15

Mainline Protestants

Question 16

Mainline Protestants are made up of

Answer 16

presbyterian, Disciples of Christ, Methodist, Episcopalians, Lutherans, Quakers, and Am. Baptists.

Question 17

They tend to place an emphasis on _____

Answer 17

social justice.

Question 18

They’re often considered to be ____

Answer 18

more liberal than evangelicals. The Bible is authoritative, but not necessarily literal.

Question 19

What is the goal of a reconciling congregation?

Answer 19

Raise important questions about the relationship between politics and religion, the individual and the church, and questions of truth, sin, and biblical interpretations.
Civic Identity vs. Religious Identity.
Support LGBTQ.

Question 20

What are the three types of Baptism with the Holy Spirit in Pentecostalism?

Answer 20

1) Baptism into the Body of Christ refers to salvation.
2) Water Baptism is symbollic of dying to the world and living in Christ.
3) Baptism with the Holy Spirit is where Christ is the agent, the Holy Spirit the medium.

Question 21

What is eschatology?

Answer 21

(Pentecostalism) Concerned with final events of man kind and Christ’s possible return at any time.

Question 22

What are some characteristics of Pentecostalism?

Answer 22

Divine healing (prayer is essential) and spiritual gifts which are received as a result of baptism and grouped into vocal and prophetic power.

Question 23

What is glossolalia?

Answer 23

The practice of speaking in tongues?

Question 24

What is premillenialism?

Answer 24

Jesus will literally be on the Earth for his millennial reign at his second coming.

Question 25

What is dispensational premillenialism?

Answer 25

Israel and the Church are distinct entities and that Jesus will take the Christians into Heaven by means of rapture before a seven year world wide tribulation.

Question 26

When and how was Islam founded?

Answer 26

~590 c.e. when Gabriel’s message to Muhammad from Allah became the foundation of the Q’uran.

Question 27

What are the Five Pillars of Islam?

Answer 27

1) Profession of Faith
2) Prayer of Worship (5x a day)
3) Almsgiving (mandatory charity because all wealth belongs to God)
4) Fasting (observance of Ramadan)
5) Pilgrimage to Mecca/Medina

Question 28

What are the two major denominations of Islam?

Answer 28

1) Sunni (80-90%) visit Mecca and lineage of Muhammad is not important.
2) Shia (10-20%) visit Medina and adhere to Muhammad’s lineage.

Question 29

What is the relationship between the individual and the community?

Answer 29

Large community emphasis.

Question 30

What do Unitarians believe?

Answer 30

Believe in one God, not the Trinity. (Jesus had connections to God, but wasn’t actually God.)

Question 31

What do Universalists believe?

Answer 31

They believe in redemption and salvation of entire human race by God.

Question 32

When did the Unitarians and Universalists merge?

Answer 32

1961 to create the UUA.

Question 33

Is there a creed in UU?

Answer 33

No.

Question 34

What social justices do they support?

Answer 34

Gay rights, feminism, and racial equality. They believe in respect for the individual with an added emphasis on the community.

Question 35

What are the six sources?

Answer 35

1) Direct experiences
2) Prophets
3) Wisdom of world religions
4) Jewish/Christian teachings
5) Humanist teachings
6) Earth-centered traditions

Question 36

What are the seven principles?

Answer 36

1) inherent worth and dignity
2) justice, equality, and compassion
3) acceptance of one another
4) free and responsible search for truth and meaning
5) democratic process
6) world community with peace, liberty, and justice for all
7) interdependent web of existance