Article – Sectarian Splits

Religion is all about oneness and unity. It is one of the greatest ironies in human history that it is through the medium of religion that the biggest divisions take place – not just between faiths, but even within the faith. This has happened almost uniformly across religions.

When a faith splinters, the different sects may treat each other with mutual respect, but in many cases the splintering leads to senseless violence. There is no reason why sub sects within a religion should fuss over minor differences. Yet, history is littered with examples of people missing the forest for the trees, often with tragic consequences.

Jews have split into Orthodox, Conservative, Reform, and Reconstructionist. Christians fall into one of three broad divisions—Catholic, Protestant, and Eastern Orthodox—and within these broad divisions are a plethora of sub-sects. In fact, most estimates place the total number of Christian denominations across the globe at around 40,000! But the 3 main divisions arose due to 2 great schisms in the history of Christianity. First, the Catholic-Orthodox split occurred due to a combination of political and theological differences, such as the degree of authority that the Pope should have and the way that holy sacraments like Communion should be conducted.

Similarly, Protestants split from Catholics due to ideological differences that, again, had a lot to dodue with disagreements of how much power the Papal authorities should have, especially due to questions about their abuse of power.

New religions spring forth within the old, as a result of new revelations from God: for instance, God speaks to Moses and Judaism is founded; or the prophet Gabriel is sent to Mohammed, which eventually results in Islam. But prophets and religious leaders almost never seek to found new religions — they intend to correct the mistakes of existing ones.

Islam is considered to have three sects: Sunni and Shia, and the mystical branch of the Sufis. The Sunni—Shia split occurred due to a disagreement over who Muhammad’s successor should be, and Sufism further distinguished itself from these other 2 main sects by placing more emphasis on the unity of all religions, embracing many teachings from outside of Islam.

Hindus have far too many sects to count, since each of the numerous gods in the vast pantheon has its own following. The three main sects are Vaishnavism (followers of Vishnu), Shaivism (believers in Shiva), and Shaktism (the goddess). Within that are innumerable ways and deities of worship. But the essence of Hinduism lies in the idea of oneness and therefore all Hindus recognize the truth and validity of all deities and all sects, even though they may focus particular attention on one over the others.