Q.1
Your 'starter': which of these is NOT an actual, or major, arm of the Christian Church?
  • Orthodox
  • Protestant
  • (Roman) Catholic
  • Liberation
Q.2
If, a few years back, you ever prepared for '11+-style' Verbal Reasoning tests, you may have come across a type of question that says (for instance): 'A library always has (windows, lamps, books, silence, tables).' The appropriate answer would have been 'books', since without these, it would hardly be worthy of the name; each of the other items is important, but less essentially characteristic. Now, bearing in mind how widely churches and their customs and traditions vary, which of the following would you have picked as the strongest distinctive common feature ~ if you had been set a similar question along the lines of 'A church has ...'?
  • Hymnbooks
  • Regular Christian worship
  • Sunday School, or equivalent
  • Stained glass
Q.3
Let's have another go at the same essential question from a slightly different angle: 'A church will always have (pick only ONE) ... '
  • Priests
  • Financial challenges, requiring individual and collective (money/lifestyle) sacrifice
  • A congregation (community of regular worshippers)
  • One or more copy/ies of the Holy Bible, preferably in the local language
Q.4
To the nearest reasonable margin, how long has it been since the Protestant Church devolved from Roman Catholicism in the Reformation?
  • 250 years (making this roughly contemporaneous with the Industrial Revolution)
  • 500 years (in the 'teens' of the 16th century)
  • 750 years (not long after the Magna Carta, in the Middle Ages)
  • 1,000 years (halfway back through the Christian era; around the time of the Norman Conquest at Hastings)
Q.5
What is the formal name for the movement which encourages unity and empathy between various branches of the Church, concentrating on what they celebrate in common, and urging tolerance of one another's more detailed differences?
  • Evangelism
  • Ecumenism
  • Reconciliation
  • Reunionism
Q.6
As Jesus Himself once famously assured His believers, 'Where two or three are gathered in my name, ... (?) ...
  • There will I be also'
  • God shall dwell with them and they shall be His people'
  • Let the true prayers of the righteous be offered to our Heavenly Father'
  • There stands the Church in spirit'
Q.7
Some people (not without reason) initially picture a church ~ any church, in general principle ~ as a calm, ordered place of sanctuary, where a troubled soul can draw apart from life's perplexities and seek fellowship and solace. Most parts of The Church (in its more general sense) meanwhile continue to grapple with major lifestyle and demographic concerns, seeking to discern how God is calling them to respond. Which of the following have been principal challenges as we move through the '20-teens'?
  • Whether to allow and appoint female ministers (priests, if that church has them); and if so, right up to the highest level (as bishop or even archbishop)
  • How, most sympathetically, to deal with requests for marriage ceremonies from couples of the same sex; and what policy to adopt on ministers (priests etc.) who are themselves gay ~ or perhaps have previous failed marriages behind them, of their own
  • Diligent, yet sympathetic and effective, protection of vulnerable people in the church's care (e.g. of young congregants from abuse)
  • All of the above
Q.8
Who was once famously described by Jesus as 'the rock upon which I shall build my church'?
  • St James
  • St Peter (previously known as Simon)
  • St John
  • St Paul
Q.9
ONE of the following significant branches of the Church has been brought forward in the list below, from the point at which it split from its parent church (obviously it can't therefore be answer 4). Which one is too early in the sequence?
  • Orthodoxy from Catholicism
  • Methodism from within the Church of England
  • The Protestant Church from Roman Catholicism
  • Pentecostalism from Methodism
Q.10
Most branches of the Church ~ while perhaps differing over criteria and examples ~ would probably be proud to align themselves, in terms of the Creed indeed, alongside the tradition of the saints: men and women honoured for their unusually holy lives (and, in many cases, deaths). The story goes of a young child ~ probably a little too young for much detailed theology ~ who, when asked what a saint was, replied: 'A saint is someone the light shines through'. Even here there's a lovely parable ... which of the following would NOT be a suitable interpretation?
  • A saint is someone whose shining (supposed) likeness may be seen in a church's stained-glass window, as a reminder and example to successive generations of believers and worshippers ~ earlier among whom, may have been people who hadn't been able to learn to read, but could at least be offered visual cues by means of such pictures
  • A saint is someone not necessarily with a 'halo', yet through whose ongoing life and behaviour the active love of God can be glimpsed
  • Sainthood is a transparent illusion
  • Saintliness is a form of revelation of God at work, which echoes numerous Bible stories in which He signals His presence &/or blessing in the form of light ('Let there be light' / the covenantal rainbow / the Burning Bush / Elijah and the Prophets of Baal, etc. ... )
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