Conservative Christianity - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

For conservative political views within Christianity, see Christian right
Christian right
Christian right is a term used predominantly in the United States to describe "right-wing" Christian political groups that are characterized by their strong support of socially conservative policies...

.

Conservative Christianity (also called traditional Christianity) is a term applied to a number of groups or movements seen as giving priority to traditional Christian

Christianity

Christianity is a monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus as presented in canonical gospels and other New Testament writings...

beliefs and practices. It is sometimes called conservative theology

Theology

Theology is the systematic and rational study of religion and its influences and of the nature of religious truths, or the learned profession acquired by completing specialized training in religious studies, usually at a university or school of divinity or seminary.-Definition:Augustine of Hippo...

, an umbrella term covering various movements within Christianity and describing both corporate denominational

Christian denomination

A Christian denomination is an identifiable religious body under a common name, structure, and doctrine within Christianity. In the Orthodox tradition, Churches are divided often along ethnic and linguistic lines, into separate churches and traditions. Technically, divisions between one group and...

and personal views of Scripture.

The term conservative Christian is frequently used by Protestant evangelical

Evangelicalism

Evangelicalism is a Protestant Christian movement which began in Great Britain in the 1730s and gained popularity in the United States during the series of Great Awakenings of the 18th and 19th century.Its key commitments are:...

s and Protestant fundamentalist

Fundamentalist Christianity

Christian fundamentalism, also known as Fundamentalist Christianity, or Fundamentalism, arose out of British and American Protestantism in the late 19th century and early 20th century among evangelical Christians...

s as a way to distinguish themselves from the more liberal Protestant denominations, which stress the teachings of Jesus rather than the more severe methods of social control advocated in the Old Testament. This often leads to different understanding of what is and is not "conservative". It is also applied to the Catholic Church and Eastern Orthodox churches as well, not only in the case of moral theology

Moral theology

Moral theology is a systematic theological treatment of Christian ethics. It is usually taught on Divinity faculties as a part of the basic curriculum.- External links :*...

, but also more traditional in the sense of the practice of Christianity itself.

The term traditional Christianity can be misleading as early Christianity

Early Christianity

Early Christianity is generally considered as Christianity before 325. The New Testament's Book of Acts and Epistle to the Galatians records that the first Christian community was centered in Jerusalem and its leaders included James, Peter and John....

began as a diverse movement. While virtually all forms of modern Christianity go back to a single form of Christianity that emerged from the conflicts of the second and third centuries, early Christians debated the divinity and humanity of Jesus Christ, the relationship of Jesus to the God of the Jews, and which texts were inspired, among many other issues.

General beliefs

There may be considerable overlap between certain aspects of Conservative Christianity and Christian fundamentalism, but the two terms are not synonymous. All core traditional beliefs of conservative Christians can be found in the three creedal statements

Creed

A creed is a statement of belief—usually a statement of faith that describes the beliefs shared by a religious community—and is often recited as part of a religious service. When the statement of faith is longer and polemical, as well as didactic, it is not called a creed but a Confession of faith...

, i.e. Apostles' Creed

Apostles' Creed

The Apostles' Creed , sometimes titled Symbol of the Apostles, is an early statement of Christian belief, a creed or "symbol"...

, Nicene Creed

Nicene Creed

The Nicene Creed is the creed or profession of faith that is most widely used in Christian liturgy. It is called Nicene because, in its original form, it was adopted in the city of Nicaea by the first ecumenical council, which met there in the year 325.The Nicene Creed has been normative to the...

, and Athanasian Creed

Athanasian Creed

The Athanasian Creed is a Christian statement of belief, focusing on Trinitarian doctrine and Christology. The Latin name of the creed, Quicumque vult, is taken from the opening words, "Whosoever wishes." The Athanasian Creed has been used by Christian churches since the sixth century...

; however, many Protestant evangelicals and Protestant fundamentalists reject creeds of any kind. The Protestant Auburn Affirmation

Auburn Affirmation

The Auburn Affirmation was a document dated May 1924, with the title "AN AFFIRMATION designed to safeguard the unity and liberty of the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America", authored by an eleven-member Conference Committee and signed by 1274 ministers of the PCUSA...

in the 1920s asserted the five points of difference with the liberal Christianity

Liberal Christianity

Liberal Christianity, sometimes called liberal theology, is an umbrella term covering diverse, philosophically and biblically informed religious movements and ideas within Christianity from the late 18th century and onward...

of the time.

The inerrancy
Biblical inerrancy
Biblical inerrancy is the doctrinal position that the Bible is accurate and totally free of error, that "Scripture in the original manuscripts does not affirm anything that is contrary to fact." Some equate inerrancy with infallibility; others do not.Conservative Christians generally believe that...

of the Bible
The virgin birth (and the deity of Jesus
Trinity
The Christian doctrine of the Trinity defines God as three divine persons : the Father, the Son , and the Holy Spirit. The three persons are distinct yet coexist in unity, and are co-equal, co-eternal and consubstantial . Put another way, the three persons of the Trinity are of one being...

)
The bodily resurrection of Jesus
Resurrection of Jesus
The Christian belief in the resurrection of Jesus states that Jesus returned to bodily life on the third day following his death by crucifixion. It is a key element of Christian faith and theology and part of the Nicene Creed: "On the third day he rose again in fulfillment of the Scriptures"...
The authenticity of Christ's miracles
Miracles of Jesus
The miracles of Jesus are the supernatural deeds of Jesus, as recorded in Gospels, in the course of his ministry. According to the Gospel of John, only some of these were recorded. states that "Jesus did many other things as well...
The belief in both a literal Heaven
Heaven
Heaven, the Heavens or Seven Heavens, is a common religious cosmological or metaphysical term for the physical or transcendent place from which heavenly beings originate, are enthroned or inhabit...

and a literal Hell
Hell
In many religious traditions, a hell is a place of suffering and punishment in the afterlife. Religions with a linear divine history often depict hells as endless. Religions with a cyclic history often depict a hell as an intermediary period between incarnations...

.

Controversy with the term traditional Christianity

The terms traditional Christianity and conservative Christianity are misleading as they imply that there is a single traditional Christianity. Diversity is not a new addition to Christianity and early Christians did not agree on basic principles of the faith.

It is true that modern day Christianity is diverse. To illustrate the diversity, there are Roman Catholic nuns, Mormons, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Reformed neo-Calvinists, Appalachian snake handlers, liberal Methodist political activists, Pentecostals, and Greek Orthodox Christians. Several of these groups refuse to consider other groups "Christian."

Despite the rich diversity of modern day Christianity, Christianity in the first few centuries was even more diverse. In the second and third centuries, there were Christians who believed that Jesus was divine and human, God and man, which is what most Christians today believe. However, there were also Christians who insisted that Jesus was not divine, and was adopted by the one true God as his son due to his special righteousness. There were also Christians who argued that Jesus was completely divine, and not at all human. (For these Christians, divinity and humanity were incommensurate entities: God could no more be a human than a human could be a tree.) Some other Christians believed that Jesus was actually 2 separate being. One being was a man, and the other was a divine being. The divine being inspired Jesus’ ministry, but left him prior to his death.

The relationship of Christianity to Judaism also varied greatly among early Christians in the first, second, and third centuries. Some Christians believed that the Jewish Scriptures (which would later become the Christian "Old testament") were inspired by the one true God. Other Christians thought it was inspired, but only by the Jewish God who was not the one true God. Some Christians believed that the God of the Jews was an evil being. Other early Christians believed the Jewish Scriptures were not inspired by any divine being.

The texts that early Christians considered sacred also differed greatly. The Gospels that were eventually included were attributed to Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. However at the same time other gospels were regarded as sacred. For example there was a gospel attributed to Simon Peter, another by the apostle Phillip, another by the apostle Thomas, and another by Jesus’ female disciple Mary Magdalene. Even the traitor disciple Judas received his own gospel treatment.

Despite the wide diversity of Christianity in the first few centuries, one version of Christianity emerged victorious. This version of Christianity insisted that Jesus was both human and divine. They also defined the doctrine of the Trinity. Finally, they decided on which books were inspired, and which would be included in the Bible. Virtually all forms of Christianity today emerged from this strain of Christianity that emerged victorious in the second and third centuries. This version of Christianity is sometimes referred to as traditional Christianity. However, it would be an error to say that most of the earliest Christians followed this version of Christianity.

Scholars, theologians, and writers

There are a variety of threads including the Conservative Evangelical Movement

Conservative Evangelicalism

Conservative Evangelicalism is a term used in Britain to describe a theological movement found within Evangelical Protestant Christianity, and is sometimes simply synonymous with Evangelical within the United Kingdom...

, the Holiness movement

Holiness movement

The holiness movement refers to a set of beliefs and practices emerging from the Methodist Christian church in the mid 19th century. The movement is distinguished by its emphasis on John Wesley's doctrine of "Christian perfection" - the belief that it is possible to live free of voluntary sin - and...

, the Pentecostal Movement

Pentecostalism

Pentecostalism is a diverse and complex movement within Christianity that places special emphasis on a direct personal experience of God through the baptism in the Holy Spirit, has an eschatological focus, and is an experiential religion. The term Pentecostal is derived from Pentecost, the Greek...

, the Fundamentalist Movement, the Charismatic

Charismatic movement

The term charismatic movement is used in varying senses to describe 20th century developments in various Christian denominations. It describes an ongoing international, cross-denominational/non-denominational Christian movement in which individual, historically mainstream congregations adopt...

Movement and the Confessing Movement

Confessing Movement

The Confessing Movement is an Evangelical movement within several mainline Protestant denominations to return those churches to what the members of the movement see as theological orthodoxy....

. Each has its distinct aspects, but also many similarities.

Conservative Protestant scholars and theologians include:

Contemporary:

Greg Bahnsen
Greg Bahnsen
Greg L. Bahnsen was an influential Calvinist philosopher, apologist, and debater. He was an ordained minister in the Orthodox Presbyterian Church and a full time Scholar in Residence for the Southern California Center for Christian Studies.-Early life and education:He was the first born of two...
Donald G. Bloesch
Donald G. Bloesch
Donald G. Bloesch was a noted American evangelical theologian. For more than 40 years, he published scholarly yet accessible works that generally defend traditional Protestant beliefs and practices while seeking to remain in the mainstream of modern Protestant theological thought...
F. F. Bruce
F. F. Bruce
Frederick Fyvie Bruce was a Biblical scholar and one of the founders of the modern evangelical understanding of the Bible...
D. A. Carson
Norman Geisler
Norman Geisler
Norman L. Geisler is a Christian apologist and the co-founder of Southern Evangelical Seminary outside Charlotte, North Carolina, where he formerly taught. He holds a Ph.D. in philosophy from Jesuit Loyola University...
John Warwick Montgomery
John Warwick Montgomery
John Warwick Montgomery is a noted lawyer, professor, Lutheran theologian, and prolific author living in France. He was born October 18, 1931, in Warsaw, New York, United States. In 2007 he was named "Distinguished Research Professor of Philosophy and Christian Thought" at Patrick Henry College...
Gary Habermas
Gary Habermas
Gary Robert Habermas is an American evangelical Christian apologist, historian, and philosopher of religion. He is a prolific author, lecturer, and debater on the topic of the Resurrection of Jesus...
D. James Kennedy (d.2007)
Kenneth Kitchen
Kenneth Kitchen
Kenneth Anderson Kitchen is Personal and Brunner Professor Emeritus of Egyptology and Honorary Research Fellow at the School of Archaeology, Classics and Egyptology, University of Liverpool, England...
Bruce Metzger
Bruce Metzger
Bruce Manning Metzger was a professor at Princeton Theological Seminary and Bible editor who served on the board of the American Bible Society. He was a scholar of Greek, New Testament and Old Testament, and wrote prolifically on these subjects.- Biography :Metzger was born in Middletown,...

(d.2003)
Alan Millard
Alan Millard
Alan Ralph Millard is Rankin Professor Emeritus of Hebrew and Ancient Semitic Languages, and Honorary Senior Fellow , at the School of Archaeology, Classics and Egyptology in the University of Liverpool....
Thomas C. Oden
Thomas C. Oden
Thomas Clark Oden is an American United Methodist theologian and religious author associated with Drew University in New Jersey. He was born in Altus, Oklahoma, and holds a Doctor of Literature from Asbury College....
R. C. Sproul
R. C. Sproul
Robert Charles Sproul, is a prominent American Calvinist theologian, author, and pastor of the Reformed tradition...
Merrill Unger
Merrill Unger
Merrill Frederick Unger was a Bible commentator, scholar, and theologian. He earned his A.B. and Ph.D degrees at Johns Hopkins University, and his Th.M and Th.D degrees at Dallas Theological Seminary. After serving as a pastor at several churches, Unger taught for a year at Gordon College...
Cornelius Van Til
Cornelius Van Til
Cornelius Van Til , born in Grootegast, the Netherlands, was a Christian philosopher, Reformed theologian, and presuppositional apologist.-Biography:...
Bryant G. Wood
Bryant G. Wood
Bryant G. Wood is a Young Earth creationist and biblical archaeologist and Research Director of the inerrantist Associates for Biblical Research. He is known for his 1990 proposed redating of the destruction of Jericho to accord with the biblical chronology of c. 1400 BC. The proposal was later ...
Edwin M. Yamauchi
Edwin M. Yamauchi
Dr. Edwin Maseo Yamauchi is a Japanese American historian, Christian apologist, editor and academic. He is Professor Emeritus of History at Miami University, where he taught from 1969 until 2005...
John Piper (theologian)
John Piper (theologian)
John Stephen Piper is a Christian preacher and author, currently serving as Pastor for Preaching and Vision of Bethlehem Baptist Church in Minneapolis, Minnesota...

Historical:

Oswald T. Allis
Oswald T. Allis
-Biography:He was born in 1880 and received his doctorate from the University of Berlin, and received an honorary Doctor of Divinity degree from Hampden Sydney College in 1927. He taught in the Department of Semitic Philology at Princeton Theological Seminary . In 1929 Allis, J. Gresham Machen,...

(1856–1930)
William Henry Green
William Henry Green
William Henry Green , American Hebrew scholar, was born in Groveville, near Bordentown, New Jersey.-Biography:...

(1825–1900)
James Orr
James Orr (theologian)
James Orr was a Scottish Presbyterian minister and professor of church history and then theology. He was an influential defender of evangelical doctrine and a contributor to The Fundamentals.- Biography :...

(1844–1913)
William Mitchell Ramsay
William Mitchell Ramsay
Sir William Mitchell Ramsay was a Scottish archaeologist and New Testament scholar. By his death in 1939 he had become the foremost authority of his day on the history of Asia Minor and a leading scholar in the study of the New Testament...

(1851–1939) Archaeologist
Robert Pearsall Smith
Robert Pearsall Smith
Robert Pearsall Smith was a lay leader in the Holiness movement in the United States and the Higher Life movement in Great Britain. His book Holiness Through Faith is one of the foundational works of the Holiness movement...

and Hannah Whitall Smith
Hannah Whitall Smith
Hannah Tatum Whitall Smith was a lay speaker and author in the Holiness movement in the United States and the Higher Life movement in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland...

, leaders in the Holiness movement
Holiness movement
The holiness movement refers to a set of beliefs and practices emerging from the Methodist Christian church in the mid 19th century. The movement is distinguished by its emphasis on John Wesley's doctrine of "Christian perfection" - the belief that it is possible to live free of voluntary sin - and...
Henry Venn (1725–1797)—founder of the small, but highly influential Clapham Sect
Clapham Sect
The Clapham Sect or Clapham Saints were a group of influential like-minded Church of England social reformers based in Clapham, London at the beginning of the 19th century...

in Britain. His grandson, also named Henry Venn
Henry Venn (Church Missionary Society)
Henry Venn , was an Anglican clergyman who is recognised as one of the foremost Protestant missions strategists of the nineteenth century. He was an outstanding administrator who served as honorary secretary of the Church Missionary Society from 1841 to 1873...

(1796–1873), pioneered the basic principles of indigenous church mission theory
Indigenous church mission theory
Indigenous churches are churches suited to local culture and led by local Christians. There have been two main Protestant strategies proposed for the creation of indigenous churches:...

.
C.F.W. Walther (1811–1887)—Lutheran, "founder" of the Lutheran Church - Missouri Synod
Lutheran Church - Missouri Synod
The Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod is a traditional, confessional Lutheran denomination in the United States. With 2.3 million members, it is both the eighth largest Protestant denomination and the second-largest Lutheran body in the U.S. after the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. The Synod...

.
Benjamin Breckinridge Warfield
Benjamin Breckinridge Warfield
Benjamin Breckinridge Warfield was professor of theology at Princeton Seminary from 1887 to 1921. Some conservative Presbyterians consider him to be the last of the great Princeton theologians before the split in 1929 that formed Westminster Seminary and the Orthodox Presbyterian Church.-Early...

(1851–1921) Reformed thinker.
Robert Dick Wilson
Robert Dick Wilson
Robert Dick Wilson was an American linguist and Presbyterian scholar who devoted his life to prove the reliability of the Hebrew Bible...

(d.1930)

Popular conservative Protestant writers and Christian apologists

Christian apologetics

Christian apologetics is a field of Christian theology that aims to present a rational basis for the Christian faith, defend the faith against objections, and expose the perceived flaws of other world views...

include:

Edward John Carnell
Edward John Carnell
Edward John Carnell was a prominent Christian theologian and apologist, was an ordained Baptist pastor, and served as President of Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, California. He was the author of nine major books, several of which attempted to develop a fresh outlook in Christian...
Josh McDowell
Josh McDowell
Joslin "Josh" McDowell is a Christian apologist, evangelist, and writer. He is within the Evangelical tradition of Protestant Christianity, and is the author or co-author of some 77 books. His best-known book is Evidence That Demands a Verdict, which was ranked 13th in Christianity Today's list of...
Ralph Muncaster
John Stott
John Stott
John Robert Walmsley Stott CBE was an English Christian leader and Anglican cleric who was noted as a leader of the worldwide Evangelical movement. He was one of the principal authors of the Lausanne Covenant in 1974...
Lee Strobel
Lee Strobel
Lee Patrick Strobel is a writer, creationist, former journalist and former megachurch pastor. He is the author of several books, including four which received ECPA Christian Book Awards and a series which addresses challenges to a Biblically inerrant view of Christianity...
Ravi Zacharias
Ravi Zacharias
Frederick Antony Ravi Kumar Zacharias is an Indian-born, Canadian-American evangelical Christian apologist. Zacharias is the author of numerous Christian books, including Gold Medallion Book Award winner Can Man Live Without God? and bestsellers Light in the Shadow of Jihad and The Grand Weaver...

Conservative Catholicism

Conservatism in Catholicism primarily refers to the upholding of the Catholic Church official teachings concerning the sanctity of marriage

Marriage

Marriage is a social union or legal contract between people that creates kinship. It is an institution in which interpersonal relationships, usually intimate and sexual, are acknowledged in a variety of ways, depending on the culture or subculture in which it is found...

, the prohibition of artificial birth control

Birth control

Birth control is an umbrella term for several techniques and methods used to prevent fertilization or to interrupt pregnancy at various stages. Birth control techniques and methods include contraception , contragestion and abortion...

, the sanctity of life from conception to natural death, the importance of traditional male

Ordination

In general religious use, ordination is the process by which individuals are consecrated, that is, set apart as clergy to perform various religious rites and ceremonies. The process and ceremonies of ordination itself varies by religion and denomination. One who is in preparation for, or who is...

clergy

Clergy

Clergy is the generic term used to describe the formal religious leadership within a given religion. A clergyman, churchman or cleric is a member of the clergy, especially one who is a priest, preacher, pastor, or other religious professional....

, prohibitions on divorce

Divorce

Divorce is the final termination of a marital union, canceling the legal duties and responsibilities of marriage and dissolving the bonds of matrimony between the parties...

and homosexuality

Homosexuality

Homosexuality is romantic or sexual attraction or behavior between members of the same sex or gender. As a sexual orientation, homosexuality refers to "an enduring pattern of or disposition to experience sexual, affectional, or romantic attractions" primarily or exclusively to people of the same...

, and other similar theological and moral matters.

The encyclical Humani Generis
Humani Generis
Humani generis is a papal encyclical that Pope Pius XII promulgated on 12 August 1950 "concerning some false opinions threatening to undermine the foundations of Catholic Doctrine"...

(1950) of Pope Pius XII

Pope Pius XII

The Venerable Pope Pius XII , born Eugenio Maria Giuseppe Giovanni Pacelli , reigned as Pope, head of the Catholic Church and sovereign of Vatican City State, from 2 March 1939 until his death in 1958....

began the process of affirming that the doctrine of the Catholic Church is compatible with scientific findings relating to evolution. See also Evolution and the Roman Catholic Church
Evolution and the Roman Catholic Church
Since the publication of Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species in 1859, the attitude of the Catholic Church on the theory of evolution has slowly been refined. For about 100 years, there was no authoritative pronouncement on the subject. By 1950, Pope Pius XII agreed to the academic freedom to...

.

The Vatican and the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops have questioned the necessity of the death penalty in modern society, as well as having opposed the US War in Iraq, in addition to claiming as morally incompatible with Christian living: abortion, in-vitro fertilization, and embryonic stem-cell research. They also continue to call for arms control (but not elimination of gun rights) and for debt relief for poor nations.

Traditionalist Catholics

A traditionalist Catholic is a member of the Catholic Church who believes that there should be a restoration of the liturgical

Liturgy

Liturgy is either the customary public worship done by a specific religious group, according to its particular traditions or a more precise term that distinguishes between those religious groups who believe their ritual requires the "people" to do the "work" of responding to the priest, and those...

forms, public and private devotions, and presentation of Catholic teachings that prevailed in the Catholic Church before the Second Vatican Council

Second Vatican Council

The Second Vatican Council addressed relations between the Roman Catholic Church and the modern world. It was the twenty-first Ecumenical Council of the Catholic Church and the second to be held at St. Peter's Basilica in the Vatican. It opened under Pope John XXIII on 11 October 1962 and closed...

(1962–1965).. There is a difference between "traditional Catholics" and "traditionalist Catholics", the former being Catholics loyal to the Church's teaching, but not necessarily desiring liturgical reform or a return to the Tridentine Liturgy.

Different types of traditionalists

Traditionalist Catholics may be divided into four broad groups.

Traditionalists enjoying the favour of the Holy See: traditionalist priests and laypeople in good standing with the official hierarchy of the Catholic Church. Several officially-approved societies of traditionalist priests exist, most notably the Priestly Fraternity of St. Peter
Priestly Fraternity of St. Peter
The Priestly Fraternity of St. Peter is a traditionalist Catholic Society of Apostolic Life of priests and seminarians in good standing with the Holy See.-Canonical status:...

(FSSP), the Institute of Christ the King Sovereign Priest
Institute of Christ the King Sovereign Priest
The Institute of Christ the King Sovereign Priest is a society of priests in the Catholic Church that celebrates the Liturgy in Latin in accordance with its constitutions and founding documents. Its goals are to preserve and patronize traditional Latin Rite liturgical art and music...

(ICRSS) and the Personal Apostolic Administration of Saint John Mary Vianney
Personal Apostolic Administration of Saint John Mary Vianney
The Personal Apostolic Administration of Saint John Mary Vianney was established on 18 January 2002 by Pope John Paul II for traditionalist Catholic clergy and laity within the Diocese of Campos in Brazil. It is the only Personal Apostolic Administration in existence...

(PAASJV). Traditionalists of this sort tend to regard the liturgical changes in the Church that followed the Second Vatican Council as being at least tolerable, though they may disapprove of them and wish them to be reversed.

Traditionalists not enjoying the favour of the Holy See: traditionalist priests and laypeople who practise their faith outside the Church, therefore existing in a state of schism, though they vehemently affirm their loyalty to the Church and to the papacy. The largest priestly society of this tendency is the Society of St. Pius X
Society of St. Pius X
The Society of Saint Pius X is an international Traditionalist Catholic organisation, founded in 1970 by the French archbishop Marcel Lefebvre...

(SSPX), which was established in 1970 by Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre
Marcel Lefebvre
Marcel François Marie Joseph Lefebvre was a French Roman Catholic archbishop. Following a career as an Apostolic Delegate for West Africa and Superior General of the Holy Ghost Fathers, he took the lead in opposing the changes within the Church associated with the Second Vatican Council.In 1970,...

, a founding figure of Catholic traditionalism. Members of this category view the post-Conciliar changes as being unacceptable and doctrinally unsound. The fact that they recognise the official Church hierarchy while rejecting its decisions draws accusations of disloyalty and disobedience from the preceding group - whom this group in turn accuse of blind, un-Catholic obedience. However the SSPX bishops have remained in contact with the Holy See over their doctrinal discussions and in January 2009, Rome declared the implied excommunication of the SSPX bishops to be null, thereby confirming their status as "inside the Church

Sedevacantists: priests and laypeople who regard the Pope and the bishops of the "official" Catholic Church as having supposedly fallen into heresy
Heresy
Heresy is a controversial or novel change to a system of beliefs, especially a religion, that conflicts with established dogma. It is distinct from apostasy, which is the formal denunciation of one's religion, principles or cause, and blasphemy, which is irreverence toward religion...

and therefore have forfeited their authority. Such people neither possess nor seek the approval of the Church's hierarchy. The terms "sedevacantist" and "sedevacantism
Sedevacantism
Sedevacantism is the position held by a minority of Traditionalist Catholics who hold that the present occupant of the papal see is not truly Pope and that, for lack of a valid Pope, the see has been vacant since the death of either Pope Pius XII in 1958 or Pope John XXIII in 1963.Sedevacantists...

" derive from the Latin phrase sede vacante: "while the chair [of Peter] is vacant", a term which is normally reserved for the period between the death or retirement of a bishop and the consecration of his successor. Sedevacantists usually date the vacancy of the papacy from the death of Pope Pius XII in 1958, though some regard Pope John XXIII
Pope John XXIII
-Papal election:Following the death of Pope Pius XII in 1958, Roncalli was elected Pope, to his great surprise. He had even arrived in the Vatican with a return train ticket to Venice. Many had considered Giovanni Battista Montini, Archbishop of Milan, a possible candidate, but, although archbishop...

(1958–1963) as a true pope. Sedevacantist groups include the Society of St. Pius V
Society of St. Pius V
The Society of St. Pius V , abreviated SSPV, is a Traditionalist Catholic society of ordained priests formed in 1983 and based in Oyster Bay Cove, New York. The priests of SSPV broke away from the Society of St...

(SSPV) and the Congregation of Mary Immaculate Queen
Congregation of Mary Immaculate Queen
The Congregation of Mary Immaculate Queen is a Sedevacantist Traditionalist Catholic religious congregation dedicated to promoting the message of Our Lady of Fatima and devotion to the Virgin Mary according to the teachings of St. Louis-Marie Grignion de Montfort, whom they regard as their...

(CMRI).

Conclavists: priests and laypeople stemming from the sedevacantist movement who have given recognition to a nominee of their own, claiming them as the "true Pope". Since they hold that the see of Rome is no longer vacant, they are not, strictly speaking, sedevacantists, but they are often classified as such, since they reject the official papal succession (and do so for the same reasons as sedevacantists). Conclavist groups include the so-called true Catholic Church, the Palmarian Catholic Church
Palmarian Catholic Church
The Christian Palmarian Church of the Carmelites of the Holy Face , commonly called the Palmarian Catholic Church , is a schismatic Catholic church with its own pope, Gregory XVIII.-Origins:...

, and the followers of David Bawden
David Bawden
David Allen Bawden , is a Traditionalist Catholic recognized as Pope Michael I by a small group of conclavists based in Delia, Kansas, USA...

("Pope Michael I").

External links

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