Expert: Dan Smith - 4/16/2008

Question
I am editing a church history course, and I have just about exhausted every manual, style book, etc. looking for capitalization rules that apply to this course.  I have the Chicago Manual of Style, but it doesn't seem to have any examples that directly apply.  The author of the course repeatedly refers to the east, eastern church, western church,the west, eastern church leaders, etc. etc.  Would this all be capitalized because it is a "cultural entity" or a "proper noun"?  If so, should I use Eastern church or Eastern Church.  Just to confuse things a little further, his use of eastern church is a different concept from the Eastern Orthodox Church.  Can you help?

Answer
If Chicago doesn't have anything specific on the topic, I doubt if anyone will. I do not think these amount to proper names, however. Only when you are referring to a specific church organization or denomination should it be capitalized. I don't know the divisions in the eastern church, but the western church includes Baptist, Presbyterian, and Roman Catholic churches, among many others.

Hope this helps.