Agemegos

G'day

The title says it all. Can anybody point me in the direction of a reasonable estimate of how many different, incompatible or at least inconsistent, versions of Christian teaching there have been?

Regards,


Brett

Plognark

I remember hearing a figure of over 10,000 distinct denominations of Christianity in existance today.

DougP

wow, really 10000? Can anyone verify that. I would havent though anything of around 1000, but 10000 seems a bit high off the cuff. Though I really dont know enough about this to make a call on it. Anyone have a resource that could tell us?

-Doug

Rational BAC

Makes sense to me. Since Christianity is a personal religion. -----------

Then there as many interpretations as there are individuals.

And that can be a whole bunch.

10,000 seems inadequate.

Mageth

adherents.com includes some good information on "major" branches of Christianity:

http://www.adherents.com/adh_branches.html

Worldtraveller

The number I remember was a bit over 33,000 distinct denominations.

Religious Tolerance.org has some more good information though.

Cheers,
Lane

Cynthia of Syracuse

Mageth already referred to Adherents.com, more specifically they note the compilation of the World Christian Encyclopedia, which claims 33,830 Christian denominations. The article implies that this is currently existing denominations, so does not address the question of defunct historical entities.

shivalinga

There may be thousands of sects but there are just a handful of types.

1) Sects that believe Jesus was God in the flesh.

2) Sects that believe Jesus was not God, but he was God's special son and helper above everyone else.

3) Sects that believe Jesus was not God, and was not God's only special son.

4) Sects that believe neither God nor Jesus are real persons but instead are impersonal "divine" idea's and principles and forces, similar to some eastern religions.

All Christian believers fall into one of those categories.

For instance Catholics, Protestants, and Eastern Orthodoxy believe Jesus was God, Jehovahs Witnesses believe Jesus is God's special son or helper, Mormons believe Jesus is not God and is not God's only special son and helper, Chrisitian Scientists believe that Jesus was neither God nor God's special son or helper and that they are both Divine principles or forces.

All Christian sects fit into one of these categories. Although some groups like Quakers and Unitarians are not Christian although they may use christian language and parts of biblical beliefs at times.

sergeyvladimirovich

Don't forget about the Gnostic Christianity which had its practitioners up until the early Middle Ages. Their teachings were very much unlike most current Christian denomenations. For instance, some of them held that Jehova is actually not the god but is subservient to some other god. Of course, these guys were not tolerated very well and perhaps this is why there aren't any around.

The Gnostics also had their own "Scriptures" also refered to as apocripha. These included "gospels" (such as the Gospel of Thomas) where the supposed sayings of Jesus are collected. That is quite intriguing because some of that material is very different from what we find in the Bible. So what did Jesus really say? The answer is that there are conflicting accounts and we cannot be sure that any one is correct.

Anyway, sections on Gnostic Christianity can be found in many bookstores (at least here in California). I think this is an important subject in that the authenticity and reliability of the tradition Church doctrines may appear quite questionable in light of it.

PopeInTheWoods

To use a biology analogy, you may have listed the "phyla" of xianity, but I think the question is more in line with how many "species". To lump all Protestants (or even all Baptists, not even considering Catholics vs. Protestants) under the same "type" is overly simplistic, as they disagree on major doctrinal issues (e.g. method of salvation). You might as well say that there are only three types of religion in the world, those that believe in one god, in many gods, and in no gods.

Get ready to make it 33,831 when the Anglicans split over homosexual clergy....

Andy