zaitzeff

Not all followers of Armstrong, whose teaching we term ''Armstrongism,'' accepted this welcomed change. Joseph W. Tkach and the administrators made earnest attempts to hold the church together during their doctrinal reexamination period. But those dedicated to Armstrong’s cultism grew impatient, forming about fifty splinter groups from 1985 to 1995.

people sometimes argue that we should believe the MJ theory because early christianity was diverse.

OK, compare:

after the death of Mohammed, Islam almost immediately split into two major factions: Sunni and Shia.

after the death of Paul the apostle, various followers of Paul wrote in his name a number of fragments or whole epistles with differing theologies than Paul and these fragments and epistles were often accepted as Pauline. Most significant are the women-suppressive statements found in the Pastoral letters and I Cor 11. Also, we see eternal punishment taught or implied in II Thess, not by Paul.

after the death of Joseph Smith (founder of the LDS and related churches), the Mormon movement split about a dozen ways within 20 years. the major line went to Utah and later avowed polygamy, which was the practice of the founder. (Smith had previously practiced polygamy while alive but secretly.) Most of the early splits away from them denied both polygamy and that Smith had practiced it. However, after 1890, there have been many splits away from the "main body," because the "main body" has abandoned polygamy and the splinter groups insist it should be retained even if illegal. The splits center both on the question of "who should be in charge" usually veiled underneath some doctrinal dispute, re polygamy or various other questions.

after the death of Herbert W Armstrong, founder of the WWCG, his movement split into several dozen fragments. The major and largest body has disavowed some of Armstrong's stranger doctrines and now is nearly "evangelical." Meanwhile, there are more than a dozen splinter groups which claim that they are the true representatives of the ministry of Hebert W. Armstrong. In fact, recently, one of those splinter groups sued what we might call the "main body" over the copyright for publishing some Armstrong texts. The "main body" had renounced some of Armstrong's ideas and did not wish to publish the text. The splinter group wanted to show the world and their converts that Armstrong had taught the ideas in question and use his work to convert others to their views. If I remember right, the two groups finally settled out of court: in exchange for some cash, the "main body" which owned legally the copyright gave that particular splinter group the right to publish the text of Armstrong.

The Armstrong group is also interesting, because it had a viable splinter group while its founder was still alive! Founder Hebert W Armstrong had had his son preach, but Garner Ted Armstrong had a reputation for adultery that eventually cause HWA to "put out" GTA, and GTA just started another group and continued his ministry. This was while HWA was alive.

So, in the case of Mormonism and WWCG we have the opposite result:
Mormonism: "main body" retains and later openly admits secret teachings of the founder, while numerous splinter groups deny it;
Armstrong: "main body" renounces kooky ideas of the founder and attempts to suppress their dissemination and hide the fact the founder taught them, while splinter groups assert that the founder did teach them and wants to publish them.

see

http://www.apologeticsindex.org/w01.html

- Splinter Groups of the WWCG, since the death of Armstrong-

Note: This section lists only some of the many splinter groups.

Church of God: Splinter group (1998) of the United Church of God, which itself is a splinter group of the WCG.
Church of God - A Christian Fellowship: Successor of WCG splinter group, Global Church of God.
Church of God International: Splinter group of the WCG. Sponsors the ''Armor of God'' literature and TV shows.
Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association: Splinter Groups of the WCG. (About Garner Ted Armstrong)
United Church of God: Splinter group of the WCG

***

Church Sells Armstrong's Works "Nineteen books by founder sold to Worldwide Church of God splinter group.", Christianity Today, June 17, 2003

Reversing course, the financially struggling Worldwide Church of God has agreed to sell the rights to 19 books by church founder Herbert W. Armstrong to a splinter group. Announced March 12, the $3 million settlement ends a costly round of litigation. It also allows the Philadelphia Church of God (PCG) to reproduce Armstrong's teachings.
[...]

Phil Arnn of Watchman Fellowship, a Christian research and apologetics ministry, said the deal raises an ethical question about the WCG.

"These are heretical doctrines that are destructive to the eternal life of anyone who comes under their influence," Arnn said. "To have profited from the release of the copyrights is a matter that I would think [would be] very troubling to the conscience."

***

The founder's son, Garner Ted Armstrong, leads quite a successful movement with the Church of God, International.

***

OK, so, suppose that there was a real person Jesus who died around 30AD. After his death, some of his followers think that James his brother should be chief, and some of his other followers don't care who is "chief." Suppose that James suppressed or never believed or never understood teachings of Jesus, just as Joseph Tkach Sr (and then Joseph Tkach Jr) has suppressed and renounced various teachings of HWA. What would happen? You would have a bunch of splinter groups, just as we have with the WWCG and some of the splinter groups would claim that they were the true inheritors of the Jesus tradition rather than the main body. The splinter groups would claim that the main body was apostaticizing from the truth, or at least, not teaching it.

In fact, the WWCG has had groups that were the splinter of the splinter group of the WWCG, and it has only been 20 years since the death of HWA.

And, in the case of Paul, some were part of his splinter group, but after his death, or perhaps while he was alive, they readded eternal punishment, women's suppression and various other things that, as Jews or Gentiles or whatever they had been, might have seemed necessary to them. For, Paul was generally right, but he had gone too far in some areas!

Toto

In all of the cases you cite, there was an original founder, and schisms developed after he died.

For Christianity, we can't locate the original founder. Our earliest evidence is of contention. Paul spends time trying to combat the doctrines of the Jerusalem Church and various other preachers who preach a different Jesus. There is no evidence that Christianity was united when Paul was preaching, or at any time shortly before.

Mathetes

If by "diversity of Christianity" you are considering the diversity of the different opinions of the writers inside the New Testament, yes, there is some diversity and doctrinal differences between the Gospel writers, Paul, the writers of Hebrews and others, but it may be argued that it is not that big.

However, when you step out of the Canon and start reading other non-canonized writings (that were nonetheless revered by early Christians) you start to realize the almost incomprehensible amount of different beliefs that they had. Take a look at the Shepherd of Hermas and the Odes of Solomon. Take a look at the Gospel of Thomas. Or the Ascension of Isaiah. Or the Gnostic writings in the Nag Hammadi library, which are probably among the weirdest religious writings I have ever read. (Bear in mind that, some of these books nearly made it into the canonized Bible.) The Gnostics did not even believe that Yahweh had created the universe!

In some of them the Son is never called Jesus. Some of them speak of the Logos without talking of a person. Some speak of the traditional God of Israel as the Good Father, some say that he was an usurper. Some have Jesus saying things close to the Gospels, and some saying the most weird Zen-like statements, that would puzzle any real believer nowadays.

I don't know how this diversity compare to other religions', but it sure is much bigger than the "orthodox" history that we have been told.

GakuseiDon

If they don't refer to some called "Jesus" or "Christ", then how do we know that they were Gnostic Christians? Wouldn't they be Gnostic Logosians?

Amaleq13

I think it is more like:

The early diversity of beliefs about the central figure of "Christianity" appears to be more consistent with an origin in thoughts or theological concepts (eg Incarnated/Sacrificed Son, Descending/Ascending Redeemer, Wisdom Incarnated/Just Man) rather than a historical figure.

The examples you provided could easily be arranged into a tree-like visual representation with various branches tracing back to single root but the evidence of Christian beliefs seems to be more like a varied root system that eventually joins to form a single trunk.

On closer examination, even the trunk can be seen to be formed of several different trunks that are interconnected.

Mathetes

Well, take the Shepherd of Hermas, for example (which is NOT a Gnostic writing). The text doesn't refer to "Jesus" or "Christ", but it talks about a funky "Son of God" that seems to be regarded as equal with the Holy Spirit. The Apostolic Fathers quoted from it, Eusebius said that it was regularly read in the churches, and everybody considered it so Christian that it was nearly included in the canon.

Mr. Neutron

I was raised in the WWCG, but I had already left before the major breakup occured. My fundy mother still belongs to one of the more conservative splinter groups, The Philadelphia Church of God, and she looks upon the main WWCG as perverting and corrupting Armstrong's teaching. Like all fundy loons, she believes only her little group knows "the truth" and will be saved when the End Times come (which should be any day now, she assures me.)

Needless to say, we don't get along very well. :devil1: [/derail]

Chris Weimer

I dunno, I kinda liked some of Armstrong's teachings, well, saw them in better light than most Christians. Jesus isn't God, the trinity doesn't exist, go to church on the Sabbath, not Sunday, so much more real Christian. Of course, like all Christians...well, we don't agree. :devil1:

Wayne P

Considering that paganism itself was so diverse in the first century it is hard to imagine that christianity wouldn't be diverse. Essentially, even under the empire, each city controlled it's own cult for it's own god. Perhaps this god was called Apollo in each of the cities, but he wasn't the same god, local gods would be transformed into one of the more common gods. There were perhaps 20 -30 cities that worshipped Apollo, but each manifestation of Apollo in each of the cities would be different, for example - Apollo of Delphi, Apollo of Antiock,etc. etc. He would look different in his statues and cult rituals would be different in each of these cities. Ask them what god their city worshipped and each would say Apollo, but each and everyone of them knew that their Apollo didn't match the Apollo worshipped a couple cities over, except for a couple of minor instances they hardly ever overlapped. But, they didn't fight over these things, they didn't think that they had the monopoly on religious truth, unlike christians.

Given that christianity 'grew up' in that context and that all its first gentile converts would have had experiences with the numerous pagan cults I don't believe they thought it was wrong to have different ideas about the christian god. I would think it was only the very fanatical that would want to put a lock on truth for themselves. So each city's average christians would, just like their pagan neighbors, have thought - ok we can agree to disagree.

And, of course, since most of the gods and religious founders back then hadn't existed either, Jesus would just be another god to these many gentile converts, one who didn't have to have a real life on earth.

As to modern times I would submit that we just know more about all the numerous, little cults that are around today because of better communications.

MortalWombat

Another non-Gnostic Christian, Theophilus of Antioch, calls himself a Christian without ever mentioning Jesus or Christ either.

Why does he call himself Christian? From Theophilus to Autolycus, Book I: