God on His terms –one time? God on our terms – 33,000+ times…Why?

[Jimmy_B]

**Favoritism? **

Hi again **Rodney **

You know I love you guys… :console:

Well, most of you anyways… I am still undecided on some…

Most of the time, when I write things I’m in a good mood and often times I’m trying to be funny. When I wrote “Great, another expert” that was tongue-in-cheek comment and a real effort on my behalf not to respond in kind as the OP did.

I am not a “phonie” and I am not a Saint and I don’t pretend like I am…

If you think I’m a bad guy…you must live in a really…really… really nice neighborhood.

(That was a joke…Please, no more hate mail )

I’m sorry…can we be friends?

God Bless You!

Now back to the question…How many non-Catholic Christian denominations are there and why so many? :banghead:

:extrahappy:

 

[RodneyJ]

Hi again **Rodney **

You know I love you guys… :console:

Well, most of you anyways… I am still undecided on some…

Most of the time, when I write things I’m in a good mood and often times I’m trying to be funny. When I wrote “Great, another expert” that was tongue-in-cheek comment and a real effort on my behalf not to respond in kind as the OP did.

I am not a “phonie” and I am not a Saint and I don’t pretend like I am…

If you think I’m a bad guy…you must live in a really…really… really nice neighborhood.

(That was a joke…Please, no more hate mail )

** I’m sorry…can we be friends?**

God Bless You!

Now back to the question…How many non-Catholic Christian denominations are there and why so many? :banghead:

:extrahappy:

**Most definitely!

God Bless!

Rodney**

 

[Jimmy_B]

Most definitely!

God Bless!

Rodney

Now back to the question…How many non-Catholic Christian denominations are there and why so many? :banghead:

 

[Syele]

Now back to the question…How many non-Catholic Christian denominations are there

There are probably as many 2,000 or as few as 200 depending on how they are counted. Some confused people are under the impression that there are millions cause they like to count every church as a denomination (or every Christian!) I say confused because the definition of denomination is clearly a group of congregations unless you are just trying for a dramatic effect, which is rude. One church or one person cannot be a group of congregations.

and why so many? :banghead:

There are so many because humans are failable. Even those who work to not sin mortally, still mess up. We don’t always hear God because we don’t always listen! Some people want some things to be true so badly they insist they are. Others think they heard from God when it was really an allergic reaction to their cheese pizza. Others misunderstand what they were taught and are never corrected, so they teach it wrongly to their children. the “Because we’ve always done it that way” virus infects people of all religions, cultures, and races so if mom always did it that way, so will daughter.

Let me illustrate with an old urban legend:

One day a husband and wife were preparing Christmas dinner together. The man watched his wife cut the end off the ham, creating a flat spot on one side, before placing it in a large baking dish and then into the oven.
Curious, he asked, “Honey, why do you always cut the end off the ham like that before you cook it?
She replied, “Well, that’s the way my mother always did it.”
“OK, but why did your mother do it?”, he prodded.
“I don’t know. I never asked", she said, "We can ask her when she comes over.”
When the mother came over for Christmas dinner, they asked her together, “You know how, every time you cook a ham, you cut the end off of it so it’s flat on one side - why do you do it that way?”
The mother thought for a moment, and finally, “Hmmm”, she replied, “I guess I never thought of it, but that’s the way MY mother always did it, so I do it too.”
One day, the young couple were visiting Grandma, and they asked her, “Mom says whenever you cook a ham you cut one of the ends off, but she couldn’t tell us why. Why do you do that, Grandma?”
Grandma smiled, “Well, you see, sweetheart, one day Grandma dropped her large baking dish and broke it. The ham didn’t fit into the smaller dish, so I cut the end off of it so it would fit. I never got around to getting a new large baking dish, so I always had to cut the end off the ham.”

Sometimes traditions of old should be continued exactly as is. Sometimes like in the story they are no longer necessary, other times they were born of things someone did wrongly to begin with! Even so, People are VERY attached to traditions. if you change certain things in life it just feels wrong. It doesn’t matter if it’s about religion or not, people are just as attached to how they personally have always done things. It bothers me that my family no longer has Christmas at Grandmas house. It bothers my kid if I use the front door… cause I never do. Even our dog becomes upset if you move the couch. This is a personal level. People just don’t “feel wrong” about not doing stuff people did centuries ago. It’s not part of their world then.

When people are so attached to the way they are used to things and then you get two who are used to things differently, it is only to be expected that they will disagree. When it comes to important things (my examples above are not important things even though they elicit a strong response if changed) in religion… things that affect our eternity we don’t just feel king of wrong… we feel SURE it is wrong.

So what do you do if you are SURE your leader is wrong? Even Catholics will sometimes switch parishes if a Priest is doing things that are not appropriate. The difference is that (one would hope) Such priests would be disciplined or removed from their posts. Since Protestants do not hold a Doctrine that keeps leadership from every making grave mistakes in teaching the Church, there is no way to be 100% sure who is in error and who is not. There are also separate Churches based on preferential things… This one claps while singing the hymns, that one doesn’t, when it is that type of division most people think nothing of it… It is no more divided than people going to one type of Mass over another. So when you say SO many denominations, often many of them aren’t really all that divided.

We must have Faith God will lead us, study, be open to what God may be teaching and where He is leading.

Authority leading to doctrinal unity can sound very enticing. I see it as a dangerous luxury because I remain unconvinced that infailability is possible.

Catholics,** imagine for one min** (just to understand something) that the Catholic Church really is wrong. All of the sudden, that perfect unity leads the wrong direction! People in lock step walking to doom sounds pretty bad.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think Catholics are walking lock step to hell. But I do see how any group who thinks they are 100% right and follow with 100% faith are in mortal danger should the leader ever lead wrongly.

I KNOW the Church believes she will never fail in such a way, otherwise no one would go for it, because it’d be dangerous. if you want all protestants to come to the Catholic Church you must convince them all that this is not a problem.

This is the reason there are many Protestant denominations. 1. People must do what they believe is right 2. People are not convinced that the Catholic Church is capable of leading them perfectly.

 

[Jimmy_B]

There are probably as many 2,000 or as few as 200 depending on how they are counted. Some confused people are under the impression that there are millions cause they like to count every church as a denomination (or every Christian!) I say confused because the definition of denomination is clearly a group of congregations unless you are just trying for a dramatic effect, which is rude. One church or one person cannot be a group of congregations.

There are so many because humans are failable. Even those who work to not sin mortally, still mess up. We don’t always hear God because we don’t always listen! Some people want some things to be true so badly they insist they are. Others think they heard from God when it was really an allergic reaction to their cheese pizza. Others misunderstand what they were taught and are never corrected, so they teach it wrongly to their children. the “Because we’ve always done it that way” virus infects people of all religions, cultures, and races so if mom always did it that way, so will daughter.

Let me illustrate with an old urban legend:

Sometimes traditions of old should be continued exactly as is. Sometimes like in the story they are no longer necessary, other times they were born of things someone did wrongly to begin with! Even so, People are VERY attached to traditions. if you change certain things in life it just feels wrong. It doesn’t matter if it’s about religion or not, people are just as attached to how they personally have always done things. It bothers me that my family no longer has Christmas at Grandmas house. It bothers my kid if I use the front door… cause I never do. Even our dog becomes upset if you move the couch. This is a personal level. People just don’t “feel wrong” about not doing stuff people did centuries ago. It’s not part of their world then.

When people are so attached to the way they are used to things and then you get two who are used to things differently, it is only to be expected that they will disagree. When it comes to important things (my examples above are not important things even though they elicit a strong response if changed) in religion… things that affect our eternity we don’t just feel king of wrong… we feel SURE it is wrong.

So what do you do if you are SURE your leader is wrong? Even Catholics will sometimes switch parishes if a Priest is doing things that are not appropriate. The difference is that (one would hope) Such priests would be disciplined or removed from their posts. Since Protestants do not hold a Doctrine that keeps leadership from every making grave mistakes in teaching the Church, there is no way to be 100% sure who is in error and who is not. There are also separate Churches based on preferential things… This one claps while singing the hymns, that one doesn’t, when it is that type of division most people think nothing of it… It is no more divided than people going to one type of Mass over another. So when you say SO many denominations, often many of them aren’t really all that divided.

We must have Faith God will lead us, study, be open to what God may be teaching and where He is leading.

Authority leading to doctrinal unity can sound very enticing. I see it as a dangerous luxury because I remain unconvinced that infailability is possible.

Catholics,** imagine for one min** (just to understand something) that the Catholic Church really is wrong. All of the sudden, that perfect unity leads the wrong direction! People in lock step walking to doom sounds pretty bad.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think Catholics are walking lock step to hell. But I do see how any group who thinks they are 100% right and follow with 100% faith are in mortal danger should the leader ever lead wrongly.

I KNOW the Church believes she will never fail in such a way, otherwise no one would go for it, because it’d be dangerous. if you want all protestants to come to the Catholic Church you must convince them all that this is not a problem.

This is the reason there are many Protestant denominations. 1. People must do what they believe is right 2. People are not convinced that the Catholic Church is capable of leading them perfectly.

Hello Syele,

I appreciate what you are saying but I disagree. Let me start by saying that Christianity is not a “ham” nor is it a “broken dish” and analogies like this don’t work well with Christianity because for starters, many non-Catholic Christians use the Bible to argue against Catholicism or for their particular denomination, all the while stating that the Bible is the word of God…We all know that God is never wrong… So, obviously "Authority from God” is an issue when it comes to Christian doctrine.

Authority is not a factor in the analogy that you provided. If the grandmother said that “God told me to do it this way” then that would be different because now we are talking about a prophet and “Authority from God”: No one in your story is a prophet or claiming to be God, are they?

Authority isn’t important when cooking a ham but authority is everything when it comes to Christianity and the Bible. If it were not, then you have no reason to believe anything that is written in the Bible.

I will address the rest of your comments later.

Peace

 

[Syele]

Hello Syele,

I appreciate what you are saying but I disagree. Let me start by saying that Christianity is not a “ham” nor is it a “broken dish” and analogies like this don’t work well with Christianity because for starters, many non-Catholic Christians use the Bible to argue against Catholicism or for their particular denomination, all the while stating that the Bible is the word of God…We all know that God is never wrong… So, obviously "Authority from God” is an issue when it comes to Christian doctrine.

Authority is not a factor in the analogy that you provided. If the grandmother said that “God told me to do it this way” then that would be different because now we are talking about a prophet and “Authority from God”: No one in your story is a prophet or claiming to be God, are they?

Authority isn’t important when cooking a ham but authority is everything when it comes to Christianity and the Bible. If it were not, then you have no reason to believe anything that is written in the Bible.

I will address the rest of your comments later.

Peace

You misunderstand me then. I was not saying authority was the broken dish or the ham, I was explaining peoples attachments to traditions. The reasons (or reasonableness) behind those feelings of attachment to traditions vary, as well as how we react to them. But they really are there and they are a big part of the reason for there being many denominations.

Authority is the other reason.

I was listing two things, not trying to make them both the same.

 

[Jimmy_B]

You misunderstand me then. I was not saying authority was the broken dish or the ham, I was explaining peoples attachments to traditions. The reasons (or reasonableness) behind those feelings of attachment to traditions vary, as well as how we react to them. But they really are there and they are a big part of the reason for there being many denominations.

Authority is the other reason.

I was listing two things, not trying to make them both the same.

Hello Syele,

Thanks, I understand now and I agree with you, for the most part. I myself, I like the traditions associated with Catholicism. I thank that, to many Catholics traditions makes people feel “connected”. I also feel that traditions add to the fullness and richness, which is Catholicism (Christianity). There is not that one aspect of Catholicism that is better then another. Catholicism is a model of Christianity that works. Catholicism isn’t uniquely American, like many “Protestant “religions (denominations), Catholicism transcends. It transcends time, languages, boarders, cultures, races, age groups, social and economical groups… and it works! It works because everybody is different and because of the richness and fullness of the Catholic Faith, there exists something for everybody. Some are shy, some are outgoing, some are highly educated, some are not, and they all need a different way to express their Christian Faith, a way that makes them feel “connected”…Connected to Jesus.

I think that is one of the reasons that there are so many different Christian denominations. Part of the problem is ego, part of it is the error of “personal interpretation” but part of it is that people want to feel connected and they are searching for that connection. There are some Christians who “Minister Shop” and some who “Church Shop” for this connection.

I am a cradle Catholic and have always felt a certain connection to my faith and to Jesus. When I was a kid, I wanted the be a Catholic Priest but then as a young man I lost that connection. As an adult, I learned more about my Catholic faith and I became re-connected and part of it is because of the traditions that have been passed down to us. This works because Jesus is alive in His Church, He is alive in His Church’s traditions, and He is alive in the Sacraments, in the Bible and in every aspect of Catholicism. Me and other Catholics like me, are not connected to a “Church”, we are connected to Jesus. Everything in Catholicism leads us to Jesus. In many various ways, He (Jesus) is extending His loving hand, some just don’t “grab on” and go with Him.

One of the reasons that some don’t take Jesus’ hand is because of their ego. There is a little “protestant” in all of us and “personal interpretation” makes this problem worse. Many become members of the religion of “there own intellect” and “Protestantism” to certain extant creates this situation.

Authority is everything and rejecting ourselves and our ego and this world and embracing all that is our Christian faith is necessary, if we are to grow in Christ and allow Him to grow in us. We need to completely surrender to Him and to our Catholic faith, which He as given us and we do this when we understand authority and accept it, rather than reject it. All authority comes from Jesus.

It is then and only then that we truly experience Christianity the way we were meant to.

God Bless You

 

[Jimmy_B]

The Facts and Stats on “33,000 Denominations”
The 20,000 30,000 numbers and David Barrett’s statistics Part II

The Facts and Stats on “33,000 Denominations”
by PhilVaz
Now for a few facts and stats from the actual source: World Christian Encyclopedia by Barrett, Kurian, Johnson (Oxford Univ Press, 2nd edition, 2001).

These 33,000 are subdivided into “6 major ecclesiastico-cultural mega-blocs”, and ordering them by denomination size we have (I am rounding up or down slightly for convenience, using year 2000 figures) :

• Independents (about 22000)
• Protestants (about 9000)
• “Marginals” (about 1600)
• Orthodox (781)
• Roman Catholics (242)
• Anglicans (168)
  So the 33,000 number is from the total of these 6 mega-blocs:
  22000 + 9000 + 1600 + 781 + 242 + 168 = 33,000+ That’s where the 33,000 figure comes from. If you count the “mega-bloc” of “Protestants” only it is 9000 / 33000 or 27% of the total. However, if you combine Protestants with Independents and Anglicans ( [22000 + 9000 + 168] / 33000) it is 94% of the total or 31,000+ . We will see below that most (about 97%) of the “Independent” churches are indeed Protestants. Now that we have that settled, I will examine what the source says about each of these “mega-blocs.” All of the information below is found on pages 16-18 (volume 1) of the World Christian Encyclopedia (2001, 2nd edition).from Richard N. Ostling, Associated Press, 19 May 2001 http://www.bringyou.to/apologetics/WorldChristianEncy.jpgSince adding a religion doctorate from Columbia University to his technical background, he has spent 40 years systematizing information on world religions, a calling he discovered while assigned as an Anglican missionary in Africa. Now 73, Barrett recently culminated his oddly remarkable career with publication of the second edition of his global accounting of faiths and the faithful – trends, details and his best estimated count of believers of all religions in each of 238 nations and territories.\

Never has there been such a thorough reference as the two large volumes, running 1,699 pages, of the World Christian Encyclopedia, published by Oxford University Press. Barrett has doggedly visited most of the lands in person, collecting raw material, including national census figures and United Nations data, and recruiting the 444 specialists who feed him material.
Among them:

Vatican missions librarian Willi Henkel and editor J. Gordon Melton of the Encyclopedia of American Religions. Barrett’s encyclopedia sought to count each human being in each religion and religious subcategory in each country as of 1900, 1970, 1990, 1995 and 2000, with projections to 2025.The 2001 edition, successor to his 1982 first edition, which took a decade to compile, identifies 10,000 distinct religions, of which 150 have 1 million or more followers.

Within Christianity, he counts 33,820 denominations.Barrett also calculates religious populations for the Encyclopedia Britannica Book of the Year, standard estimates that are used in turn by the World Almanac and innumerable journalists. Such numbers are always debatable, but they’re the best available. “We don’t really have any rivals,” Barrett says. "That’s the problem."Title: World Christian Encyclopedia : a comparative survey of churches and religions in the modern world

Authors: David B. Barrett, George T. Kurian, Todd M. Johnson.
Edition: 2nd ed.
Published: Oxford ; New York : Oxford University Press, 2001.
Description: 2 v. : ill., col. maps ; 32 cm.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references and indexes.