P
Philthy
Guest
squeekster said:36,000 denominations? Speaking of garbage. Care to list all 36,000?
What’s funny is that this magical number of denominations is as varied as there are Catholics that mention it.
Does the number 36000 bother you? It bothers me too. For the record:
The 2001Oxford World Christian Encyclopedia published by Oxford University Press counts 33,830 denominations within Christianity.
Of course there is some level of ambiguity in defining a “denomination” because no one can agree on the definition. The point, however, is that many separate denominations form (thousands - not dozens) as a result of perceived fidelity to the truth of Scripture as revealed by the holy Spirit.
Mathmatically the potential number of distinct bible interpretations is an exponential function. If you counted every significant issue that has 2 opposing views, and raised the number 2 exponentially by the number of issues you would have the number of potential denominations. For example:
*]Faith alone
*]Scripture alone
*]Canon of Scripture
*]KJV only
*]Mary
*]Real presence
*]Infant baptism
*]Regenerative effect of baptism
*]OSAS
*]Purgatory
*]Women ordination
*]Divorce
*]Homosexual ordination
*]Must speak in Tongues
*]Tribulation
*]Prayer for dead
*]Abortion
17 issues, right? This is by no means an exhaustive list. Whats the potential number of combinations of beliefs? 2 to the 17th power, which is:
131,072 combinations. Its ugly.
This by no means entitles me to judge anyone. But I can judge Luthers concept of private interpretation quite comfortably as a tragedy for unity of faith.
There is but one faith, one baptism, into one body-
Phil