Less than 30 Christian denominations, sects, and cults

  • Christian Chat is a moderated online Christian community allowing Christians around the world to fellowship with each other in real time chat via webcam, voice, and text, with the Christian Chat app. You can also start or participate in a Bible-based discussion here in the Christian Chat Forums, where members can also share with each other their own videos, pictures, or favorite Christian music.

    If you are a Christian and need encouragement and fellowship, we're here for you! If you are not a Christian but interested in knowing more about Jesus our Lord, you're also welcome! Want to know what the Bible says, and how you can apply it to your life? Join us!

    To make new Christian friends now around the world, click here to join Christian Chat.

Nehemiah6

Senior Member
Jul 18, 2017
24,167
12,763
113
#1
We have another thread suggesting that there are over 200,000 Christian denominations. The number of 30,000 has also been bandied about for some time. In reality there are less than thirty groups which include actual churches, sects, and cults. Within these group there may be variations (as there are within the Catholics and the Orthodox). But those high numbers are pure fantasy, pulled out of thin air.

1. Catholic churches (various)
2. Orthodox churches (various)
3. Protestant churches
(a) Reformed (various)
(b) Presbyterian (various)
(c) Lutheran (various)
(d) Anglican/Church of England (various)
(e) Methodists (various)
4. Baptists (various)
5. Anabaptists/Mennonites (various)
6. Pentecostals (various)
7. Brethren assemblies (various)
8. Evangelical or Evangelical Bible churches
9. Nazarene churches
10.Calvary Chapel churches
11.Christian & Missionary Alliance churches
12.Church of God churches (various)
13.Church of Christ churches
14.Apostolic churches
15.Messianic Jews (various)
16.Free evangelical churches
17.Campbell-Stone
18.Quakers
19.Seventh Day Adventists
20.Unitarian churches
21.Mormons
22.Jehovah’s Witnesses
23.Christian Scientists
24.Swedenborgians
25.Christadelphians
26.Sacred Name Groups
27.African initiated churches
28.Non-denominational & community churches
 
Feb 7, 2015
22,418
413
0
#2
Check your list. I belong to a large denomination you didn't list.
 
Nov 12, 2017
203
4
0
#3
I would venture to guess that there are more than 200k.

But the true Church stands. It isn't gathered in some particular geographic area and is 'named' something.

True doctrinal believers are everywhere. And they are a group/bride that the Lord Knows........no matter where they plant their butt.
 

posthuman

Senior Member
Jul 31, 2013
36,530
13,094
113
#5
what's with calling JW's and LDS's "Christians" ? and unitarian universalists?

dude.

why don't you go ahead and put Islam, Scientology and B'nai B'rith down, they're just as 'Christian' as some of those things you're calling 'denominations'
 

Prov910

Senior Member
Jan 10, 2017
880
47
0
#6
Question: Has anyone seen a site or document that indicates the differing doctrines of the various denominations?
 
Feb 7, 2015
22,418
413
0
#7
Question: Has anyone seen a site or document that indicates the differing doctrines of the various denominations?
I have a huge book on that. I'll see if I can locate it. I think you can get it free, online.
 
Feb 7, 2015
22,418
413
0
#8
This is what I have......... It may not be what you want since it pertains to doctrines, not denominations. In all, there are 4 volumes.

THE FUNDAMENTALS
A TESTIMONY TO THE TRUTH
“To the Law and to the Testimony” Isaiah 8:20
EDITED BY R. A. TORREY, A. C. DIXON AND OTHERS
VOLUME 1
 
Last edited:

Nehemiah6

Senior Member
Jul 18, 2017
24,167
12,763
113
#10
what's with calling JW's and LDS's "Christians" ? and unitarian universalists?

dude.
Dude, did you read the title of the thread? Sects and CULTS connected with Christianity are included. They consider themselves Christian, though Christians know they are quite different.
 

Nehemiah6

Senior Member
Jul 18, 2017
24,167
12,763
113
#11
Check your list. I belong to a large denomination you didn't list.
Not sure which denomination you are referring to, but I have shown the larger groupings, which also have various groups.
 

OneFaith

Senior Member
Sep 5, 2016
2,270
369
83
#12
That’s a lot of branch-offs from the church Christ started. Many, many false religions out there.
 

posthuman

Senior Member
Jul 31, 2013
36,530
13,094
113
#13
Dude, did you read the title of the thread? Sects and CULTS connected with Christianity are included. They consider themselves Christian, though Christians know they are quite different.

i don't like some of these things getting put in the same list. it's the sort of list that someone ignorant of Christianity, and ignorant of some of the religions in the list, puts together.

the number of them annotated "
(various)" and the number of others not so annotated which really ought to be ((non-denominational, all one subgroup? group? really?)) illustrates the truth about numbering these division:
it's a differential equation with infinite solution planes; it comes down to how vague you want to make the distinctions.

so it's not "pure fantasy, pulled out of thin air" - it's the same choice you made to make the list shorter, but arbitrarily ((?)) shifting the definition of "different" to affect the size of the list.
 

Nehemiah6

Senior Member
Jul 18, 2017
24,167
12,763
113
#14
it's a differential equation with infinite solution planes; it comes down to how vague you want to make the distinctions.

The point is to get away from this nonsense of 200,000 or 30,000 denominations. That is why the groups need to be broad. For example, all Catholics believe that salvation is through the sacraments (as do the Orthodox). There are quite a few sub-groups within both these larger groups, but essentially they hold to certain beliefs that distinguish them as part of a larger group. Another example is Baptists. There are man sub-groups, but Baptists generally hold to some specifics which they all agree upon.

Also, the following groups are essentially heterodox, but they all claim to be Christian (not Muslim or Buddhist).

17.Campbell-Stone
18.Quakers
19.Seventh Day Adventists
20.Unitarian churches
21.Mormons
22.Jehovah’s Witnesses
23.Christian Scientists
24.Swedenborgians
25.Christadelphians
 

maxwel

Senior Member
Apr 18, 2013
9,261
2,386
113
#15
[/FONT][/COLOR][/SIZE]The point is to get away from this nonsense of 200,000 or 30,000 denominations. That is why the groups need to be broad. For example, all Catholics believe that salvation is through the sacraments (as do the Orthodox). There are quite a few sub-groups within both these larger groups, but essentially they hold to certain beliefs that distinguish them as part of a larger group. Another example is Baptists. There are man sub-groups, but Baptists generally hold to some specifics which they all agree upon.

Also, the following groups are essentially heterodox, but they all claim to be Christian (not Muslim or Buddhist).

17.Campbell-Stone
18.Quakers
19.Seventh Day Adventists
20.Unitarian churches
21.Mormons
22.Jehovah’s Witnesses
23.Christian Scientists
24.Swedenborgians
25.Christadelphians


Some of these, in my opinion, lie far outside the bounds of "heterodoxy."


So maybe the real issue here is not coming up with some broader denominational categories,
but rather, to think about what constitutes Christianity at all.



To be heterodox means to depart from orthodoxy.
It means you have a starting place, and then you depart from that.
If I have a Ford sedan, I can make a lot of changes to it, and it's still a Ford sedan.
But at SOME POINT, EVENTUALLY, I'll make so many changes it will cease to be a Ford sedan.
Eventually it's going to be one big pile of scrap metal and 4 unicycles with huge tires.
Eventually it's going to cease to be a Ford sedan.

So lets call this starting place the baseline.
We can certainly depart from the baseline, to some degree, and still be associated with the baseline... just like we can make some changes to the Ford sedan and still call it a Ford sedan.
But at some point, whatever that point is, we have to agree there IS A POINT at which you are so far from the baseline you simple have no part in the baseline anymore... like if we took all the pieces of the Ford sedan apart, melted the pieces into a big glob, and called it modern art.

We have to agree, it's common sense, that regardless of WHERE we put that point, there is a point where ENOUGH CHANGE will turn a thing into something else.
Regardless of where we feel that point is, it's common sense that there is a point where a thing is no longer what it was.

So... now the question is where is this point.
At what point does something cease to be Christian?


The problem is, we have so many different views on this forum that we'll also disagree on this.
We'll arrive at no consensus on this forum.
We'll arrive at no consensus even though the Bible has some clear and simple answers to this.


We'll have no consensus on CC about which things are NO LONGER Christian, because we have no consensus on CC about what constituted "Christian" to begin with.



 
Last edited:

trofimus

Senior Member
Aug 17, 2015
10,684
794
113
#16
29. Mixed ones

(For example, we have one church that is half reformed and half evangelical)
 

Johnny_B

Senior Member
Mar 18, 2017
1,954
64
48
#17
what's with calling JW's and LDS's "Christians" ? and unitarian universalists?

dude.

why don't you go ahead and put Islam, Scientology and B'nai B'rith down, they're just as 'Christian' as some of those things you're calling 'denominations'
The title says, Christian denominations, sects, and cults, I would include them in the cults section of the titles list.
 

posthuman

Senior Member
Jul 31, 2013
36,530
13,094
113
#18
[/FONT][/COLOR][/SIZE]The point is to get away from this nonsense of 200,000 or 30,000 denominations. That is why the groups need to be broad.
like i said, deliberately shortening the list.

why not fully embrace the bias?

here:


  1. Catholics (various)
  2. Others

there's only two. :p
 
Last edited:

posthuman

Senior Member
Jul 31, 2013
36,530
13,094
113
#19
The title says, Christian denominations, sects, and cults, I would include them in the cults section of the titles list.
i know what the title is, but it doesn't make me want them in the same list :)
 

Nehemiah6

Senior Member
Jul 18, 2017
24,167
12,763
113
#20
At what point does something cease to be Christian?
According to Scripture, the full deity of Christ, as well as the full sinless humanity of Christ becomes the criterion. Those who reject the Lord Jesus Christ as "God manifest in the flesh [human body]" (1 Tim 3:16) fall outside the pale.

7 For many deceivers are entered into the world, who confess not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh. This is a deceiver and an antichrist.

8
Look to yourselves, that we lose not those things which we have wrought, but that we receive a full reward.


9
Whosoever transgresseth, and abideth not in the doctrine of Christ, hath not God. He that abideth in the doctrine of Christ, he hath both the Father and the Son.


10
If there come any unto you, and bring not this doctrine, receive him not into your house, neither bid him God speed:


11
For he that biddeth him God speed is partaker of his evil deeds. (2 John 7-11)


Since it is John who has written that the Word was God and that the Word became flesh and dwelt among us (John 1:1), it is now John who tells us that anyone who denies this is (a) tr (c) abides not in the doctrine of Christ, (c) does not have God -- a relationship with the one true God (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit).

 
Last edited: