Essay About Different Denominations And Meeting Of The Old Testament

Christianity and Its Popularity
Christianity and Its Popularity
Christianity and Its Popularity
What is it about religion that draws people? Robert Hume states that “Religion is the
chief differentiating characteristic of man” (1). If as Mr. Hume says religion is what
differentiates us lets go a step further and ask why is it that Christianity is the most popular
religion practiced today?
As we begin to answer this question lets put the worlds major religions into perspective. Below
is a time line of the worlds major religions and information about each according to research
done for Mr. Hume.
Founder
Deity
Location
Date started
Number in millions*
Hinduism
Brahma
India
1500 B.C.
Judaism
Moses
Jehovah
Scattered
1200 B.C.
Shinto
Nature-gods
Japan
660 B.C.
Taoism
Lao-tze
The Tao
China
604 B.C.
Buddhism
Buddha
None, then
The East
560 B.C.
150-275
Founder
Confucianism
Confucius
Heaven, or
China
551 B.C.
Founder
Christianity
Jesus Christ
Father-God
World
4 (?) B.C.
Islam
Mohammed
Allah
Muslim
570 A.D.
Countries
* These are only rough estimates in most cases (graph is from resource 1)
McConnell 2
Upon looking at the chart of the worlds major religions two things are immediately
noticeable, 1. Christianity has nearly double the number of practitioners as the next closest
religion, and 2. It is practiced world wide. Is would be reasonable to assume that maybe it is so
large because of the fact that it is practiced world wide, but there must be more to it or the other
major religions, especially those that are much older, would have equal or greater numbers in
terms of those people practicing them.
Christianity has its roots in Judaism. Judaism is for those that practice it the old
testament laws, for those who practice Christianity it is the meeting of the old testament with the
new testament. The core belief within Christianity is that Jesus Christ the son of God was sent to
dwell among us and ultimately allow us as mortals the opportunity to absolve our sins by
accepting the idea that he died for our sins and through
him we can become clean of sin.
One of the more interesting things I discovered is that while Christianity has the largest
number of people practicing it worldwide, it is also one of the most diverse as it has within the
whole many “cells”. Some of the different denominations include Catholic (the largest), Baptist,
Methodist, Pentecost, Morman, Latter Day Saints Of Jesus Christ, Lutheran, and many more.
Within many of these you may find even more variances for example the Baptist include the
Southern Baptist. While looking up reference material I found a listing the “sects” within
Christianity in a religious encyclopedia that had page after page of different types of Christianity.
This may be explained by the fact “as the Church spread, the lines of communication between
cities and the churches in them grew quite weak. Persecutions in the second and third centuries