Earlier I made a statement that I am willing to answer any question as best I can. Well someone took me up on that offer.  Here is their question(s).

 

OK.....we have so many different types of religions......I am sure the histroy of Religion is very complex......in a 2-3 paragraphs how did we come up with so many? and ...... does it makes sense to consolidate them?.....the expenses of a church are growing and the cost required to reach out to more more people grows...with less cost to sustain a church we would have more money to reach others and help others.

 

 

I’m going to take this in two chunks so I can answer each question individually. The first question is how did we come up with so many religions.

 

There are a myriad of religions in the world but to make this a topic that doesn’t require a whole book I am going to make the assumption that the question refers specifically to the variety of religions that consider themselves to be Christian.  

 

In my opinion there are three major reasons for most if not all the splits within Christianity.  They are political, religious/theological, and economic reasons at any rate there are strong relations to power dynamics.  In many instances it is not just one of those three reasons but often times combinations of them or all of them are functioning all at once.

 

To say more than that would be getting into specifics and that would require a lot of story telling which many authors have already done and there are a great many titles at bookstores and libraries devoted to this topic.

 

The second question about consolidating these many religions is the one I wish to really think about and engage.  In my eyes consolidating the religions at this point is impractical and would be far more trouble than its worth.  We must learn to engage our plurality and find ways to work together for common goals when possible and find peaceful ways to deal with each other.

 

It really comes down to support.  Christians need to learn to support each other in positive ways amidst a sea of differences in order to overcome obstacles.  These are abstract words but specifics are hard to talk about because I don’t have a context to talk about specifically, nor do I have the “space” to really tackle this topic in its entirety.