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Does such sect inside Christianity exist?

curiousdannii
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Battle of Karbala
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  • We don't decide who is Christian and who isn't. It is up to you to find the Christian denomination and ask about it specifically. There is no way your question could have one exact answer which answers your question other than one that says, "Yes". Therefore, your question is okay for chat but not a good question for this site. – The Freemason May 09 '17 at 02:19
  • +The Freemason That's absurd, obviously whether or not we do so depends on context. Whenever someone attempts to determine statistics or demographics about Christians the are required to decide upon a working definition of "Christian" suitable to their purposes. And your definition "those who say they are on a survey" is still you decideding how to define Christian suitable to your purposes. Probably a good way of doing it for most demographic purposes. – Marcel Besixdouze May 10 '17 at 04:20

1 Answers1

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A.) less than 2.2 percent of Christians belong to sects professing to believe that Jesus is not God. 

                     Do            Don't         N/A        (in billions)
Catholicism          1.2   
Protestantism        0.801  
Eastern Orthodoxy    0.230 
Oriental Orthodoxy   0.082
Restorationism                      0.045* 
Unitarian Universalism                           0.006 
Nestorianism                        0.006**
                     2.313          0.051        0.006

Demographics wikipedianot the table

*There are quite a few who would disagree with the assessment of these two groups, including myself, but for the sake of simplicity, if you're going to go looking for groups that deny the Divinity of Christ, start here.

**I was just reading about the hypostatic union, and apparently Nestorian's think it was just luck or something.

B.) The answer is too subjective and contentious to possibly answer without inciting a holy war. The reasons are probably:

  • They have different or changed scriptures. (Jehovah's Witnesses)
  • They were founded by people who called themselves prophets and wanted to essentially start a new religion.
  • They were founded on enlightenment ideals wherein Jesus could not be God because that would mean God exists in a real and profound way in human history. (Deists and Unitarians probably don't believe this)
  • They exist to fulfill some desire to project a certain idea about God that others don't share. Like dualism (meaning the body is bad and the soul is good), they'd say that Jesus, couldn't have been God since He inhabited a body. (Christian Scientists and older heretics like the Manichean's) or they think that the Body was inhabited by God, but the Body was not God (Nestorians)
Peter Turner
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  • For the record, my little list is not perfect, not all the sects within the Do category, do in fact believe that Jesus is God. Take Quaker's for instance. – Peter Turner Aug 30 '12 at 17:35
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    Are there 45 million Restorianists, or 45,000? I think your "don't" number should be a heck of lot smaller. There are 15 million Southern Baptists in the U.S. alone, but I doubt there are 3x as many Restorians... – Affable Geek Aug 30 '12 at 17:56
  • It's 45 million. You got me, I've never heard of "Restorationism", but it sounds better than "people I disagree with" I guess. Check out the wiki article I sourced. It says who is lumped in there, JW's LDSer's etc.. – Peter Turner Aug 30 '12 at 18:01
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    Read through it and the Restorationism article. I don't see any of these sects as denying the divinity of Christ. Millerites, for example, just say that Christ is coming back in 1845. (Ok, Miller died in 1844, but the JWs and SDAs survive...) I still think you're being overly generous to the "Don't believe in the divinity of Christ" column... I will admit that Jehovah's Witness don't believe Jesus is God, but I wouldn't lump the LDS into that... – Affable Geek Aug 30 '12 at 18:07
  • Possibly, I also may be being a bit particular with what I do mean by the Divinity of Christ (I'd exclude anyone who accepts dualism and anyone who just puts Him in a Pantheon). But you're right, I shouldn't over generalize, especially about things I don't even remotely claim to understand. – Peter Turner Aug 30 '12 at 18:13
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    While it's true that the Latter-Day Saints have additional scriptures, and that the church was founded by a man claiming prophetic authority, the church most definitely does believe in the divinity of Jesus Christ. – Mason Wheeler Aug 30 '12 at 18:21
  • @MasonWheeler, I respect that, but do the Later-Day Saints believe that Jesus was fully man and fully God at the same time? I've got to believe they don't because, in believing very important article of faith, one ought to accept its implications. – Peter Turner Aug 30 '12 at 18:37
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    @PeterTurner: Yes, and that belief has been clearly articulated since the establishment of the church. I'm not sure what implications you're talking about, but this is a solid and non-controversial piece of LDS doctrine. Perhaps this could be discussed more productively in a chat? – Mason Wheeler Aug 30 '12 at 18:43
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    @PeterTurner, that's much more clear with the edit. Though the claim that Mormons don't believe in the divinity of Christ (which this answer explicitly does in point B) is just flat-out wrong. I also think that "they have different or changed scriptures" does not give any legitimate insight into Jehovah's Witnesses' beliefs about the divinity of Christ. – amcnabb Aug 30 '12 at 20:27
  • This is really not an answer. I know from experience that many people who describe themselves as "protestant" will say Christ is the Son of God, but is not God. If you ask the average Christian if Christ is God they will say the Father is God and Christ is his Son. Unless they've been specifically trained to say otherwise. Demographics do /not/ answer this question, because the beliefs of individual Christians do not match the beliefs of their denominations. E.g. many people who identify as "Catholic" don't believe God exists at all. – Marcel Besixdouze Feb 21 '15 at 07:54
  • @MarcelTuring Are you arguing that the question can't be answered due to all people not believing identically all doctrine? – KorvinStarmast May 09 '17 at 16:48
  • @KorvinStarmast Not even remotely. I believe the question can be answered, but that's totally irrelevant to my comment. I would propose, for example, a survey of random individuals, asking for their religion and their belief on whether "Jesus is God". Compute the percentage and extrapolate. My comment had nothing whatsoever to do with whether the question COULD be answered, I was merely pointing out the fact that the method Peter gave for answering this question (counting total members of sects whose doctrines assert that "Jesus is God") DOES NOT answer the question. – Marcel Besixdouze May 10 '17 at 04:07
  • @KorvinStarmast Even among Trinitarians, the concept of hypostasis distinguishes nature and essence from personhood (not to be confused with the Nestorian sense), so if the question doesn't make explicit whether it is speaking of nature or personhood the doctrinal answer is ambiguous. Some even educated Trinitarians who even have a good concept and belief in their doctrine may respond one way or another depending on how they read the question which, relative to their doctrine, is ambiguous. – Marcel Besixdouze May 10 '17 at 04:18
  • @MarcelTuring Thank you for explaining that. – KorvinStarmast May 10 '17 at 13:05