Category: Podcast Notes

In Episode 3: Church and Competition, Wayne and I tossed around a few numbers as we estimated and hypothesized how many Christian denominations there are. Depending on how you are counting, the number can span anywhere from 300-30,000. This helpful article from National Catholic helps explain the conflicting data.

The World Christian Encyclopedia says “World Chris­tian­ity con­sists of 6 major ecclesiastico-​cultural blocs, divided into 300 major eccle­si­as­ti­cal tra­di­tions, com­posed [sic] of over 33,000 dis­tinct denom­i­na­tions in 238 coun­tries (Vol. I, p. 16).”

Also, as some of you picked up in podcast episode 3, there were probably some mixed signals sent. One listener pointed out that we were sort of sounding anti-institution toward the beginning, but then seemed to advocate for the benefits of “church life” in Christian schools (an institution with potentially more oversight and bureaucracy than local churches). As we wrestle with some of these topics, one of our main motives is to get thoughts brewing, and to open cans of worms that perhaps have remained sealed on the shelf too long. So please, help us continue the conversation and keep sending us your thoughts and feedback (commenting on the website, tweeting, or Facebook). We need your brains to sort out this muddled can of worms!