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Does such sect inside Christianity exist?

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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. May 9, 2017 at 2:19
  • +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. May 10, 2017 at 4:20

1 Answer 1

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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)
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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... Aug 30, 2012 at 17:56
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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... Aug 30, 2012 at 18:07
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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, 2012 at 18:21
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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, 2012 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, 2012 at 20:27

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