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.

Name Founder Deity Location Date started Number in millions*

Hinduism None Brahma India 1500 B.C. 322

Judaism Moses Jehovah Scattered 1200 B.C. 12

Shinto None Nature-gods Japan 660 B.C. 79

Taoism Lao-tze The Tao China 604 B.C. 50

Buddhism Buddha None, then The East 560 B.C. 150-275

Founder

Confucianism Confucius Heaven, or China 551 B.C. 300

Founder

Christianity Jesus Christ Father-God World 4 (?) B.C. 835

Islam Mohammed Allah Muslim 570 A.D. 420

Countries

* These are only rough estimates in most cases (graph is from resource 1)

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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

made any sort of widespread organization nearly impossible. So in smaller towns, each church

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was essentially in charge of itself, while in cities, there organization got beyond the city walls.

Thus, across the empire, many different theological ideas were developed and many different

modes of worship." (3) Most of the other major religions are less segregated amongst themselves

and seem to have a more concise religious view. The fact that Christianity is as diverse in the

types as it is may also add to why it is the most practiced religion but lets look a bit further to

discover why.

Christianity while diverse among the types does have ten common things that could

explain why it is so popular. Lets look at them individually.

1. The Bible may be one of the worlds most known literary works. "Christians can

read of the life of Jesus, as well as his ancestors in the only Christian holy text,

the Bible." (4) The Bible unlike many other literary works is actually comprised

of books written by many authors but it is excepted that all of the books are Gods

words given to us through