One fourth of us SHLOGGERS don’t care a bit about denominations.  But the vast majority (82%) say that while no one denomination owns the market on truth they do prefer one denomination over others for themselves.  The Church of Christ folks chimed in with 5% of the vote, believing they’re the only ones that are right.  (Please, no hate mail from the Church of Christ folks.  It’s a joke.)

And for the 1% who said they don’t know what a denomination is let me explain it like this.  Denominations are factions of Christianity.  They’re like brands of the same product.  (Wow, we could take that analogy some scary directions couldn’t we?) These denominations were usually created by one group of people leaving another denomination to start their own because of some issue that at the time seemed like a big deal and the right thing to pout about.

Southern Baptists for instance, the denomination whose logo is on the sign in front of the church I currently attend, were formed to keep slavery alive.  The American Baptists became the against slavery group and the Southern, who wanted to stay rich and white, did not accept African-Americans as human but as property.  And we’re still pretty much rich and white while American Baptists are still very racially diverse. 

Free Methodists didn’t like Methodist churches selling assigned seats for the church service so they broke off and did their own thing: open seating, first come first served.  Just two examples of the kinds of things that have created these schisms that still exist today.  Some divisions formed around weighty life and death issues and others over making church a non-ticketed event.  How did your denomination get it’s start?  You might be surprised when you find out.