Christianity is the largest religion of mankind and has existed since Paul was knocked off his donkey by Jesus. It should have died off long ago, because it is washed in a history of fables, contradictions and confusion.
So what is the secret of Christianity? Its longevity can be ascribed to its ability to mutate over time, just like cancer cells, it reinvents itself to deal with its new context both socially and theologically.
This often entails receiving new revelations from God to make one flavour of a Christian faith appear as God’s very own favourite in a sea of competing Bible truths. Since God can’t be contacted for direction and the fact that Jesus is said to have gone back to where he had come from two-thousand years ago, believers are left to being creative with the Bible and often must receive “new” revelations from God.
New Christian sects spring up (one estimate today puts them now at around 45,000) wherever freedom of religion is guaranteed. For instance in South Africa I could start a new Christian sect tomorrow and thousands would come to be fleeced by promises of prosperity, healing and salvation. Let’s face it people are gullible - especially in an illiterate country like South Africa, where an dysfunctional education system is proud to pass pupils with 35% pass marks after writing a dumbed down test paper.
All I need to do; to distinguish my sect from others as called of God is to discover some new major Bible truth. Seventh-day Adventists and Jehovah Witnesses did just this; with there empathise on the “last days” and the “second coming of Jesus”. People flocked to them from the mainline denominations wanting to be ready and waiting for when Jesus came back to earth again to take them to heaven with him to the mansions in the sky. Of course it did not matter that Jesus did not come back again on the date prophesied – another date was set.
Mary Baker Eddy, through careful study of the Bible found that; all the teachings of Jesus were complete and coherent and as such are a source of divine science. She promulgated the belief that spiritual reality is the only reality in that all else is illusion or error. The Christian Scientist Church of Tom Cruise was born.
John G Lake came to South Africa in 1908, where he preached the “new message” of divine health and speaking in tongues. As a result the largest Pentecostal Church (Apostolic Faith Mission of South Africa - AFM) in South Africa was founded. Due to the segregationist impulses of the AFM's white membership, the majority of its African members eventually seceded, forming many different Zionist Christian sects.
Engenas B Lekganyane was the founder of one of Africa's largest churches, the Zion Christian Church (ZCC). Under the leadership of his descendants the ZCC has gone on to have more than a million members primarily located in southern Africa. It is now by far the biggest of the various Zionist Christian sects that account for roughly half of all Christians in southern Africa.
E. W. Kenyon, and Kenneth Hagin amongst others founded the prosperity movement which is especially popular in South Africa. Prosperity theology teaches that Christians are entitled to well-being and, because physical and spiritual realities are seen as one inseparable reality, this is interpreted as physical health and economic prosperity. Understandably many prominent ANC politicians have flocked to these mega Churches. (Rhema, Christian Family Church, etc)
So what is the next big truth in Christianity?