What Church is the most wide spread? Who has broken more cultural barriers than all others?

Question

language barriers, ethnic barriers. governmental barriers?

Answer 1

NO doubt:

The Church oif Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints holds that distinction. In fact there are more LDS members OUTSIDE the United States than inside the U.S. It is also one of the very fastest growing Christian faiths on earth. The World COuncil on CHurches in 1998 estimated that if the LDS church continues to grow at is current rate of growth, that by the year 2080 there will be 350 million Mormons on the earth--second only ot Catholics among Christian faiths.

Answer 2

It's easy to say the Catholic faith. If you look at it from history's standpoint, it was originally the pagan religion. After Rome adopted Christianity, most of the holidays and celebrations were still observed, without use of the deities. Of course, Rome broke a lot of barriers, and the Catholic Church has as well, but that's just my opinion. It also depends on what time period you're talking about. Perhaps some civilization lost to history had an even more creative/destructive impact on the world, but we may never know. That's my two cents for ya.

Answer 3

The catholic church where I live it is pretty isolate and there are catholic schools all over our state and a lot of remote aboriginal missions.One story that sticks in my mind is the introduction of Aussie rules football in a very remote Aboriginal community and they took to it naturally and as most people know sports is great for self esteem and teamwork and these kids needed something to belong.Of course there was also many things the church did wrong and sexual abuse was one of them.

Answer 4

In ancient history I would have to say the Catholic Church, ie...the Holy Roman Empire?

They are responsible for the Crusades, the conquering of the West on behalf of European monarchs who wanted to redeem the world's "savages" and take their land at the same time.

These same conquistadors, presumably Catholic, also explored/settled/conquered Africa and made it known to the rest of Europe that there were "savages" there too. And put many many many of those people on the boats to begin the slave trade here on the American continent. Later, the Catholic Church condemned the practice of this type of slavery. But by then it was time for a shift in power from Catholics to Protestants...mostly in the US South.

So the evangelical Protestants have been doing most of the dirty work of maintaining slavery and racism during the Civil Rights movement, as well as some conquering of their own, in places like Africa's Congo all the way up to the use of our military in the US to stick our noses in the affairs of the Middle East.

So it seems there has been a bit of changing of the guard in the conquistador department.

On the other hand, both Protestants and Catholics have done their share of good in recent history.

The Catholic Worker Movement of the 1930's remains to this day an act of charity that is very very pure of intention and kind...while giving God the credit for the good done there. I was personally involved with this effort for a year in the early 90's and I know the reasons behind keeping those houses of hospitality open...it is to relieve hunger and poverty, wipe out judgment of the poor and homeless, and to promote social justice and equalize people under that roof, despite how much money they have.

Catholic nuns are doing very good work all over the globe, helping people in the way THEY need to be helped, instead of raping these people of their resources...Mother Teresa being perhaps the most well-known but certainly not the only nun spreading the Catholic faith and doing a beautiful job of it.

Protestant missionaries as well, have been doing good work. I was raised Baptist and we had this woman in my church as a kid who was raising her own money to go to Africa and live among the people there, help the community with medical supplies, and at the same time help with schools and building churches. But it was a kind introduction to the faith. Matt 25 style..."the least of these".

Evangelical Protestant churches of all denominations do all kinds of good things...youth trips to Mexico to build homes in poor communities, Christians trained in disaster relief to help with crises...and these people proudly wear their crosses while they give help...without preaching or shoving anything down anyone's throat. They preach in deed, at least they do this first, and they preach in words to willing audiences.

Evangelicals are also doing their thing in the media...some of the good being done includes outreach of the YMCA, Larry Jones' Feed the Children...Christian Children's Fund...Jimmy Carter's Habitat for Humanity...all very humble people running efficient organizations, and yet using TV to widely advertise their organizations to help people as a Christian response to need.

On the shadier side, we have the Protestant superchurches and TV preachers swindling money and living flashy while some of their contributors eat dog food and sleep on the floor...not to be outdone by the Pope, who is treated more like a celebrity than a servant.

So I guess it is a tossup. I think lots of Christians are on the right track, while others are scheming and trying to put God in their pockets to justify their own ends.

Answer 5

Never concentrate on denominations or religion. Wars start over that. Concentrate on the spiritualism of it. Btw, the Catholic church is probably the biggest plague of a religious organization on the planet, so I would say that particular brand of virus is the most widespread.

Answer 6

By far, the Catholic Church.