so, how many christian sects are there exactly?

Question

please dont answer "a gazillion" numbers would be interesting...

Answer 1

A lot. There are the major divisions (e.g. Catholic, Protestant, Orthodox) and then there are a lot of minor divisions of those (for Protestantism there's Lutheran, Baptist, Methodist, Anglican, etc) and subdivisions of them and small groups that aren't part of the big sects (the LDS, JWs, Mary Baker Eddie cultists, etc) and then there are sects which mix Christian belief with other religions, UFO and Elvis worship or what have you.

There's probably more than ten thousand Christian sects ranging from the gigantic Roman Catholic cult (that even has it's own state) right down to small cults that are in the desert and house churches that are run informally by a few families meeting at each others homes.

Of course a lot of it depends on where you draw the dividing line between separate sect and part of a sect, one could justify any number from 1 to over 2 billion.

Why this much disagreement in a true religion? Because it isn't true.

Answer 2

There are countless small independent Christian churches set up in peoples homes even often with tiny local membership, so I would imagine nobody knows the true number. Religion is clearly divisive and sectarianism separates even those within the Christian religion from each other.

Answer 3

About 26,000 and counting. About 300 new denominations are added to this total every year.
Each denomination is saying they have the correct interpretation of the Bible.

Answer 4

one for every christians individual view of god.

1.5 billion.

Answer 5

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Christian_denominations

I'm too lazy to count them all for you. It's mind-numbing to have to read through all of it. But there you have it, all the same.