There is the Catholic Church and then some 35,000 other “Christian” religious sects each purporting to authoritatively carry on the “Great Commission” given by The Christ:
“All authority hath been given unto me in heaven and on earth. Go ye therefore, and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them into the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit: teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I commanded you: and lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world” (Mt. 28:18-20)
We have seen today the utter collapse of the Anglican and Lutheran Churches that were fruits of heresy and apostasy and their lesser samplings in the form of an unknown number of Evangelical mushrooms.
The various denominations I see as (computer terminology here), 1st generation, 2nd gen etc. And, like all heresies, they at the most last for 500 odd years (like Arianism died out within 500 years and so too the rest).
The 1st generation Protestant groups --> Anglicans, original Lutherans, Calvinists, Zwingli-boys, Unitarians etc. are dead or dying. Modern day Lutherans are not in tune with the same beliefs that Luther had -- they do expand on them (with no comments on why or the validity or the "trueness to Luther" on this), mixing it with Reformed thinking or otherwise. Ditto for Anglicans and the original Calvinists (Switzerland)
What we see in the Baptists and then the Evangelicals is generation 4 and 5/6 respectively. And the half-life of these is shorter than those of the original break-away denominations: if you look up the history of Presbyterianism in the USA it is crazy and looks like this
And that's just Presbyterians in the US. If you look at the original Presbyterians in Scotland it looks like
Here is it for the Pentecostals:
Ditto for the SBC
