There are 30,000 Christian denominations in the USA. Which flavor should we all convert to?That's a slightly different barrel of fish, isn't it? Denomination is irrelevant (and I would argue that most of them shouldn't exist, but we'll get to that in a moment) so long as a church/denomination holds to the tenants of Christianity. These are:
- The Bible is the inerrant, literal Word of God
- All humans are mired in sin before birth
- Ergo, all humans deserve nothing less than eternal damnation
- God, in His grace, provided a sacrifice for this sin in His Son (begotten, not made in the words of Constantine's creed) Jesus Christ who, being perfect in all things, was able to provide the perfect sacrifice
- This sacrifice is a gift of God, come of grace, not works; no one is ever worthy...ever.
- Jesus is 100% man and 100% God
- Jesus was born of the virgin Mary, crucified dead and buried, and on the third day he rose again
- Jesus will return to judge the living and the dead. Those who have accepted the free gift of salvation will enter heaven and those who have not will be sentenced to eternal damnation "where there will be fire and gnashing of teeth"
I may have missed something or misstated it and, if so, I do apologize. You will notice something interesting about that list: many, if not most, of the "30,000" (is that a real number or something you pulled out of your sleeve?) you mentioned would fail to qualify as Christians under that list. There are far too many heretical "Christian" churches.
Those tenants are the very reason I am not what people like you would consider a "Christian." I, for one, will actually listen to the words of Christ himself and not those of the Apostle Paul who never met the man and saw his supposed words in a "vision."
- The Bible is the inerrant, literal Word of God Then why so many versions of the same story, e.g. the Gospel?
- All humans are mired in sin before birth Apparently not Noah and Enoch, whom God labeled "blameless" and are from the same bloodline as all supposed sinners
- Ergo, all humans deserve nothing less than eternal damnation See previous premise, also note the Biblical Flood as an example of God's salvation pre-Jesus
- God, in His grace, provided a sacrifice for this sin in His Son (begotten, not made in the words of Constantine's creed) Jesus Christ who, being perfect in all things, was able to provide the perfect sacrifice No entity on Earth can be perfect in all things as the definition of "perfect" cannot be totally and concretely defined; however, he can be seen as an 'ideal'
- This sacrifice is a gift of God, come of grace, not works; no one is ever worthy...ever. See the previous premise
- Jesus is 100% man and 100% God No entity anywhere can be 200%
- Jesus was born of the virgin Mary, crucified dead and buried, and on the third day he rose again Irrelevant to his teachings, but I'll grant it
- Jesus will return to judge the living and the dead. Those who have accepted the free gift of salvation will enter heaven and those who have not will be sentenced to eternal damnation "where there will be fire and gnashing of teeth" This view of salvation discards every moral and teaching that Jesus ever taught to his followers and disciples and renders all morality meaningless