Obscure Churches You May Not Know Exist

The Christian denominations family tree includes groups that do not fit neatly into Christianity’s major historical branches. These include Unitarian Universalists, Metropolitan Community Churches, Irvingians, Two by Twos, Christadelphians, Christian Scientists, several Asian and African religious movements, and Messianic Jews.

The completed family tree was revised following viewer feedback. Matt Baker added the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland and the Church in Wales, ensuring that Wales was represented alongside England, Ireland, and Scotland in the Anglican section.

Unitarian Universalism emerged from two originally separate religious movements: Unitarianism and Universalism. Although the movements developed independently, their increasingly liberal religious outlooks eventually brought them together.

Unitarianism emphasizes the oneness of God and rejects the traditional Christian doctrine of the Trinity. In its broad theological sense, the term unitarian can describe Jews and Muslims because they reject the Trinity and the divinity of Jesus.

Organized Unitarian Christianity is distinct from the broader belief in one God. Capitalized Unitarianism refers to movements that emerged from Protestant Christianity, initially in Eastern Europe and subsequently in Britain and the United States.

American Unitarianism developed out of Congregationalism and became formally organized in 1825. That year saw the establishment of the American Unitarian Association.

Universalism teaches that all human beings will ultimately receive salvation. Its central distinction from traditional Christian teachings about eternal punishment is the belief that nobody will remain in hell.

The Universalist Church of America was established in 1793. Universalist ideas gained popularity in several American churches during roughly the same historical period as organized Unitarianism.

Unitarianism and Universalism became two of America's most theologically liberal religious movements. Their shared outlook eventually produced a formal merger in 1961, creating the Unitarian Universalist Association.

Unitarian Universalism occupies an ambiguous position in relation to Christianity. Baker excludes it from the chart's colored Christian denominational categories because it is nontrinitarian and therefore non-Nicene.

The chart represents Unitarian Universalism with a black-and-white symbol rather than a conventional Christian branch. This is the same visual treatment given to Judaism and Islam, reflecting Baker's interpretation that contemporary Unitarian Universalism may be better understood as a separate religion.

The Metropolitan Community Church developed from a single independent congregation into a distinct Christian denomination. Unlike Unitarian Universalism, Baker considers it clearly part of Christianity despite its similarly progressive social outlook.

Troy Perry founded the Metropolitan Community Church in 1968 to welcome gay and lesbian Christians. Perry, himself a gay man, wanted to create a religious community where homosexual Christians could participate openly.

The Metropolitan Community Church began conducting public same-sex marriages in 1969. Baker identifies these as among the first public same-sex marriage ceremonies in the United States, decades before California legally recognized such marriages in 2008.

The Metropolitan Community Church remains closely associated with LGBT Christians but is not exclusively LGBT. Its membership also includes heterosexual Christians.

The Catholic Apostolic Church is commonly called the Irvingian Church after Edward Irving of Scotland. Baker places it near the Restorationist movements because of similarities in historical development and religious outlook.

Irvingian Christianity sought to restore the organizational structure of the early Christian Church. Like other Restorationist movements, it emphasized recovering original Christian practices and preparing for the second coming of Jesus.

The original Irvingian movement has largely disappeared, while the New Apostolic Church became its principal surviving successor. The New Apostolic Church originated as a breakaway movement in 1863 and developed a particularly strong presence in continental Europe.

The Two by Twos originated with Scottish preacher William Irvine. Irvine had initially been loosely associated with the Higher Life movement before establishing an independent ministry in Ireland.

The Two by Twos organized their missionary work around pairs of traveling preachers. These missionaries, called Go Preachers, were expected to operate without salaries or permanent homes.

Edward Cooney became an influential early preacher within the Two by Twos. Although he was eventually expelled, he continued developing his own religious following, leading some members of the broader movement to become known as Cooneyites.

The Two by Twos have no universally recognized official denominational name and maintain a relatively secretive organizational culture. Baker classifies them as non-Nicene because he describes them as rejecting the Trinity.

The Christadelphians constitute another loosely organized, non-Nicene Christian movement. Their name derives from the Greek expression Christou adelphoi, meaning brothers and sisters in Christ.

Christadelphian founder John Thomas was originally connected to the Stone-Campbell movement. Baker therefore represents Christadelphianism as descending from that Restorationist tradition.

Swedenborgian Christianity developed from the teachings of Swedish religious thinker Emanuel Swedenborg. His followers became known as Swedenborgians, and their religious movement is also called the New Church.

Swedenborg taught that human beings become angels or demons after death. He believed that deceased humans continue existing as spirits and remain present around living people, attempting to influence them toward good or evil.

Swedenborg died in 1772, and his followers established a church in England fifteen years later. The movement subsequently expanded into the United States.

John Chapman, better known as Johnny Appleseed, was a Swedenborgian missionary. Beyond the American folk legends associated with his name, Chapman was a historical figure who helped introduce apple trees into numerous American states while spreading New Church teachings.

Franz Mesmer developed ideas about an invisible force connecting living organisms. His theory, known as animal magnetism or mesmerism, proposed that this force could be manipulated through particular techniques.

Mesmerism originally referred to a much broader theory than modern hypnotism. Although the word eventually became associated mainly with hypnosis, its original meaning involved a supposed invisible energy connecting living things.

Spiritualism emerged partly from combining Swedenborg's teachings about spirits with Mesmer's techniques. Practitioners began using mesmerist methods in attempts to contact deceased relatives and other spirits.

Spiritualism became particularly popular during the middle of the nineteenth century. Although its popularity subsequently declined, organized Spiritualist communities continued to exist.

The National Spiritualist Association of Churches was founded in the United States in 1893. It provided an institutional structure for Spiritualist religious groups.

Phineas Quimby was an early practitioner of mesmerism and an important figure in the development of New Thought. Baker identifies him as the founder of the New Thought movement.

New Thought combined nineteenth-century metaphysical theories with older philosophical ideas. It developed connections between contemporary beliefs about mental influence and metaphysical concepts associated with the ancient world.

Charles and Myrtle Fillmore established Unity in 1889. Their movement, also called the Unity Church, drew inspiration from New Thought and Transcendentalism.

Unity teaches that God can be understood as a divine energy connecting everything. It also emphasizes the belief that human thought can influence or change reality.

Christian Science emerged from the same broad nineteenth-century metaphysical environment. Baker identifies it as the most successful of the metaphysical Christian movements covered in the episode.

Mary Baker Eddy founded Christian Science in 1879. Eddy had previously been a patient of Phineas Quimby, connecting her personal history to the intellectual environment that produced New Thought.

The Church of Christ, Scientist, is commonly known as Christian Science. Despite its name, its teachings differ substantially from the methods and conclusions of mainstream science.

Christian Science and Scientology are unrelated religious movements. Christian Science emerged from nineteenth-century Christianity, whereas Scientology was founded in 1951 by science-fiction writer L. Ron Hubbard and has no historical roots in Christianity.

Mary Baker Eddy taught that the material world, including physical illness, is ultimately an illusion. She presented these teachings in Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures.

Christian Science emphasizes prayer as a means of overcoming illness. Its religious approach rests on the belief that recognizing the unreality of physical suffering can bring about healing, rather than relying on conventional medicine or physical therapy.

Christian Scientists interpret Jesus's healing miracles through their understanding of spiritual reality. They believe that the healing abilities attributed to Jesus demonstrate principles that others can apply by following Eddy's teachings.

The Church of Christ, Scientist, publishes The Christian Science Monitor. Despite its religious ownership, the newspaper concentrates on general news rather than promoting Christian Science theology.

The Christian Science Monitor has won several Pulitzer Prizes. Baker describes it as a respected news organization generally regarded as relatively unbiased.

Iglesia ni Cristo is a non-Nicene Christian movement based in the Philippines. It was founded by Felix Manalo and, at the time described, was led by his grandson Eduardo Manalo.

Iglesia ni Cristo teaches that Western Christianity departed from authentic Christianity within its first few centuries. Its religious claims therefore reject the legitimacy of the historical Christian traditions represented elsewhere in the family tree.

Iglesia ni Cristo interprets a passage in Isaiah about descendants coming from the East as supporting its religious identity. The movement associates the biblical reference with its own emergence in the Philippines.

Iglesia ni Cristo claims to be the only true Christian Church. Under this interpretation, other Christian denominations are considered false.

The Unification Church originated in Korea under the leadership of Sun Myung Moon. Its followers became widely known as Moonies, a name derived from Moon's surname.

Sun Myung Moon taught that he represented the second coming of Jesus. He claimed that his mission involved completing something Jesus had not accomplished during his earthly life: marriage.

Marriage occupies a central theological role in the Unification Church. The movement teaches that a special form of marriage can remove couples from the sinful lineage of Adam and Eve and restore them to God's sinless lineage.

The Unification Church became internationally known for mass wedding ceremonies. These events sometimes involved thousands of couples marrying simultaneously.

Sun Myung Moon's death in 2012 triggered a struggle for authority within his religious movement. The conflict involved his wife and their son Hyung Jin Moon.

Hyung Jin Moon eventually established a separate American religious organization called Rod of Iron Ministries. This breakaway movement developed a particular emphasis on gun ownership and gun rights.

Rod of Iron Ministries incorporates semiautomatic rifles into certain religious ceremonies. Members have carried such weapons during wedding ceremonies and other rituals.

The World Mission Society Church of God emerged as another major Korean non-Nicene movement. Baker describes it as having surpassed the Unification Church in prominence within Korea.

The World Mission Society Church of God was previously called the Church of God Jesus Witnesses. Its founder, Ahn Sahng-hong, had originally belonged to the Seventh-day Adventist tradition.

The World Mission Society Church of God retains several theological connections to Adventism. Its distinctive religious teachings, however, depart substantially from conventional Adventist Christianity.

Followers of Ahn Sahng-hong believe he represented the second coming of Jesus. Following his death, the movement also came to identify him with God the Father and the Holy Spirit.

The World Mission Society Church of God teaches the existence of God the Mother. Baker identifies the living Zahng Gil-jah as the woman occupying this divine role and describes her as Ahn Sahng-hong's wife.

Christianity accounts for less than five percent of China's population but represents an enormous religious community in absolute numbers. Baker cites estimates placing China seventh worldwide in its total Christian population.

Some estimates place China's Christian population above those of Italy and Greece. Its large overall population allows China to rank highly by absolute Christian numbers despite Christianity remaining a minority religion.

The Chinese government's religious system recognizes two principal official Christian organizations. These are the Protestant Three-Self Patriotic Movement and the Catholic Patriotic Association.

The Three-Self Patriotic Movement serves as an official umbrella organization for Protestant churches. Its structure brings multiple Protestant traditions into a government-recognized framework.

The Catholic Patriotic Association provides the official institutional framework for Roman Catholicism in China. Its relationship with the Vatican has historically been a major source of religious and political conflict.

Baker states that most Chinese Christians exist outside the country's two officially recognized Christian organizations. This includes underground Catholic communities and independent Protestant house churches.

The Catholic Patriotic Association was established in 1957 and was required to reject the Pope's authority. This requirement conflicted with Roman Catholic teaching about papal leadership.

Many Chinese Catholics consequently remained loyal to Rome through underground Catholic communities. Their refusal to accept the official association's rejection of papal authority created a lasting division within Chinese Catholicism.

China and the Holy See reached an agreement concerning Catholic bishops in 2018. Under the arrangement described by Baker, the Pope gained a role in approving episcopal appointments.

The 2018 agreement represented a potential change in relations between the Vatican and China's official Catholic institutions. Baker cautions that its long-term consequences remained uncertain.

Independent Protestant house churches operate outside the Three-Self Patriotic Movement. Many have developed their own organizational networks rather than joining the government-recognized Protestant structure.

Three particularly large Chinese Protestant house-church networks are the Born-Again Movement, Fangcheng Fellowship, and China Gospel Fellowship. Baker identifies them as among the largest independent Protestant organizations in the country.

Reliable membership figures for China's independent churches are difficult to establish. Baker suggests that some Chinese house-church networks may rank among the world's largest Protestant denominations, but the political and organizational circumstances make their true size uncertain.

The Local Churches movement originated in China before the Communist Revolution. It was established by Chinese Christian leader Watchman Nee.

Watchman Nee's movement initially had strong connections with the Plymouth Brethren. It subsequently developed relationships with other evangelical Christian traditions.

Watchman Nee was arrested and imprisoned following the Communist Revolution. His imprisonment interrupted his personal leadership of the movement.

Witness Lee continued developing the Local Churches movement after Nee's imprisonment. Lee expanded the movement first in Taiwan and subsequently in the United States.

Witness Lee established Living Stream Ministry in the United States. The organization became associated with the continued development and dissemination of the Local Churches tradition.

African-initiated churches differ historically from many African Christian denominations established by foreign missionaries. Their defining characteristic is that Africans themselves founded and developed the religious organizations.

The Zion Christian Church is one of the earliest African-initiated churches covered in the episode. It is based in South Africa and developed into one of the country's largest religious denominations.

The name Zion in African Zionist Christianity does not refer to the modern State of Israel. Baker traces this use of the name to Zion, Illinois, an American community established by John Alexander Dowie.

John Alexander Dowie attempted to establish Zion, Illinois, as a modern Christian theocracy. His project connected his religious leadership to the organization of an entire community around religious principles.

Dowie became prominent as a faith healer but later developed a reputation for financial exploitation. Baker states that Dowie fraudulently obtained millions of dollars from his followers.

The idea of establishing a new Zion spread beyond the United States and became influential in South Africa. This religious influence helped inspire the name and identity of the South African Zion Christian Church.

A South African religious founder named Engenas adopted the name Zion Christian Church for his movement. Baker describes the church as subsequently passing through the founder's family.

The Zion Christian Church came under the leadership of the founder's grandson Barnabas. Baker identifies it as the largest denomination in South Africa.

The Eternal Sacred Order of Cherubim and Seraphim is a major African-initiated church based in Nigeria. The organization is also known by the acronym ESOCS.

The Eternal Sacred Order of Cherubim and Seraphim was founded in 1925 by Yoruba religious leader Moses Orimolade. His religious reputation was associated with accounts of miraculous activities.

ESOCS became the largest of Nigeria's white-garment churches. These churches are also known as Aladura churches, a term derived from a Yoruba expression meaning a praying person.

The religious name Cherubim and Seraphim refers to two categories of angels. Baker distinguishes the biblical angelic terminology from the popular modern image of cherubs as small winged children.

The Redeemed Christian Church of God is another prominent Nigerian Christian denomination. Unlike several other African-initiated movements, it explicitly identifies itself as Pentecostal.

Josiah Akindayomi founded the Redeemed Christian Church of God. At the time covered, its leader was Enoch Adeboye.

Baker distinguishes formally Pentecostal African churches from African-initiated churches that merely share Pentecostal practices. Several movements incorporate Pentecostal elements without identifying themselves as part of the Pentecostal denominational tradition.

The Redeemed Christian Church of God is represented within the Pentecostal category of the family tree. Baker uses the chart's red coloring to indicate this affiliation.

The Kimbanguist Church originated in what is now the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Simon Kimbangu founded the movement in 1921, when the territory was under Belgian colonial rule.

Simon Kimbangu attracted followers through claims of miraculous powers. His reputation as a religious healer formed part of the movement's early development.

Kimbangu also preached Black liberation under Belgian colonial rule. His religious activity therefore acquired political significance beyond claims of supernatural healing.

Colonial authorities imprisoned Simon Kimbangu. Baker connects his imprisonment to his preaching about Black liberation under white colonial administration.

The Kimbanguist Church eventually developed teachings identifying Simon Kimbangu as an incarnation of the Holy Spirit. This belief distinguishes the movement from conventional Nicene Christianity.

Baker classifies Kimbanguism as non-Nicene because of its teachings about Simon Kimbangu's divine identity. The classification reflects a theological difference rather than the movement's African origins.

Rastafari emerged in Jamaica during the 1930s rather than in Africa. Baker discusses it alongside African religious developments because of its Christian influences and its connection to Ethiopia.

Rastafarian religious beliefs assign divine significance to Ethiopian ruler Haile Selassie. Baker describes the movement as identifying Selassie with the reincarnation of Jesus.

Rastafari developed from Christian-influenced beliefs into a separate religious tradition. Baker therefore gives it the same black-and-white treatment used for religions outside the chart's conventional Christian denominations.

Messianic Judaism brings the family tree back to Christianity's original Jewish setting. Baker emphasizes that Jesus's earliest followers were Jews and that Christianity initially existed within Judaism.

Baker identifies four principal Jewish sects during the lifetime of Jesus. He presents the Pharisees as the only one of those four traditions to survive the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple.

The Pharisaic tradition developed into rabbinic Judaism. Baker explains that modern Judaism overwhelmingly descends from the rabbinic tradition associated with the Pharisees.

Christianity began as an additional Jewish religious movement shortly before the Temple's destruction. Baker treats early Jewish Christianity as a fifth emerging Jewish sect that eventually developed into a separate religion.

Early Jewish Christianity divided into three substantially different theological directions. Baker distinguishes Jewish-Christian groups that rejected Jesus's divinity, Gnostic Christians, and Pauline Christians.

The Ebionites and Nazarenes maintained Jewish religious customs while rejecting the belief that Jesus was God. Practices associated with these communities included circumcision and abstaining from pork.

The Ebionites and Nazarenes eventually disappeared as organized religious movements. Baker suggests that their beliefs may nevertheless have influenced the development of Islam.

The proposed connection between early Jewish-Christian movements and Islam is presented as a historical likelihood rather than demonstrated direct descent. The episode does not identify a continuous institutional line connecting the extinct Ebionites or Nazarenes to Islam.

Gnostic Christians represented another early direction in Christianity. Baker places them at the opposite end of his simplified classification from the Jewish-Christian groups that maintained traditional Jewish practices.

The early Gnostic Christian movements described by Baker also eventually disappeared. Their historical fate contrasted with the continuing development of Pauline Christianity.

Pauline Christianity became the dominant surviving form of Christianity. Baker identifies this tradition as the branch that most contemporary Christians regard as representing authentic Christianity.

Christianity gradually became a predominantly Gentile religion. Although Jewish believers remained important during its early development, non-Jewish Christians eventually became the overwhelming majority.

Jewish converts who accepted mainstream Christianity were gradually integrated into predominantly Gentile congregations. Their religious identity did not produce a continuously separate Jewish-Christian denominational tradition.

Modern Messianic Judaism does not descend through an uninterrupted institutional line from the earliest Jewish Christians. Baker explicitly rejects the idea that contemporary Messianic congregations are direct organizational survivors of Christianity's original Jewish communities.

Predominantly Jewish Christian congregations reappeared in the nineteenth century. Their emergence was connected to the Hebrew Christian movement in the United States.

The Hebrew Christian Alliance of America was founded in 1915. It later adopted the name Messianic Jewish Alliance of America.

The Messianic Jewish Alliance of America became the largest organization of its kind. Baker uses it as the principal representative of modern Messianic Judaism in his denominational family tree.

Modern Messianic Judaism, as represented by the Messianic Jewish Alliance of America, accepts the Trinity and other central Nicene Christian doctrines. Baker therefore places it within the main body of Christianity rather than among non-Nicene religious movements.

Messianic Jews combine Jewish ancestry or identity with Christian beliefs about Jesus. Their religious position raises questions about whether they should be classified as Jews, Christians, or both.

Baker states that the major branches of rabbinic Judaism, from Reform to Orthodox, classify Messianic Judaism as Christianity. Under this religious classification, acceptance of Jesus as divine places Messianic believers outside Judaism as a religious tradition.

Some Messianic Jews are Jewish by birth or ancestry despite their Christian beliefs. Baker distinguishes inherited Jewish background from the religious classification applied by mainstream Jewish communities.

Baker argues that Judaism's historical relationship with Christianity helped establish important boundaries between the religions. Because Christianity became the much larger and more dominant tradition, he suggests that Judaism increasingly defined itself partly through the rejection of Christian theological claims.

Belief in the divinity of Jesus is presented as a decisive theological boundary between Judaism and Christianity. Baker contrasts Jewish religious traditions with Messianic Jewish Christianity on this central point.

Jewish identity cannot be understood exclusively as belief in God. Baker notes that someone born Jewish may cease believing in God altogether while continuing to be recognized as Jewish.

Baker characterizes Judaism as retaining elements of a tribal or inherited identity. This helps explain his distinction between abandoning religious belief and formally joining another religious tradition.

His interpretation treats conversion to Christianity differently from becoming an atheist. He argues that accepting Jesus as God represents joining a different religious community, whereas abandoning belief in God does not necessarily end one's Jewish identity.

The classification of Messianic Jews illustrates the difference between religious affiliation and ancestry. Someone can retain Jewish ancestry while belonging to a movement that mainstream Jewish religious institutions classify as Christian.

The completed family tree uses theological beliefs, institutional descent, and religious self-identification to distinguish movements. Groups that share Christian historical influences are not automatically classified as Christian denominations if their teachings or subsequent development place them outside the chart's framework.

Nicene Christianity serves as a major dividing line throughout the chart. The Trinity, the divine identity of Jesus, and the relationship between God and religious founders repeatedly determine whether movements appear inside or outside the mainstream Christian categories.

The chart also distinguishes religious continuity from historical influence. Christadelphians are linked to Stone-Campbell Christianity, Christian Science to Quimby's metaphysical environment, and modern Messianic Judaism to nineteenth-century Hebrew Christianity rather than an uninterrupted ancient Jewish-Christian institution.

Several movements developed around leaders who claimed exceptional divine authority. Baker identifies teachings about Sun Myung Moon, Ahn Sahng-hong, Simon Kimbangu, and Haile Selassie as important reasons their associated movements differ from conventional Nicene Christianity.

Religious movements that emerged from Christianity sometimes became independent religions rather than new Christian denominations. Baker applies this interpretation particularly to Unitarian Universalism and Rastafari, while retaining their historical relationships to Christianity in the overall family tree.

The family tree distinguishes government-recognized churches from independent religious networks in China. This organizational distinction is especially important because official denominational structures do not adequately represent the full extent of Chinese Christianity.

African-initiated Christianity demonstrates that independent Christian denominations emerged outside European and American missionary leadership. The movements covered include churches with distinct traditions of faith healing, prayer, Pentecostal practice, African religious leadership, and resistance to colonial authority.

Baker announced plans to produce comparable religious family trees for Judaism, Islam, and Hinduism. Each was intended to receive a separate explanatory video, extending the classification approach beyond Christianity.