+++ A prophecy and a newspaper clipping that stand the test of time...

And I say also unto thee, that 

thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; 

and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. 

And I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven: 

and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: 

and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. 

Matthew 16:18-19

Who Founded Your Religion??

By, ANN LANDERS
Monday, November 11, 1996 —Sacramento Bee:The Scene

• If you are a member of the Jewish faith, your religion was founded by Abraham about 4,000 years ago. 
• If you are Hindu, your religion developed in India around 1500 B.C. 
• If you are a Buddhist, your religion split from Hinduism and was founded by Buddha, Prince Siddhartha Gautama of India, about 500 B.C. 
• If you are Roman Catholic, Jesus Christ began your religion in the year 33. 
• If you are Islamic, Mohammed started your religion in what is now Saudi Arabia around 600 A.D. 
• If you are Eastern Orthodox, your sect separated from Roman Catholicism around the year 1000. 
• If you are a Lutheran, your religion was founded by Martin Luther, an ex-monk in the Catholic Church, in 1517. 
• If you belong to the Church of England (Anglican), your religion was founded by King Henry VIII in the year 1534 because the pope would not grant him a divorce with the right to remarry. 
• If you are a Presbyterian, your religion was founded when John Knox brought the teachings of John Calvin to Scotland in the year 1560. 
• If you are Unitarian, your religion group developed in Europe in the 1500s. 
• If you are a Congregationalist, your religion branched off from Puritanism in the early 1600s in England.
• If you are a Methodist, your religion was founded by John and Charles Wesley in England in 1744. 
• If you are an Episcopalian, your religion was brought over from England to the American colonies and formed a separate religion founded by Samuel Seabury in 1789.  
• If you are a Baptist, you owe the tenets of your religion to John Smyth, who launched it in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, in 1807.  
• If you are a Mormon (Latter-day Saints), Joseph Smith started your church in Palmyra, N.Y., not Salt Lake City, which would have been my guess. The year was 1830.
• If you worship with the Salvation Army (yes, it's a religious group, not just an organization that collects money in kettles on Christmas and serves dinners to the homeless), your sect began with William Booth in London in 1865. 
• If you are a Christian Scientist, you look to 1879 as the year your religion was founded by Mary Baker Eddy. 
• If you are a Jehovah's Witness, your religion was founded by Charles Taze Russell in Pennsylvania in the 1870s. 
• If you are Pentecostal, your religion was started in the United States in 1901. 
• If you are an agnostic, you profess an uncertainty or a skepticism about the existence of God or a higher being.

[Many thanks, Bozena, for tracking down this old, but illuminating, article. I made a bar chart to illustrate the age comparisons but I was not able to embed it in this blog post. For a more detailed timeline that includes far more Christian religions, see Father John Pasquini's "Catholic Answers to Protestant Questions" found HERE.]