First, we made up our own religion. I asked several questions about what they wanted their religion to have - from how many gods to whether or not we'd have idols to features of our holy book and what the religion would require of its members. There were two full pages of questions, which were geared toward creating a religion that would attract as many people as possible, and to be the most palatable to us. Plus we just wanted the religion to be a humanly logical as possible.
This may sound like heresy, but first, our students are sharp enough to know what I'm getting at, and second, they were quick to note when what they said wasn't really theologically true.
Then we compared their answers to the features of Christianity, and of course, we came up with a radically different religion than Christianity. We ended up with three "gods" - but they were not complete in themselves. We rejected having any hard-to-fathom realities (like a Trinity, losing your life to save it, a leader who is fully God and fully man), and salvation was based on the whims of the gods, who had to be placated and pleased (especially the "god" who was insecure!). We allowed sin, because that would attract more members. We only had 9 authors of the holy book, and they had to collaborate together in order to get their story straight, and still they had to run their writings past the gods. We would promise potential new members an easy life, not a hard life. There were many more features especially geared toward trying to make our religion popular. (By the way, all infidels are to be burned if they don't accept this religion.)
The point of the exercise was to show that no one would ever make up Christianity. If you were to make up a religion, the chances are incredibly small that you make up something that resembles Christianity. No one would make up a Trinity (a key doctrine that we can't even fully comprehend), no one would write about the first followers of the religion as a bunch of dunderheads (like the apostles are in the Gospels), no one would say you have to die to yourself as part of membership, no one could have a completely consistent holy book written by over 40 different authors over 1500 years from different languages and cultures (and some writing without the knowledge of what the others were writing), and so on down the line. We didn't ground our religion in historical events, because they could be proven wrong. Our "gods" wanted glory because they don't already have all glory. The list goes on. (We say "no one" - theoretically someone could do one or two, but the point is that if you were going to make up a religion, you wouldn't make up all the things Christianity is.)
It was also important to note that the group couldn't agree on the features of the religion. They were all in the same room at the same time from the same culture speaking the same language, and they could not agree on the features of their religion, even when they were told to. Furthermore, not even the three "gods" could agree! Each had their own ego, and they each advocated for the features they wanted, especially those that would benefit the self most.
Christianity is not something that man would make up for himself. It demands too much of the self, it defies our ability to comprehend, it does not allow us to earn anything, it has a holy book that could never be created by a committee but simultaneously bears the marks being written both by God and by men. Christianity is not geared to become as large as possible, but as pure as possible, which automatically means that most people will reject it. It paints its first leaders not as saints but as societal nobodies who get it wrong more than they get it right. You don't make this stuff up.
I found it particularly fascinating that the main leader of this new religion had to be attractive, charismatic, and have a good voice. Scripture is clear that Jesus was plain in appearance. Scripture is also clear that the Antichrist will be particularly good looking and charismatic.
What we did end up with was a religion that resembles every other religion in the world except Christianity. That's no accident.
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