Second Largest Protestant Denomination

[vle045]

My brochure from the United Methodists says that they are the second largest Protestant denomination (I think it was printed in 2001).

So, are they currently ranked second largest? Who's the largest? Any ideas on why the top 5 are the most popular?

Any other related info?

[Sphinx777]

This is all I could come up with...

http://www.adherents.com/rel_USA.html#families

http://www.ucmpage.org/articles/rwall.html

:angel:

[vle045]

This is all I could come up with...

http://www.adherents.com/rel_USA.html#families

http://www.ucmpage.org/articles/rwall.html

:angel:
thanks. i wouldn't have guessed that the top largest was baptist.... but what do I know? LOL And I am suprised that there are more Jehovah's Witnesses than Assembly of God.

[Qyöt27]

Here we go:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Christian_denominations_by_number_of_members

The actual list (condensed for space and time):

Historical Protestantism - 367 million
Baptist churches - 110 million
Lutheranism - 85 million
Methodism - 85 million
Calvinist churches - 80 million
Anabaptism/Radical Reformation - 4.5 million
Open Brethren - 1.85 million
Quakers (with quasi non-trinitarian and unitarian affinities) - 0.35 million
*Note: If Anglicanism is considered Protestant, it holds the 5 spot under the Historical category.

Modern off shoot Protestantism
Pentecostalism - 128.82 million
Non-Denominational Evangelicalism - 40 million



So my reasoning as to why the top 5 are as popular as they are is because (in reference to Historical denoms) they've been around the longest, and thus more people have flocked to them and are comfortable with them. Sure, Anabaptists and Quakers also have long histories (in the case of Anabaptists, I believe the division between them and nominal Baptists is generally due to how far out they've chosen to remain, while Baptists were ok with adapting to changes in society), but I think the dramatically lower numbers are due to the way they treat the world outside their own communities and how the outside looks back at them. While I know that's not a hard-and-fast rule concerning either group, as I'm sure there are plenty of members here on CF that prove the stereotype wrong, the general image of those groups are ones which tend to isolate themselves more than other faith traditions, and those on the outside are content to simply let them be.

With Pentecostalism, I would have to guess it's largely due to the revival atmospheres in the 19th century that it was spawned from and the social demography of the groups that Pentecostal churches generally make the biggest inroads into (which tend to be lower and poverty-level communities in Third World countries; interestingly enough, those same areas also tend to have higher percentages of Catholicism, or at least seem to). Of course, that's not to say there aren't middle- and upper-class congregants of Pentecostal churches (far from - I'd bet a lot of infamy surrounding such churches actually starts in those classes), but the feverish growth I think is better attributed to where the focus is being aimed outside of the cushy haven of the developed world.

Another factor I think would be due to the vast amount of influence that Baptist and Reformed churches had on America, particularly in the formative years of the Fundamentalist ideology. Since Pentecostal and non-denom churches stick pretty close to that demographic (albeit with their own unique twists, but generally speaking...), then I think a good number of both those groups growth has to do with a sort of transference effect, where members from the other major churches were siphoned off due to any number of factors. I wouldn't be surprised if a good number was simply due to people not knowing what types of individual theology certain churches have and figuring 'eh, they're all the same anyway' - something that sticking close to the Fundamentalist mold probably helps with quite a bit.

[GraceSeeker]

It's important to know what those numbers actually mean, first those are aggregate world-wide figures. When talking about Lutheranism, they lump together Missouri Synod, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, Wisconsin Synod, the various state churches in Europe where any protestant is considered technically a Lutheran, and most people are baptized into the state church on birth even if they have no further connection with it till death, and many others. Similary all Methodist are grouped together be they United Methodist, Free Methodist, British Methodist, La Igelsia Metodista de Chile, and La Iglesia Metodist Pentecostal de Chile. Wikepedia's list of "Methodist" includes non-methodist churches of similar theological bents like not just the Wesleyan Church and the Nazarene Church, but even "heretical" methodist-type groups like the Salvation Army and the Evangelical Reformed Church are included. And of course just as there are many types of "methodists" there are also probably hundreds of different types of baptists groups around the world as well.

Some of these churches count anyone who has ever been baptized, even if it was only done perfuntorily with no intention of continued discipleship. Some count anyone who ever walked down the sawdust trail in response to an altar call, even if they have done it twelve other times at 10 other churches. I know that in a few congregations a person gets counted each and every time they respond with some sort of profession of faith, including simple rededications. Some will issue a transfer of members to a new congregation, some will not and will keep them on their own roles forever even if they are attending elsewhere (sometimes even after death). All of that is to say, just looking at numbers may not quite tell the whole story, especially when looking at international figures.



For more specifics, in the USA the order of the largest denominational groups, based on attendance are:

Catholic - 50,873,000 11.74%
Baptist - 33,830,000 8.13%
Methodist - 14,150,000 3.33%
Lutheran - 9,580,000 1.98%
Pentecostal/Charismatic/Foursquare - 4,407,000 1.40%
Presbyterian - 5,596,000 1.32%
Mormon/
Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints - 2,697,000 0.92%
Non-denominational Christians - 2,489,000 0.73%
Church of Christ - 2,593,000 0.72%
Episcopal/Anglican - 3,451,000 0.50%
Assemblies of God - 1,106,000 0.37%
Congregational/
United Church of Christ - 1,378,000 0.20%
Seventh-Day Adventist - 724,000 0.16%

This is the denominational group (i.e. all Methodists, not just United Methodists), the number of people who self-report themselves to be in attendance at a church of this denominational group during any given week, and the percent of the entire US population that would represent. (Don't assume that everyone tells the truth, for these figures to hold up it would mean that 49% of all Methodists and 77% of all Mormons attend a service at least once a week. My experience is that this is not really true, you can probably reduce these aggregate numbers by about one-third; they might be accurate for how many of each denomination attend at least once a year.)




Despite my critique on the accuracy of self-reported figures, this ranking pretty well roughly mirrors the specific memberships reported by the following denominations:

The Roman Catholic Church - 66,407,000
The Southern Baptist Convention - 16,248,000
The United Methodist Church - 8,251,000
The Church of God in Christ - 5,500,000
National Baptist Convention USA - 5,000,000
The Lutheran Church (ELCA) - 4,985,000
National Baptist Convention of America - 3,500,000
The Presbyterian Church USA - 3,241,000
Assemblies of God - 2,687,000

(And I didn't include at 5,599,000 member the Mormons, because we were just talking about Christian denominations.)




What is interesting is to compare this with numbers from 40 years ago:

Roman Catholic Church - 42,105,000
United Methodist Church - 10,798,000
Southern Baptist Convention - 9,732,000
The Lutheran Church (ELCA) - 5,300,000
National Baptist Convention USA - 5,256,000
Presbyterian Church (USA) - 4,108,000
Episcopal Church - 3,444,000
National Baptist Convention of America - 2,669,000
Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod - 2,391,000
Churches of Christ - 2,163,000




Now, let's take a look at the rate of growth of the fastest growing denominations:

Pentecostal Assemblies of the World - +3233.3%
Church of God in Christ - +1299.5%
Evangelical Free Church of America - +683.9%
Christian & Missioinary Alliance - +582.5%
Assemblies of God - +427.9%
Church of God (Cleveland, Tennessee) - +425.0%
International Pentecostal Holiness Church - +301.9%
International Church of the Foursquare Gospel - +268.7%

(Once again, I will not include with the above list the 276.5% increase in the Mormons, or the 274.4% growth of the Jehovah's Witnesses, as I do not consider them Christian denominations.)




And here are the denominations showing the greatest amount of shrinkage:

American Baptist Churches in the USA - --5.7%
Evangelical Lutheran Church in America - --5.9%
Presbyterian Church (USA) - --21.1%
United Methodist Church - --23.6%
Churches of Christ - --30.7%
Episcopal Church - --32.6%
Conservative Baptist Association of America - --33.3%
United Church of Christ - --35.9%
Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) - --56.4%
American Baptist Association - --57.6%





I'll leave it for others to speculate on the "why" questions. I image that some of it has to do with politics as much as with theology. The ELCA was growing until recently when its leadership began to champion what the grassroots in the pew saw as "liberal" issues such as the admission of homosexuals for ordination. (Something they have not actually approved.) And while many of the growing denominations can be described as "conservative" and the shrinking ones as "liberal", that isn't true across the board. Some of it may have to do with polity. All of the growing churches have congregational governments, while many of the shrinking ones employ some type of strong denominational structure. But some of the shrinking denominations also have a congregational structure and the Catholic church has had a 57.7% growth in the last 40 years and it has the most hierarchial structure of any church.

So, I'll leave it for others to interpret these figures. If you want to look at the entire listing of numbers simply go to these websites: http://www.demographia.com/db-religusa2002.htm and http://www.adherents.com/rel_USA.html#attendance.

[Izdaari]

With Pentecostalism, I would have to guess it's largely due to the revival atmospheres in the 19th century that it was spawned from and the social demography of the groups that Pentecostal churches generally make the biggest inroads into (which tend to be lower and poverty-level communities in Third World countries; interestingly enough, those same areas also tend to have higher percentages of Catholicism, or at least seem to). Of course, that's not to say there aren't middle- and upper-class congregants of Pentecostal churches (far from - I'd bet a lot of infamy surrounding such churches actually starts in those classes), but the feverish growth I think is better attributed to where the focus is being aimed outside of the cushy haven of the developed world.

Another factor I think would be due to the vast amount of influence that Baptist and Reformed churches had on America, particularly in the formative years of the Fundamentalist ideology. Since Pentecostal and non-denom churches stick pretty close to that demographic (albeit with their own unique twists, but generally speaking...), then I think a good number of both those groups growth has to do with a sort of transference effect, where members from the other major churches were siphoned off due to any number of factors. I wouldn't be surprised if a good number was simply due to people not knowing what types of individual theology certain churches have and figuring 'eh, they're all the same anyway' - something that sticking close to the Fundamentalist mold probably helps with quite a bit.
My own Assemblies of God church is Pentecostal, though originally from Wesleyan/Methodist roots. I've been going there a year, and officially joined just this last month.

I can say it isn't because of any tendency toward fundamentalism on my part. Quite to the contrary, my previous church background is all in mainline churches, and I consider myself theologically moderate to conservative, definitely not fundamentalist. Except for the charismatic stuff, which I do believe in, I might be just as comfortable in the right Lutheran (ELCA), Episcopalian or UMC church.

Except for one thing: this particular AG congregation has something special. It does not seem at all fundamentalist, but rather in my own moderate to conservative range, and sharing my emerging church tendencies. There is strong agape love amongst the people, and the pastor has a strong gift for teaching. Of course, that's my particular congregation I'm bragging about. I have no other experience with the denomination, and no idea what other churches within it are like.

[cristianna]

Very interesting and intriguing reads! Thank you to everyone who has posted!

[Qyöt27]

My own Assemblies of God church is Pentecostal, though originally from Wesleyan/Methodist roots. I've been going there a year, and officially joined just this last month.

I can say it isn't because of any tendency toward fundamentalism on my part. Quite to the contrary, my previous church background is all in mainline churches, and I consider myself theologically moderate to conservative, definitely not fundamentalist. Except for the charismatic stuff, which I do believe in, I might be just as comfortable in the right Lutheran (ELCA), Episcopalian or UMC church.

Except for one thing: this particular AG congregation has something special. It does not seem at all fundamentalist, but rather in my own moderate to conservative range, and sharing my emerging church tendencies. There is strong agape love amongst the people, and the pastor has a strong gift for teaching. Of course, that's my particular congregation I'm bragging about. I have no other experience with the denomination, and no idea what other churches within it are like.
I wasn't intending to really paint Pentecostal churches using a wide brush with that part (even though I think that may have been inevitable due to how I phrased it), it was something I've just tended to notice around CF - more or less strongly in the Teens section when I still frequented that area - and some of the more publicized accounts of doctrine and whatnot. I guess I'm just too skeptical for my own good sometimes and let that taint how I responded on that part.

I know there's always exceptions and that the loudest ones are most often the ones on the fringe rather than those that are truly representative of the group. Without the mess I think I made out of that paragraph, I was actually aiming more at how abysmal I think contemporary churches (and this includes many denoms and schools of thought, not just any one specific group) are about getting the real meat of issues and where they stand across, to a point where people can't really see a difference at all. And while I know some would applaud this as a sort of unity, I take issue with it in that when dealing with churches with rich histories, theological distinctives between them are pretty important, IMO. To me, forgetting or ignoring that is almost like not knowing where one stands or why they believe what they do.

[Izdaari]

I wasn't intending to really paint Pentecostal churches using a wide brush with that part (even though I think that may have been inevitable due to how I phrased it), it was something I've just tended to notice around CF - more or less strongly in the Teens section when I still frequented that area - and some of the more publicized accounts of doctrine and whatnot. I guess I'm just too skeptical for my own good sometimes and let that taint how I responded on that part.

I know there's always exceptions and that the loudest ones are most often the ones on the fringe rather than those that are truly representative of the group. Without the mess I think I made out of that paragraph, I was actually aiming more at how abysmal I think contemporary churches (and this includes many denoms and schools of thought, not just any one specific group) are about getting the real meat of issues and where they stand across, to a point where people can't really see a difference at all. And while I know some would applaud this as a sort of unity, I take issue with it in that when dealing with churches with rich histories, theological distinctives between them are pretty important, IMO. To me, forgetting or ignoring that is almost like not knowing where one stands or why they believe what they do.I understand. It's hard to phrase such things just right. No offense taken at all. :)

I agree that a lot of churches are not good at talking about theology, which is unfortunate.

:hug:

:groupray:

[Joykins]

I just read an interesting book called _Selling God_ by James Twitchell. It's written from the viewpoint of a non-believer, but the purpose of the book is to look at how churches advertise themselves and what drives the growth in the denomination (or grouping) and decline. One of the drivers of growth is what he calls "innovation" and what we call revival. Methodists and Baptists have a long history of this. The modern megachurches are also "innovative" in how they get the message out and bring people in, and Baptists have a structure and ecclesiology that is generally compatible with the megachurch movement. Nearly all of the old mainline denominations are losing ground to the megachurch movement.

Interestingly one of the things the author looked closely at was the recent United Methodist advertising campaign. He didn't think it would draw people in but after doing a little more research I think he zeroed in on the lamest possible ad examples to do that.

[Qyöt27]

One of the drivers of growth is what he calls "innovation" and what we call revival. Methodists and Baptists have a long history of this. The modern megachurches are also "innovative" in how they get the message out and bring people in, and Baptists have a structure and ecclesiology that is generally compatible with the megachurch movement. Nearly all of the old mainline denominations are losing ground to the megachurch movement.
Interesting. Although with some of the other trappings and pitfalls megachurches are predisposed to, I'd be more content with taking the hit, so to speak; to be honest, megachurches and what sorts of - dare I say, pop theology - that often come out of them are one of my major beefs with the modern church (by 'modern' I mean in a demographical and social sense, not strictly 'contemporary').

Which in turn makes the flip side of the comment that Baptists have a megachurch-compatible playing field (namely, that Methodists don't), somewhat oddly reassuring.

[Joykins]

Interesting. Although with some of the other trappings and pitfalls megachurches are predisposed to, I'd be more content with taking the hit, so to speak; to be honest, megachurches and what sorts of - dare I say, pop theology - that often come out of them are one of my major beefs with the modern church (by 'modern' I mean in a demographical and social sense, not strictly 'contemporary').

Which in turn makes the flip side of the comment that Baptists have a megachurch-compatible playing field (namely, that Methodists don't), somewhat oddly reassuring.

Hm, one of the things Twitchell saw as helping with the megachurch growth was the fact that most of these churches have little or no denominational overhead--most of them are nondenoms or loose conferences like Baptists. The megas get to keep their tithes (and they make sure you tithe--the one near us actually asks for W-2s so they can tell you just how much you need to tithe) in -house.

[vle045]

Hm, one of the things Twitchell saw as helping with the megachurch growth was the fact that most of these churches have little or no denominational overhead--most of them are nondenoms or loose conferences like Baptists. The megas get to keep their tithes (and they make sure you tithe--the one near us actually asks for W-2s so they can tell you just how much you need to tithe) in -house.
Is that LEGAL? To ask for w2's? That just seems odd. And they would never get one from ME.

[Joykins]

Is that LEGAL? To ask for w2's? That just seems odd. And they would never get one from ME.

I think you have to be willing ... they can't force you. But they dont' have to let you be a member either I guess.

[dayhiker]

I just hear from my pastor who went to the AG mission convention. They says their membership is now 60 million world wide. That is impressive growth over the last almost 100 years.

I've also heard that 1 third of the Christians world wide are penticostal. By that I think they mean to include those that attend non penticostal churches as well. The last church I attended was Nazerene and there were a few penticostals in that church even tho they aren't penticostal.

Interesting thread,
dayhiker

[Izdaari]

I just read an interesting book called _Selling God_ by James Twitchell. It's written from the viewpoint of a non-believer, but the purpose of the book is to look at how churches advertise themselves and what drives the growth in the denomination (or grouping) and decline. One of the drivers of growth is what he calls "innovation" and what we call revival. Methodists and Baptists have a long history of this. The modern megachurches are also "innovative" in how they get the message out and bring people in, and Baptists have a structure and ecclesiology that is generally compatible with the megachurch movement. Nearly all of the old mainline denominations are losing ground to the megachurch movement.

Interestingly one of the things the author looked closely at was the recent United Methodist advertising campaign. He didn't think it would draw people in but after doing a little more research I think he zeroed in on the lamest possible ad examples to do that.
Thanks much for the recommendation. I'll add that one to my list. :thumbsup:

I just hear from my pastor who went to the AG mission convention. They says their membership is now 60 million world wide. That is impressive growth over the last almost 100 years.

I've also heard that 1 third of the Christians world wide are penticostal. By that I think they mean to include those that attend non penticostal churches as well. The last church I attended was Nazerene and there were a few penticostals in that church even tho they aren't penticostal.

Interesting thread,
dayhiker
Interesting, thanks! :thumbsup: