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Protestants (about 9000 denominations)
The second largest group of "denominations" are Protestants. The encyclopedia breaks these down into major groupings like this:
- Adventist
- Baptist
- http://www.orthodoxonline.org/forum/...2008/02/23.jpgChristian Brethren (Plymouth Brethren, Open only)
- Congregational, Congregationalist
- Disciple, Restorationist, Restorationist Baptist, Christian
- Dunker (Tunker), Dipper, German Baptist, Brethren
- Exclusive Brethren (Plymouth Brethren, Closed, Strict)
- Anglican Evangelical, Independent Evangelical
- Fundamentalist
- Holiness (Conservative Methodist, Wesleyan, Free Methodist)
- Lutheran / Reformed united church or joint mission
- Lutheran
- Mennonite, Anabaptist (Left Wing or Radical Reformation)
- Methodist (mainline Methodist, United Methodist)
- Moravian (Continental Pietist)
- Nondenominational (no church or anti-church groups)
- Oneness-Pentecostal or Unitarian-Pentecostal: Jesus Only
- Baptistic-Pentecostal or Keswick-Pentecostal
- Holiness-Pentecostal: 3-crisis-experience
- Apostolic, or Pentecostal Apostolic (living apostles)
- Pentecostal (Protestant; Classical Pentecostal)
- Friends (Quaker)
- Reformed, Presbyterian
- Salvationist (Salvation Army)
- United church (union of bodies of different traditions)
- Waldensian
- community church or union congregation
The largest of these out of
318 million total Protestants (year 1995 numbers for members, year 2000 numbers for denominations) are the Lutherans (61 million members,
253 denominations), next are Baptistic-Pentecostal/Keswick (49 million members,
396 denominations), followed by Baptists (48 million members,
322 denominations), Reformed/Presbyterian (44 million members,
300 denominations), Methodists (23 million members,
123 denominations), United church (22 million members,
54 denominations), Lutheran/Reformed united (15 million members,
24 denominations), and various Adventist groups (11 million members,
218 denominations). From these are formed nearly
9000 Protestant Christian denominations. Someone might complain about the "Oneness" groups being included since they reject the Holy Trinity (one God in three distinct Persons) and the historic Creeds, but that's how Barrett's
Encyclopedia categorizes them, for whatever reason.
Marginals (about 1600 denominations)
The "Marginal Christian" groups include Jehovah's Witnesses, Mormons, various "Arian" or pseudo-Christian cults, some Christian science or "mind science" cults, some Unitarian/Universalist groups, and tiny numbers of so-called Christian or Catholic "Gnostics." These break down this way:
- http://www.orthodoxonline.org/forum/...2008/02/24.jpgChristadelphian
- apocalyptic, eschatological (i.e. "end times" Christians)
- Divine Science
- Gnostic, esoteric, anthroposophical
- Holy Spirit Association for Unification of World Christianity
- Jehovah's Witnesses (or "Russellites")
- Latter-day Saints (Mormons), including Mormon schismatics
- Liberal Catholic (Theosophical, Masonic, Gnostic)
- schism from Orthodox, in marginal direction
- Paulician, Bogomil
- ****physical science or "Divine/Religious Science"
- Spiritualist, Spiritist, psychic, occult
- Swedenborgian (Church of the New Jerusalem; spiritualistic)
- Theosophist, Theosophical, synthesist
- Unitarian, Universalist, Free Christian, Liberal Christian
From these are formed nearly 1600 "denominations." The largest of these (year 1995 members, year 2000 denominations) are the JWs (11 million members,
226 denominations), next are the Mormons (8 million members,
122 denominations), and far behind are the "****physical" science cults (1.1 million members,
59 denominations), etc. I'll agree most of these are very
borderline "Christian." They might refer to "Jesus Christ" and use the Bible in their "worship services" but for the most part they reject the historic Creeds and Councils of Christendom (Nicene, Athanasian, Ephesus, Chalcedon, etc). However, the numbers here are small compared with the numbers of
Independent and
Protestant denominations.
