Yes - he was showing the flaw in the methodology. My own United Methodist Church is present in many African, European, and Asian countries - somewhere around 180 countries. So that means, according to the same methodology that is giving us the absurd 30,000+ number, there are around 180 United Methodist Church denominations.
If you like counting like that, more power to you.
I really don’t think you read the article, Luke.
Here’s another quote from the article you cited: "How many of the “denominations” listed by Barrett fall into this category? **I’m betting over 33,000. **Let’s look at it this way, of the 33,000 that Barrett classifies, which ones refute the pillars of Protestantism shown above? (a) Catholic Church, (b) Oriental Orthodox (5th century schism), (c) Eastern Orthodox (11th century schism). Any others? Perhaps I’ve missed a few. Even if you break apart the Orthodox Churches into separate Patriarchates (Bishops), that doesn’t reduce the BIG number of 33,820 by very much, does it? Some would say, “well that number is completely inflated” based upon Barrett’s fuzzy definition of “denomination.” On the contrary, I would say that it is a MUCH LARGER NUMBER of denominations using Webster’s definition of “denomination.” Read more
here.
Also on that site, from a Protestant from Gordon Conwell Seminary:
Email from Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary “Global Christianity” to Ms. XXXXXXXX SFO (Secular Franciscan Order)
Received 9/28/2007 11:17 a.m. MST
Hello Ms. XXXXX
Thank you for your inquiry.
I can assure you that the figure of 39,000 is in no way inflated. This number represents our most current, up-to-date data. As we are constantly updating this figure, it is not published in print form. The figure of 33,800 from the year 2000 was printed in our book World Christian Trends, (Pasadena, CA: William Carey Library, 2001). Part 12 of World Christian Trends (WCT), Table 12-1 gives figures of denominational totals for all 238 countries of the world. These figures are also represented graphically in WCT on page 917, Global Map 14. The definition for denominations used in WCT, and also in our publication World Christian Encyclopedia (Oxford, 2001) is as follows:
“Any agency consisting of a number of congregations or churches voluntarily aligning themselves with it. As a statistical unit in this survey, a ‘denomination’ always refers to one single country. Thus the Roman Catholic Church, although a single organization, is described here as consisting of 236 denominations in the world’s 238 countries.”
More precise listings of denominations can be found in the World Christian Encyclopedia, under the article for each country. These lists are not exhaustive, as there are too many small denominations to list separately, but they should help give a clearer picture. Furthermore, the Southern Baptist Convention has over 40,000 congregations in the US alone; not to mention the Baptist General Conference, Baptist Bible Fellowship International, etc. So we are definitely not counting each congregation as its own denomination. We are also not lumping all Baptists into a single denomination, but counting each organization separately. I hope this information helps.
XXXXX XXXXX
Research Assistant
Center for the Study of Global Christianity
Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary
(identities blocked for anonymity. Please see original site for names)
