I’m going to do a quick re-post with some clarification, just to get this all in one place.
This is from the World Christian Encyclopedia. Since it started doing what it does, it’s been essentially unrivaled as the authoritative source on religious data.
Denominations. A denomination is defined in this Encyclopedia as an organized aggregate of worship centers or congregations of similar ecclesiastical tradition within a specific country; i.e. as an organized Christian church or tradition or religious group or community of believers, within a specific country, whose component congregations and members are called by the same denominational name in different areas, regarding themselves as one autonomous Christian church distinct from other denominations, churches and traditions. As defined here, world Christianity consists of 6 major ecclesiastico-cultural blocs, divided into 300 major ecclesiastical traditions, composed of over 33,000 distinct denominations in 238 countries, these denominations themselves being composed of over 3,400,000 worship centers, churches or congregations.
Emphasis mine.
I’m also going to add that in the aformentioned source (the World Christian Encyclopedia), the 33,000 figure for denominations is for Christianity as a whole- and then some. For example, Roman Catholics contribute 242 to the total, Protestants get a nice round 9,000 figure, and Independents contribute 22,000, of which 435 are in schism from Rome.
Point of clarification: The figure of 242 applies only to Roman Catholics, and they are numbered as 242 different denominations because of all the different countries that Roman Catholicism exists in. They do make a note of Catholicism’s ecclesial unity, but they go ahead and count over 240 denominations anyway because that’s consistent with their way of counting denominations across all of Christianity.
Point of clarification number 2: The figure of 435 refers to denominations in schism from Rome. Obviously, there haven’t been 435 individual schisms whereby 435 individual groups broke away from Roman Catholicism. It’s a much smaller number than that, but each of these groups in schism is counted as more than one. They are counted by as many countries as that group is represented in. For example, Old Catholics are represented in the Netherlands, Germany, Switzerland, Austria, the Czech Republic, Poland, France, Italy, Denmark, Croatia, Canada, and the United States. That’s 12 different denominations already, and it you’re willing to continue counting, you can get ready to multiply that number by a factor of however many groups are in intercommunion or are autocephalous without having any difference in doctrine. When you’ve counted all those, then you can start looking at the ones that have some difference in doctrine (ie., some ordain LGBT people and ordain women; others, just women). But by the time you get to that point, you should realize a couple of things. First, each individual schism contributes several dozen “denominations” to the total of 435 before you even start taking doctrinal differences into consideration. Second, the number of denominations that actually do exist because of doctrinal differences among those in schism is quite small, even at its inflated value. Third, you should be starting to understand how much different your perspective is when you have meaningful interaction with these numbers and don’t just assume that Protestants have 9,000 doctrinal disagreements and Independents have 22,000. By now, you should also realize how far from the truth that assumption is. As a ballpark figure, it’s off by about 30,000.
Third point of clarification, just for Elvisman. You said the “denominations” in schism from Rome are no different from Protestants. (This has to do with the 435 figure- for the 242 figure, see clarification point number 2). There are good reasons to say this, and it was for good reason that many Anglicans, Lutherans, and other Protestants from Germany and America were on hand to support the movement from the beginning and continue to maintain ecumenism and friendship between these groups. They are on the same team, and they are doing the same things. It’s just that one is based in England while the other is based in Germany. Nevertheless, these 435 denominations in schism (which actually represents a muuuuuch smaller number of schisms) do tend to have apostolic succession via laying on of hands, they do tend to have Catholic liturgy and a roughly Catholic leadership structure (even if the laity is a lot more involved in church polity), and they do tend to say they have more of a claim to continuity with ancient Christianity than Roman Catholics do. All of these tend to be absent from Bible, Presbyterian, and Baptist churches (for example), so there are some things that these groups have more in common with Rome. You were right to point out the similarities with certain mainline Protestant groups, though, and the obscenely elevated figure of 435 denominations in schism certainly has more kinship to them. They have no desire to convert one another, for example. But some of them (though not nearly all) might have a desire to convert Catholics.
Speaking of which. I believe there is an actual unity among all people who belong to Christ, but it’s often not recognized or celebrated by the members of Christ’s Body. If that were happening, you know what I think that would look like? It’s a situation where every member of Christ’s Body can regard every other member of the same Body as someone who doesn’t need to be converted. Provided that the members are right in doing so and they don’t include any apostates in that group, that would qualify as a more perfect recognition of the unity that God causes us to have by uniting all Christians to Himself.
Oh, and add to that Reading.)
