There are 2,942 Catholic Denominations, Maybe more

[rr1213]

The point of the thread was made that Catholicism has 2942 denominations. Which is nothing more than an anti-catholic claim by a protestant to make his own protestantism feel not so bad.

Actually, the point was that this absurd numer for Catholics is based on the same methodology used to arrive at the 30,000+ number for Protestants. Neither number is correct, yet if Catholics wish to persist in the misrepresentation then what is good for the goose is good for the gander.

 

[itsjustdave1988]

ok, despite it being pointed out many times before, 30,000 protestant denominations is misleading, unfair, and downright false. The figure in my thread title is from EXACTLY the same source as the 30,000 denominations number people here keep referring to. If your point is to show protestants are divided, just say so and avoid making yourself look dumb.

• The figure comes from a study by David A Barrett
• the first figure was 20,780 denominations with some figure about how many there would be in the future coming from a different source.
• All the denominations listed are not protestant.
• 8,196 were protestant
• 2,942** of this number were Catholics, 194 Latin-rite,**** 580 are Orthodox and other Catholic (non-Roman) 504**
• According to Barrett, a “distinct denomination” is ANY division, including style of music, location of church, and other things that really are NOT divisions associated with the standard “denomination”.
• Barrett uses the standard definition of denomination but calls it “traditions.”
• He says there are 21 Protestant “traditions”, 6 marginal Protestant, 4 Catholic (non-Roman), 6 Anglican, 20 mixed pagan and Christian (two of which he deems Catholic), 19 Orthodox, 16 (Roman) Catholic
• Barrett also lists Roman Catholicism and Protestantism on the same level each considered a SINGLE ecclesial tradition.
  I’m not denying that there are divisions among protestants. I’m simply asking you to be honest in your discussions here. If you want to say Protestantism is bad cause it’s divided, fine But stop throwing around meaningless numbers.

From a Catholic perspective, Protestants are those Christians who profess the PROTESANT Bible, Bible Alone, and Faith Along. Whether one calls themsevles Protestant is rather irrelevant. If they profess a Protestant 66-book Bible, a Protestant faith alone soteriology, and Protestant Bible alone epistemology, then they are Protestant.

Of the 33,000+ denominations that Barret describes, how many profess the Protestant Bible, Protestant soteriology, and Protestant epistemology? I’ve looked at his source, and approximately 33,000+ denominations hold to these Protetant teachings.

In Barrett’s source, he list the denomination BY COUNTRY. Barrett lists ONLY ONE Roman Catholic denomination for each country. What Barrett doesn’t understand is that of the approx. 230 countries he lists having JUST ONE Roman Catholic denomination, EACH OF THOSE are subject to one PASTOR the Roman Pontiff, being ONE SINGLE CHURCH.

As for accusation of misrepresentation, I disagree. I live in Colorado Springs, the “mecca” of Evangelical Protestantism in the U.S. Judging from the number of Protestant denomination in this one city, 33,000 seems a very low estimate.

If one uses Webster’s definition of “denomination” being a “religious organization uniting local congregations in a single legal and administrative body”, then there are easily well over 33,000 denominations that proclaim a distinctively Protestant 66-Book Bible, the distinctively Protestant Faith Alone soteriology, and the distinctively Protestant Bible alone epistemology.

 

[Steadfast]

It’s true, really.

The claim is often made that there are 30,000 (or 60,000, or what have you) Protestant denominations but no one ever bothers to name them all. They just make the claim.

And yet, to be more honest what we should say is, simply that there are a lot of different Protestant churches with significant differences in doctrine.

But, if we say that, we have to say the same thing about Catholics:

There are a lot of different Bishops with significant differences in doctrine as well as movements within Catholicism standing at varying places on the scale of orthodoxy.

The difference is that, when faced with this, we Catholics like to superimpose this veneer of doctrinal uniformity or papal submission (or what have you), when, in reality this is a red herring since the actual agreement in doctrine between any two Catholics is just about as uniform as that which can be expected to exist between any two Protestants.

In actual point of fact, our Protestant brothers and sisters are more honest than we are since they resolutely refuse to superimpose any such phony “uniformity” but live happily in the mess that goes to make up not only that family of Churches which may be called Protestant but, indeed, the whole Church Catholic.

The differences that exist between an orthodox Lutheran and an orthodox Anglican are just about at the same level of seriousness as those which exist between an Eastern Rite Catholic and a Western Rite Catholic.

This is just an example, there are countless others.

Roger Mahoney believes things about the very nature of the Church that differ greatly from what Fabian Bruskewicz believes on the same point of doctrine.

They both may claim submission to papal authority but they may also privately question the truth of each other’s claim.

Still the claim is made.

Why don’t they agree?

Because there is a difference of belief between them, each believing he is correct.

To clean this up the diligent Catholic e-Pologist hurries to superimpose papal conformity.

But really, really, where the rubber hits the road there is no difference here between what Mahoney and Bruskewicz believe about the nature of the church as it subsists under papal rule and what a High Church Anglican believes on the same topic as compared to the belief of a Baptist.

And that’s the truth. And the model plays itself out everywhere.

The Catholic claim to uniformity in the face of Protestant division is only so much whitewash.

 

[eliasaph99]

Actually, the point was that this absurd numer for Catholics is based on the same methodology used to arrive at the 30,000+ number for Protestants. Neither number is correct, yet if Catholics wish to persist in the misrepresentation then what is good for the goose is good for the gander.

OK.

As the offended party, please offer us your guidance.

When a Catholic Apologist references Church Unity and Christ’s desire that there be one Church as part of his argument for the Truth of Catholicism, what number of Protestant denominations should he claim exist so as to be politically correct?

50+?

100+?

1000+?

10,000+?

Maybe its the fact that there is an attempt to use numbers at all that’s offending to you. Perhaps just saying ‘numerous’, ‘many’, ‘bunches and bunches’, ‘truckloads’, ‘lots’, or something similarly vague would soothe your offended sensibility?

 

[Steadfast]

OK.

As the offended party, please offer us your guidance.

When a Catholic Apologist references Church Unity and Christ’s desire that there be one Church as part of his argument for the Truth of Catholicism, what number of Protestant denominations should he claim exist so as to be politically correct?

50+?

100+?

1000+?

10,000+?

Maybe its the fact that there is an attempt to use numbers at all that’s offending to you. Perhaps just saying ‘numerous’, ‘many’, ‘bunches and bunches’, ‘truckloads’, ‘lots’, or something similarly vague would soothe your offended sensibility?

There are at the very least as many Catholic denominations as there are ecclesial rites claiming submission to the Pope.

Protestants claim submission to Scripture but differ on how to do church and on other things.

And this is leaving aside more abstruse theological loci and the differences persisting among otherwise orthodox Catholics on them as well as on how the Church gets dressed.

All we’re saying is that Catholics do the same thing but single out Protestants for opprobrium because they don’t lie about it.

 

[itsjustdave1988]

According to the Protestant source, the World Christian Encyclopedia by David B. Barrett, George T. Kurian, and Todd M. Johnson (2001 edition), he describes “over 33,000 denominations in 238 countries.” (Table 1-5, Vol 1, pg 16).

Barrett states there are 242 total Roman Catholic denominations (year 2000 numbers). I looked up how many Roman Catholic denominations are within the U.S. according to Barrett. Barrett shows ONLY ONE Roman Catholic denomination for the Unites States. He got that right.

Barrett is counting each country as it’s own Roman Catholic denomination. So, for Barrett, the Roman Catholic Church of the USA is a different denomination than the Roman Catholic Church of Canada. I don’t know how he got 242 denomination from 238 countries listed, however.

Some numbers from Barrett’s …

Denominations/Paradenominations:
1970: 26,350
1995: 33,820

Under U.S. Country Table 2, of the 6,222 US denominations, there’s only ONE Roman Catholic denomination listed, there’s 60 Orthodox denominations. Barrett labels the rest of the denominations: Protestant, Anglican, Independent, & Marginal. The more commonly accepted classification of Christianity used even by Protestant scholars such as Leslie Dunstan in his book Protestantism, Christianity consists of: 1) Catholic, 2) Orthodox, & 3) Protestant.

So, using this more commonly understood classification …

# of US Denominations
Catholic 1
Orthodox 60
Protestant 6,161

The above numbers are derived using Protestant sources only.

Barrett differs from other Protestants such as Dunstan as to what constitutes a Protestant denomination. What Dunstan would call Protestant, Barrett describes as:

Barrett’s classification:
Protestant 660
Anglican 1
Independent 5,100
Marginal 400

However, my question to Barret and other Protestants who accept Barrets classification, how many of the above hold fast to the distinctively PROTESTANT 66-book Bible, not accepted by the majority of Christians? How many hold fast to the distinctively PROTESTANT “Faith alone” soteriology, not accepted by the majority of Christians? How many hold fast to the distinctively PROTESTANT “Bible alone” epistemology, not accepted by the majority of Christians?

You just might be Protestant if you hold to distinctively Protestant beliefs.

Why is this even relevant to a Christian seeking to find a denomination to call his or her own? Because if someone is seeking to unite themselves with the ONE Church of Christ, they ought to look for the ONE which is the same single, historically apostolic Church throughout the world. If one is to judge how well the epistemological principle of *Bible Alone *has united Christians or rather divided them, then the ever-growing divisions of distinctively Protestant denominations might be something one ought to consider.

The issue seems to be, does Protestantism epistemology unite or divide when compared to Catholic or Orthodox epistemology?

 

[rr1213]

Perhaps just saying ‘numerous’, ‘many’, ‘bunches and bunches’, ‘truckloads’, ‘lots’, or something similarly vague would soothe your offended sensibility?

Yeah, that would be more honest.

There are thousands of non-Catholic denominations. Nonetheless, you will miss the forest for the trees if you believe that there are thousands of signficant differences among Protestants. I don’t know enough about the Protestant Churches in other countries, but the vast majority of Protestants in the USA can be found under the umbrella of less than 30 denominations. Is 30 too many? Sure it is. When the Western and Eastern Churches excomunicated each other in 1054 or thereabouts this also resulted in too many divisions of the Church. Sin has lead to schism in the Church and this sin was on all sides of the ecumenical divides.

 

[PatienceAndLove]

So lets name then, shall we?

Mainstream:

• Baptist
• Southern Baptist
• Methodist
• Pentacostal
• Presbytherian
• Lutheran
• Full Gospel Baptist
• Anglican/Episcopalian
  Non-Dom:
• New Apostalic
• Christian Fellowship
• Abundant Life
• New Life
• Bible Church
• United Church (ironically)
• various Chapels
• various Worship centers
• Faith Fellowship
• Christ Savior
• Church of Christ
• Church of the Nazerene
• Church of God
• Alliance
• various Home Churches

Anyone else want to take it from here?

And here’s my statement and question on the matter:
In this study, was he referring to the Roman Catholic Church, or the various Eastern Catholic Churches?
I know quite a few Eastern Catholics, and they could care less about the number of Protestant churches. It is usually the Romans (of which I am one) who care about the ever expanding number of Protestant churches.
I will give you that there is an Eastern Catholic Church for most of the Eastern European Countires (Russian Orthodox, Greek Orthodox, etc…)
As for a Roman Catholic Church, if the sign says Roman Catholic Church or just Catholic Church, it is part of the Roman Catholic Church, one denomination under the direction of one earthly man, the Pope, and under God.
The difference between the RCC and most Protestant Churches is just that- the RCC is under the “jurisdiction” and direction of one man, the Pope. Most Protestant churches are under the direction of one man, the Pastor. But that Pastor runs his church only, not the church down the street, one in Chicago, etc.

 

[eliasaph99]

I don’t think the 33,000+ claim is unrealistic.

It’s possible that it overshot the mark a little, but if it has, it’s not far off.

My wife and I are Catholic reverts and one of the reasons we began our journey back to the Catholic Church was the ridiculous plethora of Protestant churches. After we married, we both went back to college in the Virginia Beach area. I would only be slightly overstating it to say that in addition to all of the “big” churches which had their own buildings, there was a church in every shopping center. Note that by a “big” church, I don’t mean a mainline denomination, I simply mean a church wealthy enough to own or rent its own building. Each one was a separate denomination, ruled only by a committee of members. In addition to this, we were constantly receiving mailers and flyers about the new, exciting work being done by the Lord in the cafeteria over at the high school every Sunday, or at the VFW, or any somewhat large space that an upstart church could rent.

I would like to offer my own definition for a denomination.

Christian Denomination - a group professing belief in the Trinity and salvation through Jesus Christ, which baptizes new members, which accepts a form of the Bible as its holy scriptures and which is all subject to the same final authority.

The last part of the definition is what makes it for me. Most of the little churches are their own authority. They answer to no higher committee. If tomorrow, they started teaching that Jesus was an extra-terrestial, no one would make them stop.

Of course, most changes in doctrine are much more subtle and happen little by little over time. But that’s a different topic.

 

[Steadfast]

If you want to be fair (and who doesn;t want to be fair, I mean, we all want to be fair, right? RIGHT?) there are five varieties of Protestant:

Anglican/Episcopalian (Methodist)
Lutheran
Presbyterian/Reformed
Free Church (Baptist, Pentecostal, Non-Denominational)
Anabaptist

You could put the last two together. Groups like the Quakers could be put into either group.

Using the same kind of delineation, you could get roughly the same number of varieties of Catholicism:

Eastern Rite
Western Rite
Church as Community
Church as Institution

Etc. and so on.

The point is that the onion can be peeled any number of ways.

Whatever definition you use for what constitutes a “denomination” (and the definition is highly mobile) you have to, at least, do the justice of attempting to apply it to your own church as well.

So then, what is a denomination? If Barrett’s findings are so grossly inaccurate because he begins with a faulty set, what set would you bring to the discussion?

 

[Steadfast]

Christian Denomination - a group professing belief in the Trinity and salvation through Jesus Christ, which baptizes new members, which accepts a form of the Bible as its holy scriptures and which is all subject to the same final authority.

The last part of the definition is what makes it for me. Most of the little churches are their own authority. They answer to no higher committee. If tomorrow, they started teaching that Jesus was an extra-terrestial, no one would make them stop.

By this definition, all Protestants would form a single denomination since all Protestants claim the Bible as their final authority. Yes, they differ as to how that authority is to be interpreted and applied but Catholic Bishops do EXACTLY the same thing with every magisterial pronouncement issuing from the Vatican.

 

[itsjustdave1988]

So lets name then, shall we?

Mainstream:

• Baptist
• Southern Baptist…

But are “Baptist” a denomination in the sense described by Webster? Is “Baptist” a “religious organization uniting local congregations in a single legal and administrative body?” This is doubtful.

According to one Baptist scholar, “It is difficult … to present one fixed set of criteria by which to characterize a Baptist…[every] local Baptist parish church is a law unto itself. Its relations with other Baptists churches, its compliance with recommendations from national church headquarters, its acceptance of any resolutions formulated at regional , national, or international conventions–all these are entirely voluntary on the part of the parish church.” (Lipphard, William B., Editor of Baptist publication “Missions Magazine,” and Sharp, Frank A., Director of the Dept of Interpretation of the American Baptist Churches, “What is a Baptist?” Religions of America, Leo Rosten, ed.).

 

[Mickey]

Why don’t they agree?

Are you saying that the Catholic Church teaches various and opposing doctrine? I think not. Bishops and priests may have a difference of opinion on discipline and/or doctrine, but the Church teaching is apparent. For example, one bishop may feel that women should be ordained to the priesthood while another disagrees. We all know that Church discipline teaches no priestly woman ordinations.

So I do not quite understand what you are trying to say.

 

[Steadfast]

Are you saying that the Catholic Church teaches various and opposing doctrine? I think not. Bishops and priests may have a difference of opinion on discipline and/or doctrine, but the Church teaching is apparent. For example, one bishop may feel that women should be ordained to the priesthood while another disagrees. We all know that Church discipline teaches no priestly woman ordinations.

So I do not quite understand what you are trying to say.

I am saying that the differences that exist between Catholic Bishops on whatever doctrine are of roughly the same gravity as those that exist between any two Protestant denominations on doctrines of similar gravity.

 

[Steadfast]

I am saying that when we say there are 30,000 Protestant denominations we aren’t really saying anything at all.

 

[itsjustdave1988]

Whatever definition you use for what constitutes a “denomination” (and the definition is highly mobile) you have to, at least, do the justice of attempting to apply it to your own church as well.

I have.

Denomination = religious organization uniting local congregations in a single legal and administrative body

Catholic: 1
non-Catholic 33,000+

 

[Steadfast]

I have.

Denomination = religious organization uniting local congregations in a single legal and administrative body

Catholic: 1
non-Catholic 33,000+

Actually, I could take that definition and say there are as many Catholic denominations as there are dioceses.

 

[itsjustdave1988]

I am saying that when we say there are 30,000 Protestant denominations we aren’t really saying anything at all.

I’m saying that when we are saying there are 33,000+ non-Catholic denominations, we are speaking to the inherently divise epistemology of non-Catholic denominations.

According to Protestant author, J. Leslie Dunstan:

“Protestantism is one of the three main divisions of the universal Christian Church, which together with the Roman Catholic Church and the Orthodox Churches make up one world-wide religion. Protestantism is the most recent of the developments within Christianity, having a relatively short history of slightly more than four centuries; the other two branches of the faith have histories going back to the earliest days of the Christian era. Moreover, compared to the unity which characterizes those other branches, Protestantism is divided within itself among hundreds of separate organizations, some of which deny all relationship to others. The many denominations and sects have differing beliefs and carry on a variety of practices, which give them the appearance of being distinct from one another." (Protestantism, by J. Leslie Dunstan, (New York:
George Braziller, 1962), p. 9)

 

[itsjustdave1988]

Actually, I could take that definition and say there are as many Catholic denominations as there are dioceses.

You can…but you’d be wrong. As the diocese are also united by a “religious organization uniting local congregations in a single legal and administrative body.”

You see, the diocese are governed by the Roman Pontiff.

Unlike Protestantism, which seems to claim each local parish is self-governing, each Catholic parish is obliged to submit to the laws of the diocese, and each diocese is obliged to submit to the laws of the Roman Pontiff.

 

[Steadfast]

You can…but you’d be wrong. As the diocese are also united by a “religious organization uniting local congregations in a single legal and administrative body.”

You see, the diocese are governed by the Roman Pontiff.

And Protestant Churches are governed by Holy Scripture, which Webster won’t recognize as a “single legal and administrative body” but which, for the sake of this discussion is one.