Divisions within Protestant Christianity

Further information

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Overview:

Sorting individual Christian faith groups into categories like fundamentalist, evangelical, mainline, liberal progressive is fraught with danger. Consider some of the problems:

	It is impossible to reach a consensus on a good definition of "Christian."
	No consensus exists on a good definition for "evangelical Christian," or "liberal Christian" or "progressive Christian" or other important terms.
	According to David Barrett et al, editors of the "World Christian Encyclopedia: A comparative survey of churches and religions - AD 30 to 2200," there are 34,000 separate Christian groups in the world. 5 Sorting them into meta groups, wings, families, and other classifications is a subjective process.
	Denominations are internally divided on an rural/urban, young/old, north/south, and other bases.

Sorting faith groups into categories tends to overlook the wide diversity of beliefs by individual members within each faith group and within each local congregation. This diversity is causing major stresses in mainline denominations as they attempt to reach an accommodation over such divisive issues as abortion access, same-sex marriage, equal rights for persons of all sexual orientations and sexual identities. We expect this stress to migrate to more conservative denominations in the decades ahead.

Grouping Christians - Princeton Religion Research Center study:

The Princeton Religion Research Center (PRRC), using their own three mode criteria, estimated that 18% of American adults are religious conservatives, 47% moderates and 19% liberals. ₁They commented:

	"Religious conservatives are sometimes viewed negatively as overly strict on moral issues, close-minded, intolerant of other religious views, fanatical about their beliefs, too harsh, and placing too much emphasis on guilt or sin, too concerned about their own salvation, and too rigid and simplistic. Many people would not like to have them as neighbors."
	"Liberals are sometimes viewed as substituting social concerns for the true Gospel, too compromising with the world, morally loose, having a shallow knowledge of the Bible and too much influenced by secular humanism."
	"Evangelicals and non-evangelicals hold sharply contrasting images of God. The former are far more likely than the latter to picture God as Father than as Mother, Master than Spouse, Judge than Lover, Creator than Healer, and Redeemer than Liberator."

Grouping Christians - another two mode model: law and love:

Some writers talk about the existence of two Christian religions. They are not referring to the past split between Roman Catholicism and Protestantism, but rather a division between two groups of Protestant denominations. Literary critic, Bruce Bawer, _2,3 perceives American Protestantism as being divided into:

"...two nearly antithetical religions, both calling themselves Christianity...These two religions -- the Church of Law, based in the South, and the Church of Love, based in the North -- differ on almost every big theological point."

We believe that Bawer does not wish to imply that the Church of Law is without love, or that the Church of Love is lawless. He appears to use the terms to indicate the prime focus of the two groups. For example, the former may visualize God  lawgiver/creator/judge; the latter more as a loving parent/liberator/friend. The former typically believes that one must be "saved" before they can attain heaven; the latter often believe that everyone will go to heaven at death.

Differentiating between conservative and progressive Christians:

The following comparison is necessarily somewhat simplistic. Each cell in the table could easily be expanded into an entire essay. A typical Christian will hold some beliefs from the conservative column and some from the progressive column.

Where do denominations fit into these models?

People have tried to arrange Christian denominations from the most conservative to the most liberal. Unfortunately, not everyone agrees on the specific order. Even worse, there is no agreement about which religious groups are Christian.

	Many religious conservatives do not consider liberal denominations to be part of historic Christianity. Also, some consider the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (the Mormons) to be neo-Gnostic, the Roman Catholic Church to be Pagan, the Jehovah's Witnesses to be heretical, etc.
	More liberal denominations consider as Christian the full range of faith groups which consider themselves to be Christian.

In 1979, D.R. Hodge had 25 religious experts sort denominations along a conservative to liberal continuum, and produced the following list: ₄

	Assemblies of God (the most conservative)
	Seventh-Day Adventist
	Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormons)
	Lutheran Church - Missouri Synod
	Church of the Nazarene
	Southern Baptist Convention
	Churches of Christ
	Presbyterian Church in the United States *
	American Baptist Churches in the USA
	Evangelical Lutheran Church in America
	Christian Church (Disciples of Christ)
	United Presbyterian Church in the United States of America *
	United Methodist Church
	Episcopal Church
	United Church of Christ. (the most liberal)

Since the late 1970s, some changes should probably be made to the above list:

	* These two denominations merged in 1983 to form the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)
	Following a lengthy conflict within the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) between fundamentalists and moderates, and the almost complete victory of the fundamentalist wing, the SBC has moved significantly upwards in the above list, perhaps to the first or second spot.
	The Unitarian Universalist Association (UUA) would have been considered the most liberal Christian denomination in past decades. However, it is no longer generally considered to be part of Protestant Christianity. The UUA currently recognizes many sources of beliefs among its members: e.g. Judaism, Christianity, Humanism, and Earth Centered traditions, including Neopaganism. According to a recent poll, only about 10% of UU members regard themselves to be Christian.
	The Progressive Christianity movement was founded in 1996. It is not a denomination but rather a network of supporting congregations, informal groups, and individual members. They can probably be considered the most liberal Christian group at this time.
	Most theologians would probably consider the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America to now be among the more liberal Christian denominations.

Such lists are based on the overall culture of the denomination. As noted above, every denomination has members who adhere to a wide range of conservative / liberal beliefs.

References:

1. The Princeton Religion Research Center (PRRC), "Survey Trivia From The PRRC" (The PRRC is an inter-faith, non-denominational research organization founded in 1977 by George H. Gallup, Jr. It specializes in creative, practical research, utilizing worldwide Gallup survey facilities. See: http://www.prrc.com/ This URL appears to be no longer valid. We have been unable to find the new one.
2. Bruce Bawer, "Where Protestants Part Company", Opinion Column, The New York Times, 1997-APR-5.
3. Bruce Bawer, "Stealing Jesus: How Fundamentalism Betrays Christianity," Crown Publ. (1997). Read reviews or order this book safely from Amazon.com online book store
4. D.R. Hodge, "A test of theories of denominational growth and decline," an essay in D.R. Hodge & D.A. Roozen, Eds., "Understanding church growth and decline," Pilgrim Press (1979) , (1979) Page 185. Cited in B. Spilka, et al., "The Psychology of Relgion: An empirical approach," Prentice-Hall, (1985), Page 41.
5. David B. Barrett, et al., "World Christian Encyclopedia : A Comparative Survey of Churches and Religions in the Modern World," Oxford University Press, (2001). Read reviews or order this book

Copyright © 1997 to 2009 by Ontario Consultants on Religious Tolerance.
Last update: 2009-SEP-04
Author: B.A. Robinson