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Grouping Christian denominations into families: 
Families of Christian denominations in North America:
Today, there are many ways of classifying the over 1,500 Christian faith groups
in North America:
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Into three to eight meta-groups (e.g. Roman Catholic, Orthodox, Protestant, Anglican
...),
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By "wing" (e.g. conservative, mainline, and liberal),
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By denomination(From the Amish to The Way)
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By theological belief system (Calvinism, Arminianism, etc.), and
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By religious family, (Baptist, Lutheran, Pentecostal, etc.)
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This section describes how most Christian denominations can be sorted into 15 families, according to their historical roots.
We have largely patterned the following list of Christian families of
denominations after the work of J Gordon Melton, the editor of the Encyclopedia of American
Religions. 1 It is one of many possible ways of sorting individual denominations. 
One of
many possible lists of families of Christian denominations
Adventist Family |
Adventist groups, Jehovah's
Witnesses, and British Israelism
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Baptist Family |
Southern Baptists, American Baptists, etc. |
Christian Science-Metaphysical Family |
Christian Science, New Thought
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Communal Family |
The Jesus People, Twin Oaks, etc. |
Eastern Orthodox Family |
Various Orthodox churches -- Russian, Greek, Serbian, etc.
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European Free-Church Family |
Amish, Brethren, Mennonites, Quakers,
Shakers, etc.
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Holiness Family |
Christian and Missionary Alliance, Church of the Nazarene, etc. |
Independent Fundamentalist Family |
Plymouth Brethren, Fundamentalists, etc. |
Latter-day Saints Family a.k.a.
LDS Restorationists |
Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day
Saints, The community of Christ
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Lutheran Family |
Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, Lutheran church - Missouri Synod,
etc. |
Messianic Judaism |
Jews For Jesus, and other similar groups |
Pentecostal Family |
Assemblies of God, Church of God (Cleveland, TN) |
Pietist-Methodist Family |
Scandinavian Pietism, United Methodist Church, other Methodists |
Reformed-Presbyterian Family |
Reformed, various Presbyterian churches, Congregational, United Church of Christ |
Western Liturgical Family |
Anglican
Communion; Roman Catholicism, including the Latin
Church and the Eastern Rite Churches: (Armenian 5 Catholic Church, Chaldean
C.C., Coptic C.C., Marionite C.C., Melkite C.C., Syrian C.C.); Old Catholicism;
and the Ukranian Catholic Church
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To which might be added a number of additional faith groups and secular
systems, some of which
have only a loose connection to Christianity -- if at all.
Liberal Family |
Unitarian Universalists, Humanists, Progressive Christianity, Evolutionary Christianity, Ethical Culture, Free Thinkers, Secularists, etc.
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Spiritualist, Psychic & New Age Family |
Swedenborgianism, Spiritualism, New Age
groups, etc.
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How the Christian "families" evolved, according to religious historians:Speaking generally, individual Christian denominations believe that they are the one denomination out of many tens of thousands of denominations that is the direct descendent from the original Christian movement founded by Jesus and Paul. However, most religious historians teach that, with the exception of the first few years after the execution of their
founder Yeshua of Nazareth (a.k.a. Jesus Christ), Christianity was never a unified
religion.  | By the end of the 1st century CE, three main movements remained:
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Pauline Christians: a group of mainline congregations, largely of
non-Jewish Christians. Some had been created by Paul and his co-workers.
They evolved to become the established church.
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Gnostic Christians: They claimed
salvation through special, otherwise secret gnosis (knowledge). Some were members
of mainline congregations; others were part of Gnostic groups. They were
declared heretics and were gradually suppressed and exterminated.
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Jewish Christians: remnants of the group originally headed by James,
the brother of Yeshua,
and including Jesus' disciples. They were scattered throughout the Roman Empire after
the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 CE, and gradually disappeared,
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Circa 400 CE: The Bishop of Rome began to be recognized as the most senior
of all bishops. Siricius (384-399 CE) became the first bishop to be called
Pope.
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1054 CE: A lengthy power struggle between eastern and western Christianity culminated in a schism
between the Eastern Orthodox churches and the Western Rite (later
often
called the Roman Catholic Church). Many Christian sects broke away from the
Western Rite throughout the Middle Ages (Cathars, Knights Templars, etc.). These
were generally exterminated by the central church in various genocidal wars.
|  | 1517 CE: Martin Luther attacked certain practices and beliefs
of the Church, and the authority of the Pope. He was followed by other
reformers which produced a mass movement -- the Protestant Reformation. They were
driven largely by two fundamental principles:
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"Sola Scriptura" (Scripture Alone): The belief that the Holy Bible was
the ultimate authority for all matters of religious belief and practice.
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The Priesthood of all Believers: The belief that no priest or
other intermediary is needed between the Christian believer and God.
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1820: Joseph Smith, at the age of 14, received his first vision.
He reported that God and Jesus Christ
had appeared before him as separate entities and told him that all of the
Christian sects and denominations were in error and that he should not join
any of them. He founded The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in 1830. It attracted 1,000 members during its first 12 months and has since
grown rapidly. About 13 million believers who are members of almost a
hundred faith groups trace their church's history back to the church that
Smith founded.
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Into modern times: Protestant Christianity became fractured into tens of thousands of individual denominations, sects, and faith groups as individuals and groups
began to interpret the Bible in their own unique ways. They continually formed new
sects that they felt were closer to Jesus' intentions for the church. In the
past fifteen decades in North America schisms occurred over the legitimacy of
human slavery, and whether to allow women to be ordained. A number of mainline
denominations attempting to keep
their organizations intact in spite of differences of
belief about sexual orientation. Some have already decided to grant equal
rights to gays and lesbians, to recognize same-sex relationships & marriages, and whether to ordain persons with a homosexual orientation. Others are currently debating these topics. Generally, recognition was first granted by the most liberal denominations and are now being progressively granted by more conservative denominations.
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Size of religious groups in the U.S.
Polling data from early 2001 indicate that:
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76.5% (159 million) of Americans identified themselves as Christian. This is a major slide from 86.2% in
1990. Identification with Christianity has suffered a loss of 9.7
percentage points during those 11 years -- about 0.9 percentage points per year.
- 52% of Americans identified themselves as Protestant.
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24.5% are Roman Catholic.
- 14.1% do not follow any organized religion. This is an unusually rapid
increase from only 8% in 1990.
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1.3% are Jewish.
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0.5% are Muslim, followers of Islam.
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The fastest growing religion (in terms of percentage) is Wicca. It went from 8,000 in 1990 to 134,000 in
2001. Their numbers of adherents are doubling about every 30 months. 3
The percentage of Americans who are Protestants are
expected to dip below 50% at sometime before the end of 2006. 
Size of religious groups in Canada:The 2001 census by Statistics Canada found that:
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77% of the population defined themselves as Christian. This is also a major
slide from 83% in 1991 -- over a half percentage point per year.
- 44% of Canadians were Roman Catholic.
- 29% were Protestant
- 1.6% were Orthodox Christian
- 2.6 were from other Christian groups
- 17.4% had no religious affiliation
- 2.0% were Muslim.
- 1.1% were Jewish
- 1.0 were Buddhist
- 1.0% were Hindu
- 0.9% were Sikh
- 0.1% followed other Eastern religions
- 0.2 follow other religions.
Although the percentage of adults who considered themselves Christian are almost the same
in Canada and the U.S., the two countries differed in two significant ways:
- A much larger percentage of Canadians are Roman Catholic.
- A much larger percentage of Americans Protestants are conservatives.
The Unitarian-Universalist
Association is a small faith group. It is a very liberal religious organization which is
often considered to be part of Christendom by statisticians and pollsters, but not
regarded as Christian by most of its members, who regard themselves as Agnostics, Atheists, Humanists, etc. It is growing. 
Christianity throughout the worldAccording to the 1992 Encyclopaedia Britannica Book of the Year, Christianity is
the most widespread religion in the world. They have established "significant"
communities 254 countries and territories. This leads the Baha'i faith at 205 locations
and Islam at 172. The percentage of the world's population that regards themselves as Christians appears
to be remarkably constant. It has risen only from 33.7% in 1970 to 33.9% in 1996. Its
current annual growth rate is about 2.3% which is approximately equal to the growth rate
of the world's population. 3 Within Christianity, not all denominations had the same growth rate:
Group |
Annual growth rate (in total membership) |
Annual Growth Rate
(as a percentage of the world's population) |
Pentecostals |
8.1% |
+ 5.8% |
Evangelicals |
5.4% |
+ 3.1% |
All Protestants |
3.3% |
+ 1.0% |
Roman Catholics and Others |
1.3% |
- 1.0% |
By 2003, a smaller percentage of the world's population identified themselves
as Christians, The 2003 New York Times Almanac reported that Christianity had
almost two billion adherents in 260 countries. 7 They reported the total world's population at 6.2 billion. 8 This implies a drop in the
percentage of Christians among the world's population to almost 32%. 
Related essays on this web site:

References:
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J. Gordon Melton, Ed, "The Encyclopedia of American Religions: A Comprehensive
Study of the Major Religious Groups in the United States and Canada," 3 volume
set, Triumph Books, New York, NY, (1989)
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"American Religious Identification Survey," by The
Graduate Center of the City University of New York, at: http://www.gc.cuny.edu/studies/
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Greg H. Parsons, Executive Director, "U.S. Center for World Mission," Pasadena, CA; quoted in Zondervan News Service, 1997-FEB-21.
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Rev. George Mastrantonis, "The fundamental teachings of the
Eastern Orthodox Church," at: http://www.goarch.org/
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The Armenian Catholic Church is unrelated to the Arminian movement which is a theological belief system opposed to
Calvinism.
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Statistics Canada, "Population by religion, by provinces and territories (2001 census),"2005-JAN-25, at: http://www40.statcan.ca/ Adapted from the Statistics Canada's Internet Site,
on 2005-AUG-22. Full URL is: http://www40.statcan.ca/l01/cst01/demo30a.htm.
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"2003 New York Times Almanac," Page 485.
- Ibid, Page 470


Copyright © 1999 to 2017 by Ontario Consultants on
Religious Tolerance
Latest update: 2017-OCT-16
Author: B.A. Robinson

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