Nat'l Catholic Register: "We Need to Stop Saying That There Are 33,000 Protestant Denominations"

Discussion in 'Navigating Through Church Life' started by Stalwart, Sep 18, 2020.

  1. Stalwart

    Stalwart Well-Known Member Anglican

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    Not that I care to defend the baptists too much, but the propaganda spread against Christians undeservedly needs to be countered. Obviously folks like the baptists have unity issues (mostly because they lack the episcopate and the church governmened ordained by God), but the contrary propaganda to try to paint Romanism as somehow a cure should not be spread either.

    I still see quotes like,

    So to answer these charges, in order to let us discuss issues with actually exist, here you all go, an article from the National Catholic Register:

    National Catholic Register: "We Need to Stop Saying That There Are 33,000 Protestant Denominations"
    https://www.ncregister.com/blog/we-...hat-there-are-33-000-protestant-denominations

    "Recently—because readers can’t seem to stop telling me what to write about—someone sent me a link with the note, “Here’s something for you to refute.” Somehow along the way I have become Mr. Refutation. I can’t say how that happened.

    Anyway, the link was to an article written all the way back in 2007 by someone named Dr. Glenn Andrew Peoples, whom I have never heard of. Dr. Peoples disputes the common myth—for myth it is—that there are 33,000 Protestant denominations.

    So apparently this particular reader thinks Dr. Peoples needs to be taken to school—and I am just the one to do that—and shown that there really are 33,000 denominations; or whatever the number has escalated to today—possibly 51,314 as of this writing. (For there is a formula to calculate these things.)

    I regret to say that is not going to happen here. There are not—repeat with me—there are not 33,000 Protestant denominations. There are not anywhere close to it. It is a myth that has taken hold by force of repetition, and it gets cited and recited by reflex; but it is based on a source that, even Catholics will have to concede, relies on too loose a definition of the word “denomination.”

    The source is the two-volume World Christian Encyclopedia (Barrett, Kurian, and Johnson; Oxford University Press). Take note of the passage where the 33,000 figure comes up:
    "

    He then proceeds to demolish the claim, and show how people who spread it are purposefully malicious and lack Christian virtues.
     
  2. Lowly Layman

    Lowly Layman Well-Known Member

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    Interesting opinion. I don't believe that the good people at tge Center for the Study of Global Christianity (CSGC) at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, who came up with the number 41,000, are "purposefully malicious and lack Christian virtues" but perhaps you and the Article's author have seen a side of the seminary that I have happily been sheltered from, lol.
     
  3. Lowly Layman

    Lowly Layman Well-Known Member

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    @Stalwart how many protestant denominations are there really if the 41,000 number is an overstatement?
     
  4. Shane R

    Shane R Well-Known Member

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    Roger Olson reflected on that question at some length on his blog and in the introduction to the book as he was preparing the 14th Edition of Mead's Handbook of Denominations in the United States.
     
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  5. Lowly Layman

    Lowly Layman Well-Known Member

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    What number did he settle on?
     
  6. Stalwart

    Stalwart Well-Known Member Anglican

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    If you read the article and the other research around this issue, you'll see that focusing on 'protestant denominations' is not the key issue, and really inflamatory and incendiary for most decent people out there, including most roman catholics (as per the OP).

    For example, there are a couple of dozen Eastern Orthodox denominations, eg. there are three Orthodox churches in Ukraine alone. And now with the split between Moscow and Constantinople, the EO divisions have probably doubled. Then you've also got the Oriental Orthodox, the Assyrian Orthodox, the Ethiopian Church, the Indian Orthodox churches of St. Thomas (of which there are dozens in Kerala, India alone).

    Then there are a a couple of dozen Roman Catholic denominations; for example Polish National Catholic Church and others, not in communion with the Pope. You've got the Old Catholics also, etc.

    There are a couple of dozen Anglican denominations; we know of those.

    Likewise a couple of dozen Lutheran denominations.

    As you go down into denominations with broken (unbiblical) church government, such as Presbyterians, there are a few hundred various denominations.

    And then when you descend into the anarchic world of Baptist/Evangelical Congregationalism, you can say there are a few thousand of those; it is pretty shameful, but inescapable given that they reject a unifying government. In other words, their schisms happen from the broken mechanism of their government itself, and not out of greater pride or other sins.

    That's the world you're looking at. While Congregationalists have their share of the blame, the truth is that everyone has too much of the spirit of division, and not enough war with the world, the flesh, and the Devil. We do not heed to the prayer of our Lord, all of us around the world. But idea that Protestants have 33,000, or 41,000 or 55,000 (why not 550,000?), while Romanists have this pure unity is laughable at best.

    The Union of Scranton draws many Anglo-Catholic groups into alliance with a whole bunch of non-papal Roman Catholic denominations (@Shane R could fill you in I'm sure). I hope you reconsider reading propaganda papist blogs which teach of "only 4 until 1500".
     
    Last edited: Sep 18, 2020
  7. Lowly Layman

    Lowly Layman Well-Known Member

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    I feel like I've hit my head. I don't have a clue what you're talking about. I don't know what Union of Scranton is. I don't read and have never tried to post propaganda papist blogs that I know of. I get to the "4 until 1500" by looking at the chart in the Wikipedia article that @Cooper generously provided in the thread about Baptists and counting up the little lines that branched off from the "Early Christianity" line. I got the 41,000 number by googling "how many christian denominations are there" and reading the number provided from Gordon-Conwell seminary as I stated before (not a seminary known for Papist leanings I might add)...What are you on about?? You have utterly lost me, my friend.

    Also, I read the article completely. It didn't provide what it considered to be a correct number of denominations only that it found the 33,000 number to be laughable. I ask again, in all earnestness, what is the correct number if not 41,000?
     
  8. Shane R

    Shane R Well-Known Member

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    Olson and his coeditor made much the same argument that Stalwart was making and determined that traditional academic definitions of 'denomination' are not adequate to describe the ecclesial nature of some large Christian groups. Olson also blogged extensively seeking input on what people thought the Handbook should do with multi-campus megachurches that might have thousands of members but only a handful of facilities. He never just came out with a number but the book features a few hundred denominations operating in the US.

    He was somewhat puzzled by the Anglican scene and just what exactly ACNA was. At the time he and his team were researching ACNA still had a number of dioceses with dual affiliation, such as CANA and PEARUSA and he was puzzled by the relationship of REC to the larger group. He ultimately decided to give REC their own entry in the Anglican/Episcopalian subsection. His understanding of the Continuing Movement was deficient and the entry made is frankly a mess. The APA got their own entry as well.

    I have a comparable volume that attempted the project for the Latin American countries. It is even more confusing because the author struggled to figure out how many of the groups were independent churches and how many were international networks. He was also not particularly concerned with whether a group was definitively Christian in some instances. One example is the group called Mita which began in Puerto Rico. That particular group was founded by a woman who believed herself to be an incarnation of the Holy Spirit.

    The Union of Scranton is the conservative faction of the largest Old Catholic groups with roots to Utrecht. After splitting from the Union of Utrecht they formed their own union and maintain their administrative headquarters and archchancery in Scranton, PA. The North American affiliate is the Polish National Catholic Church and the other major affiliate is the Nordic Catholic Church. This union, like the Philippine Independent Catholic Church and the Brazilian Catholic Apostolic Church is grudgingly acknowledged to have valid, though illicit, holy orders by the Vatican. There is a certain segment of Anglo-Catholics who find this valuable and hope to share in this status. There was a Filipino bishop of the PICC who participated heavily in some of the earlier consecrations within the Continuing Movement. The Brazilian provided the early consecrations for most of the independent Anglican bishops around S. America.
     
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  9. Lowly Layman

    Lowly Layman Well-Known Member

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    Thank you for explaining what the Union of Scranton is @Shane R. I am not sure that has to do with this discussion though. I feel like I missed something somewhere .:hmm:
     
  10. Shane R

    Shane R Well-Known Member

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    Oh, we've been off-track for a little while. We started out discussing Protestant denominations and then just denominations in general. The question came up so I answered it.
     
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  11. Stalwart

    Stalwart Well-Known Member Anglican

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    That’s because in the popular mind the two are the same thing. If not for the Reformation, so they say, there would still be only one church, or at most two.

    When we bring up how divisive the Roman denominations are, and the EOs (etc), the question takes on a new character.
     
  12. Lowly Layman

    Lowly Layman Well-Known Member

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    I fully agree that the Roman sect materially deviated from the faith of the Catholic Church in its teaching of medieval innovations that burdened men's consciences, led believers astray, and set up an imperious bishop whose so-called authority to interpret Scripture was even higher than that of Church Tradition, which in turn created the dire need for a Reformation. That is a fact of history for anyone with eyes to see it. But what is equally a fact of history is that one unintended consequence of the continental and later Reformations was the acceptance of individuals reading and interpreting Scripture outside of and many cases in conflict with established Church teachings, which in turn replaced the disaster of one pope placing his interpretations above the unified voice of Tradition to millions of laymen doing the same thing and calling it "soul liberty". I'm sure you agree that each schism no matter from what direction, whether Protestant or Roman, grieves Our Lord and mars the image of his mystical body.

    "In those days there was no king in Israel: every man did that which was right in his own eyes."
     
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  13. Stalwart

    Stalwart Well-Known Member Anglican

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    Here’s the thing though: there are no more Anglican denominations than Roman, or EO. That’s because the Apostolic character of a properly-constituted Church helps minimize the sin of schism. Where the Congregationalists and the Baptist’s went astray was in abandoning this church government, and now everything they do is man-made, ensuring hundreds and thousands of divisions which will only get worse. The issue, then, was not the Reformation itself, but the retention of the Apostolic form of church government.

    The other elephant in the room is religious liberty, as one of the leading causes for schism. Without fear of death, the only thing keeping you in communion is spiritual virtues. Back when religious liberty was not a thing, the Presbyterian church of Geneva still remained entirely and indivisibly one, under Calvin and his successors, even if the church lacked the apostolic character. That’s because anyone who started his own conventicle was imprisoned or executed.

    That also was how the Roman church kept people in line. Once we enter the modern era, when religious liberty becomes a thing, then why can’t the Polish National Catholic Church just go and do it’s own thing? Why can’t the Old Catholics just secede? They can, and they did. In the Middle Ages, we know well that the Cathars of France were simply executed; the Pope called a crusade into a Catholic country (France), and the wrong ‘denomination’ was simply exterminated.

    We know that in the early church where religious liberty was also a thing, there were many denominations. St. Augustine called for communion with the Donatists for example. It was a messy landscape with hundreds of denominations.

    The fall of the Roman Empire, and the ensuing barbarity of middle ages where error was grounds for death, made things deceptively simple and ‘clean’, until we once again re-enter into the era of religious liberty in modern times.
     
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  14. Lowly Layman

    Lowly Layman Well-Known Member

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    I agree with you on that point @Stalwart but I would argue that loss of the historic episcopate was one of the hallmarks of the Continental Reformation and the later reformation (something Anglicanism was happily spared from). Luther made it an unimportant thing, while Calvin, Knox, etc, thoroughly rejected it. But for the Reformation, the Church Tradition of the historic episcopate would not have been lost in those churches.
     
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  15. Stalwart

    Stalwart Well-Known Member Anglican

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    Yeah no disagreement for me there. Many of the reformers erred grievously when it came to church government. We can say that there are a few thousand Christian denominations out there in total, if everything is properly quantified. Most of these come from Christians lacking proper church government, and the rest arising due to modernity and religious liberty.

    That’s not a pretty picture, but it’s also not the “1 Church and 33,000 Protestants” picture which some RC apologists (but thankfully not the “R.C. Register”) like to suggest.
     
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  16. Rexlion

    Rexlion Well-Known Member

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    Well then, what you had in those bygone days was a single, monolithic church, right? No schisms, how wonderful.... but it contained plenty of people who disagreed, yet they were not at liberty to voice their disagreement with the Roman church. They'd have been martyred (many were). That is, as you say, how the Roman church kept people in line. How is that any better than religious liberty and a multitude of denominations? In these days, people who disagree can at least abide by their conscience without fear of reprisal. Indeed, it took a great deal of guts and political clout for the Church of England to pull off what it did. Same thing with Luther's movement, for he received support from the local rulers (Germany) and the RCC wasn't able to simply go and string him up. But aren't we better off today for the fact that we aren't stuck inside the monolithic RCC? Yep, you betcha. How can you refer to a "sin of schism?" Can you quote a Bible verse for that? How dare we see schism as a sin, when we are the beneficiaries of it! (Oh, yes, you're going to say that the Church of England didn't schism, it returned to the church's true roots, but the Baptists and many of the rest will say the same thing of their group, so that's a cop-out! Everyone thinks they're doing things as true to the Apostolic age as can be, only the various groups disagree as to how the Apostles did it because we simply don't know for sure!)