Number of Protestant denominations

I always enjoy the old joke about the multiplicity of Baptist denominations (I have dearly beloved friends who are Baptists, so no offense intended):

A man was walking along San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge when he
saw a woman about to jump off. He ran up to her, trying to dissuade her
from committing suicide. He told her simply that God loved her. A tear
came to her eye.

He then asked her, “Are you a Christian, a Jew, a Hindu, or what?”

“I’m a Christian,” she replied.

He said, “Me, too! Small world! Protestant or Catholic?”

“Protestant.”

“Me, too! What denomination?”

“Baptist.”

“Me, too! Northern Baptist or Southern Baptist?”

“Northern Baptist.”

He remarked, “Well, ME TOO! Northern Conservative Baptist or Northern Liberal Baptist?”

She answered, “Northern Conservative Baptist.”

He said, “Well, that’s amazing! Northern Conservative Fundamentalist Baptist or Northern Conservative Reformed Baptist?”

“Northern Conservative Fundamentalist Baptist.”

“Remarkable! Northern Conservative Fundamentalist Baptist Great Lakes
Region or Northern Conservative Fundamentalist Baptist Eastern Region?”

She told him, “Northern Conservative Fundamentalist Baptist Great Lakes Region.”

“A miracle!” he cried. “Northern Conservative Fundamentalist Baptist
Great Lakes Region Council of 1879, or Northern Conservative
Fundamentalist Baptist Great Lakes Region Council of 1912?”

She said, “Northern Conservative Fundamentalist Baptist Great Lakes Region Council of 1912.”

He then shouted, “DIE, HERETIC!”, and pushed her over the rail.

Bohuslav Wojnar said:

Wow Rosie, who can remember that kind of complicated joke?

Google Search, copy/paste.

I agree, among Independent baptist there are many different types from ultra conservative to moderate in belief and it seems most don't want to associate with the other.  [:)]  

I was raised Independent or Evangelical methodist and also in Ind. Baptist Churches.  My family has pastored in both denominations.  Now talk about something hard: having a Methodist church  on your resume and candidate for a baptist church[:D]

I Pastor a Baptist church and there are more United Methodist's in our church than baptist. In fact there are relatively very few baptist background people in the church. What's even more amazing is that there is terrific unity in the church despite the many different denominational backgrounds.  I have found Sound Biblical preaching transcends many bias. 

Jeremy Tondee said:

I agree, among Independent baptist there are many different types from ultra conservative to moderate in belief and it seems most don't want to associate with the other.    

It is a doctrinal issue common to Independent Baptists. They do not believe there is a "universal, unseen" church. Most only believe in individual churches. Refer to your Logos resources regarding church polity views of Independent Baptists. They differ significantly from all other Baptist denominations (Southern, American, Missionary, Free-Will.....)  They believe the ecclesia ("calling out") happens at Rapture and the "be ye separate is a different thing from "One-Church", "One-Body:, or "Family of God"  altogether

" rel="nofollow">Keep Smiling 4 Jesus said:

Observation: dread may include Anabaptists (worldwide), whose heritage is distinct from Protestant denominations.

Who could dread Anabaptists? They are pacifists. Never hurt anyone.

Actually while they do share some things (predominantly believers' baptism) with Baptists, they are quite distinct. Anabaptists are the branch of the family tree that include Mennonites, Amish, Hutterites, and some Brethren denominations. They were called "Anabaptists" in derision by those who who thought they were heretical during the Reformation (Anabaptists means literally "rebaptizers"), and they were terribly persecuted -- drowned, burned at the stake, etc. -- for their beliefs/practices back then. I'm not sure the Baptists of today have that same heritage, though some of them might.

I found this in The Baptist Heritage: Four Centuries of Baptist Witness, which I have in Logos: "Most European Baptists see themselves in close kinship with the earlier Anabaptist movement. Many European historians portray Baptists as direct descendents [sic] of the Anabaptists and thus emphasize a European origin for all Baptists. Despite some similarity, evidence to trace any historical linkage between the two groups remains scanty."

Arggh! After finding that misspelling of descendants in that resource, I did a search in my Entire Library for it out of curiosity. 749 hits. I guess I'm going to be busy with Report Typo all night tonight... [:(]

Jack Caviness said:

I served one SBC Church that included Missionary in its name, not that they were particularly mission-minded, but they wanted to distance themselves from the Primitive Baptists that filled the area.

Isn't that generally the case for most Missionary baptist churches (and the reason for the name)?

Sometimes it's hard to tell when a name means something and when it doesn't.  "Primitive baptist" tells me more about church than "Missionary baptist" does.

When I was in Texas last month I saw an interesting church name which I'd never seen anything like before. Preterist was in the name of the church. I couldn't remember the rest of its name, but a quick Google search landed me on the only Preterist church in Texas and it is indeed the church I saw. It's a whole denomination, it turns out. A very tiny one (only 9 known fellowships). Perhaps they don't consider themselves a denomination, but they have a website, and there's a wiki with documents about their beliefs, so that makes them a denomination as far as Martha's project is concerned. [:)]

So Martha, good luck being exhaustive with your list. There will probably always be a few of these tiny little denominations that are not officially subsets of anything else, that you wouldn't hear about unless you knew someone who knew of their existence.

Jack Caviness said:

When I first heard that joke several years ago,

http://community.logos.com/forums/p/7960/63361.aspx#63361

Emo Philips created this in a comedy routine back in the 1980s

  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZBKIyCbppfs   (joke begins @  2'  40"

Matthew C Jones said:

Emo Philips created this in a comedy routine back in the 1980s

  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZBKIyCbppfs   (joke begins @  2'  40"

Ha! I'd never heard of that comedian. He's pretty funny. Here's another take on religion that he had in a related video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zRLPr5biDhs

Matthew C Jones said:

Is it true they lock the church doors before they bring out the snakes? I don't think I'd want to visit their service.

That part may be a myth.  I've never seen a church that locked their doors when a politician was invited to speak.  But then, I wouldn't want to be a part of their services either.

Rick Hypes said:

I was very young at the time

Thanks for sharing that Rick.   When I was little, a visiting missionary brought out a live snake at the end of his presentation for kids to touch. I did because I love animals. I don't want to do it again.  That is the closest I will ever come to "snake handling."   [:|]

Thomas Black said:

I've never seen a church that locked their doors when a politician was invited to speak.

One Sunday I attended Maranatha Baptist Church in Plains, Georgia, where Jimmy Carter is a member and teaches a Sunday School class (in the sanctuary) before the service. We all had to go through tight security to get in, and we had to stay for the church service afterward if we wanted to get to stand in line to shake President Carter's hand and get our picture taken with him and Rosalyn after the service.

Yes, there was a lot of rigmarole involved in hearing him speak, but it was so worth it. He really is a sincere believer and his Bible teaching was quite good.

Oh, and I've been in a church service with a sitting president once, too. President Clinton was in Seattle for some political fundraiser for a congress person from our state and wanted to attend church while he was in town. So he had his staff investigate our church as he'd heard Earl Palmer was a good preacher. So he came and merely attended/worshiped with us, and there were no political undertones to the service. (Apart from us having to go through metal detectors to get into the church, and not starting the service quite on time, to throw off any would be assassins who might have been waiting for his arrival if they'd gotten wind of it ahead of time; but it was kept all hush-hush. Even I as a member of the choir wasn't told what the big deal was going to be, only that we had to arrive early at church for some special event.) The service went on as planned, with the sermon topic chosen long ahead of time. It turned out to be very apt; the Scripture Earl preached on included some verse that mentioned that all authority on earth comes from God (maybe Rom 13:1, Dan 2:21, can't remember for sure). It was part of a sermon series we were in the midst of, on a book of the Bible, so totally not cherry-picked for the situation. Just providential. Clinton nodded in agreement when he heard it. He also sang along heartily on all the hymns, followed along in the pew Bible when the Scripture was being read, etc. He was really into being there, and while I'm sure there were some political points to be gained for being seen in church by such a large congregation, I don't necessarily think he would have done it if he hadn't had some real interest in being there and hearing Rev. Palmer speak. Clinton was whisked out into a waiting limo before we could all leave the sanctuary, for security purposes, so there was no handshake line. Our church leadership really did a good job of keeping the service from turning into a political thing. They did make one mention of welcome to him during the welcome remarks at the beginning, but that was all.

Rosie Perera said:

There will probably always be a few of these tiny little denominations that are not officially subsets of anything else, that you wouldn't hear about unless you knew someone who knew of their existence.

Well, Logos has an awful lot of users, don't they? Once MJ has gotten as far as she can on her own, we could start writing "check if your church is there" posts, both to the forums, Facebook and Twitter. If everyone looks for their own church, plus the oddest denomination/church they know about locally, we should catch a few more.

fgh said:

the oddest denomination/church they know about locally, we should catch a few more.

Have you seen the "churches" springing up on Youtube? I am not talking about the mockeries (lots of those too) but sincere, albeit wacky, persons preaching.to their web cam. Their doctrine can usually be pigeon-holed but they would never willingly be associated with any denomination or even each other.