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Introduction

Christianity is the single most widespread religion in the world today. About one-third of the world's population regard themselves as some form of Christian. About 75% of Americans identify themselves as Christian.

Christians follow the teachings of Jesus Christ, a Jewish teacher who lived in in and around Jerusalem and who was executed by the Roman authorities in the year 30 CE. The life of Christ, Gods New Covenant with people and the early church is documeneted in the New Testament of the Bible.

Christian Living

Beliefs - Principles

Political Issues (Abortion, Homosexuality, Environment, Evolution, ...)

End Times

Some popular evangelists/apologists:
Google Indexes: Apologetics, Ministries

Christian Denominations

Description of Christian Churches

Demographics

  1 Roman Catholic Church  1 Billion  (66 M in US) 1.2% growth
  2 Protestant 770 M 1.36%
    2.1 Main   485 M
    Liberal:    150 M
      Reformed/Presbyterian (USA)/Congregational/United Church of Christ	75 M
       Presbyterian USA (2.4M USA, 2004)
      Some Northern Baptist Groups 
      Methodist  70 M (8.5M USA)
      Episcopal/Anglician/Church of England 70 M (2.5 M USA)
      Uniterian
    Moderate/Conservative: 200 M
      Baptist    70 M 
         National Baptist Convention (8.2M USA) - Moderate
         Southern Baptist Convention (16M) - Conservative
      Lutheran   64 M (5.2M USA)
      Disciples of Christ
     Presbyterian America (300K, 2000)

    Evangelical
       Seventh-day Adventists	   11 M
       Pentecostal		105M
           Assemblies of God	       32 M (2.4M USA)
           various churches of God
              Church of God in Christ (5.5M USA)
       Christian Reformed,
       Nazarene,
       Church of God in Christ (5.5M USA)
       Churches of Christ
         United Church of Christ (1.4M USA)
       Independent Christian Churches (Instrumental),
       Mega-churches,  
       Southern Baptist (16M USA)
    2.2 Other 
       Anglican	  68 M (Includes non US Episcopal ?)
       African indigenous sects (AICs)	110M
       
       New Thought (Unity, Christian Science, etc.) 1.5 M
       Friends (Quakers)       0.3     
  3  Orthodox/Eastern Church 227 M
  4. Other (sometimes included in protestant)
      Jehovah's Witnesses	   5-14 M (1 M USA)
      Latter-day Saints (Morman)	11 M (4.9M USA)
      
      Some claim that the Mormons (The Church of Jesus Christ
      of Latter-Day Saints founded in 1830 by Joseph Smith Jr),
      the Jehovah's Witnesses (founded in 1884 by Charles Taze Russell)
      and The Unification Church (founded in 1954 by Sun Myung Moon)
      are not truly Christian even though they believe in Jesus Christ.
      They are sometimes referred to as cults because of their
      cult-like practice of shunning and casting out any dissidents and/or
      a submissive and unquestioning acceptance of the teachings or writings
      of a leader who claims some extra-biblical connection with God.
      See Christian Churches
       Identifying a Cult at the Cult Awareness & Information Centre.
       

Largest in USA

(Source: Yearbook of American and Canadian Churches, a publication of the National Council of Churches (NCC).

1.	The Roman Catholic Church - 66,407,105
2.	Southern Baptist Convention - 16,247,736
3.	The United Methodist Church - 8,251,042
4.	The Church of God in Christ - 5,499,875
5.	The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints - 5,410,544
6.	Evangelical Lutheran Church in America - 5,038,006
7.	National Baptist Convention, U.S.A., Inc. - 5,000,000
8.	National Baptist Convention of America, Inc. - 3,500,000
9.	Presbyterian Church (USA) - 3,407,329
10.	Assemblies of God - 2,687,366
11.	The Lutheran Church - Missouri Synod -	2,512,714
12.	African Methodist Episcopal Church - 2,500,000
13.	National Missionary Baptist Convention of America - 2,500,000
14.	Progressive National Baptist Convention, Inc. - 2,500,000
15.	The Episcopal Church - 2,333,628
16.	Churches of Christ, Corsicana, TX -	   1,500,000
17.	Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America - 1,500,000
18.	Pentecostal Assemblies of the World, Inc. - 1,500,000
19.	American Baptist Churches in the USA - 1,484,291
20.	African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church - 1,430,795
21.	United Church of Christ - 1,330,985
22.	Baptist Bible Fellowship International - 1,200,000
23.	Christian Churches and Churches of Christ, Joplin, MO - 1,071,616
24.	Jehovah's Witnesses - 1,022,397
25.	Church of God, Cleveland, TN - 944,857
____________________________________ The survey, called "Religious Congregations and Membership: 2000" compared the membership of most U.S. denominations between 1990 and 2000. In that decade the United Methodist Church lost 6.7%, the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) 11.6%, the Episcopal Church 5.3%, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America 2.2%, the American Baptist Church 5.7%, the Disciples of Christ 1.9%, and the United Church of Christ 14.8%.
During that time the U.S. population increased by over 13%.

Growing churches were conservative: Southern Baptists increased by 5%, the Assemblies of God 18.5%, the Roman Catholic Church 16.2%, the Churches of Christ 18.6%, the Church of God 40.2%, the Presbyterian Church in America 42.4% and the Wesleyan Church 46.9%. ---

A study conducted by the Glenmary Research Center and sponsored by the Association of Statisticians of American Religious Bodies., ''Religious Congregations and Membership: 2000,'' found that the fastest-growing religious denomination in the last 10 years was the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints with 19% growth from 1990 to 2000. The next highest growth were the conservative Christian Churches and Churches of Christ, with 18.6 percent; the Assemblies of God, a major Pentecostal denomination, with 18.5 percent; and the Roman Catholic Church, with 16.2 percent. 

Growth since 1989
Mormon  +300K
Presbyterians -400K
More young people declare themselves atheist.

Source: Trends in Political Values and Core Attitudes: 1987-2007 at Pew Research.

According to Characteristics of the Generations at The Episcopal Network for Evangelism:
In a 1998 survey of 6000 people, with 1300-1500 people in each of the generational categories listed below, the following percentages of each generation identified themselves as Christian.

Generation % Christian
GI and Silent generations - born before 1926, and 1927-45, respectively 65%
Baby Boom - born 1946-64 35%
Gen X (baby bust) - born 1965-76 15%<
Older Bridgers (age 17+) - born 1976-81 4%

The U.S. has the highest number of belivers in the developing world. See World Religions.
Korea may have the fastest growing Christian population.

People Groups

People Groups which are distinguished by ethnicity, language, religion, caste and culture are defined in several places. The number of groups ranges from 10,500 to 25,000. Some places where they are designated:
Organization Purpose People Groups Unreached
Groups% of world population
Joshua Project Introducing Christianity 15,971 6,84140%
U.S. Center for World Mission (USCWM) Introducing Christianity 24,00010,00027%
Presbyterian Frontier Fellowship Introducing Christianity 25,0008,00028-40%
The core of the Unreached People Groups (95%) of our world live in a rectangular-shape area on a world map know as the 10/40 Window. It extends from north-west Africa across Asia, between 10 degrees and 40 degrees north of the equator and spans approx. 60 countries. It is the darkest, neediest, and most difficult region to reach on the face of the earth.

There are over 6,800 languages currently spoken; 2,261 have writing systems.

Other Christian Information Pages

See: Description of Christian Churches and a Timeline/History here.
Chritianity at Scouts Faith Guide.

Divisions within Christianity: www.religioustolerance.org/chr_divi.htm#denom
George Konig's Christian Internet Forum (www.konig.org/)
Don French's "The Open Bible" (www.quiknet.com/~dfrench/
Christianity - Beliefs, Consequences, Logical Conclusions of Christianity
Exploring Christianity
ChristianityToday.com
Christianity at adherents.com

Miscelaneous:
Christmas Bible Trivia

Books:
Christian Doctrine, by Shirley Guthrie
"The Life you Always Wanted", by John Ortberg
Books at Why Christianity.

Some popular authors:

See Theology for Medieval authors

Links:
Theology
The Bible (Bible Topics)
Questions, Objections, Criticisms, Opposing views and apparent contradictions
Science and Christianity
Christian Fundamentalism and Fundamentalists
christiananswers.net/
Description of Christian Churches
a Timeline/History here.
Early Christianity in the U.S.
The Da VInci Code, a best-selling novel by Dan Brown.
Christian Web Sites
Creation - Evolution

Return to Religion.

last updated 23 Sep 2007