Choose a Church: Denominational Branches

Believe ^

[xzins]

This chart is VERY general and minimal. There are literally tens of thousands of additional lines that could be included, for various unique Churches, like say, the Amana Colonies. MANY of those Churches seem to be hybrids where some local group has seen some value in each of two or more existing Denominations. So, there might be an "Evangelical Lutheran Episcopal Congregational Methodist Church", and it would be tough to even GUESS what they believed! You'd have to contact such a Church and request a Statement of Faith from them.

Our hope with this chart is that, if you are looking for a new or different Church to attend, that you might be able to narrow it down to three or four. Then, ACTUALLY ATTEND a Service at each one before making a final decision. Even if the first one seems great, check the others out before making a final commitment. The Lord has been around 2,000 years waiting for you; He will certainly be Patient for another four weeks for you to determine where your Spiritual growth might best occur!

Many of the lines include two numbers in parentheses. The first is the year that the Church began. The second is the publicized number of regular members (generally in the USA).

Christianity

• Protestants (1517) (382 million world) (97 million in US)
  • Lutherans (1517) (70 million) (9 million in US)
    • Moravian Church (1727) (360 thousand)
    • Lutheran Church in America (1962) (2.9 million)
    • Lutheran Church - Missouri Synod (1847) (2.6 million)
    • American Lutheran Church (1960) (2.3 million)
    • Evangelical Lutheran Church of America (1987) (5.2 million)
    • Crypto-Calvinists (1552)

  • Calvinists (1536)
    • Standard [Reformed] Calvinists
      • Presbyterians [Knox] (1537/1644) (3.8 million in US)
        • New School (1837)
        • Old School (1837) (re-joined in 1869)
        • Disciples of Christ (1804/1968) (1.1 million)
        • Christian Churches and Churches of Christ (1800/1969) (1.1 million)
      • [Dutch] Reformed Church (1537/1618/1644)
        • Mercersburg (1843)
        • Reformed Church in America (1748) (275 thousand)
        • Christian Reformed Church (1847) (225 thousand)
      • Particular Baptists (1611/1639) (about 35 million)
        
        • Conservative [Calvinist/Missionary] or Regular Baptists
          • Seventh-Day Baptists (1617/1671)
            Seventh Day Baptist General Conference USA (1672/1801) (5 thousand)
          • Philadelphia Baptist Association (1707)
            • General Association of Separatist Baptists (1912)
              • Separate Baptists in Christ (1695) (8 thousand)
            • Old Lights and New Lights (1740s, rejoined later) (none)
            • Baptist Missionary Convention (1814)
              • Primitive Baptists (1827)
                • National Primitive Baptist Convention of the USA (250 thousand, mostly Black)
                • Primitive Baptist-Moderates (75 thousand)
              • Northern Baptist Convention (1845)
                • Northern Baptist Convention (1845)
                  American Baptist Convention (1950) (1.5 million)
                  American Baptist Churches in the USA
                • Conservative Baptist Association of America (1947)
                  • Conservative Baptist Association of America (1953) (250 thousand)
                  • General Association of Regular Baptist Churches (1952) (260 thousand)
                • General Association of Regular Baptist Churches (1932) (240 thousand)
              • Southern Baptist Convention (1845) (15.4 million)
                • Southern Baptist Convention (1845)
                • Landmark Baptists (1856/1905)
                  American Baptist Association (1905) (250 thousand)
                • National Baptist Convention of America (1895)
                  • National Baptist Convention of America (1895) (3.5 million, mostly Black)
                  • National Baptist Evangelical Life and Soul Saving Assembly (1936) (57 thousand, mostly Black)
                  • National Baptist Convention of the USA (1915) (8.2 million, mostly Black)
                  • Progressive National Baptist Convention (1961) (2.5 million)
                • Baptist Bible Fellowship (1950) (1.5 million)
                • South Carolina Baptist Fellowship (50 thousand)
              • World Baptist Fellowship (500 thousand)
      • Brethren (324 thousand) (most of these Churches are also often considered Mennonite)
        • Christian [Plymouth] Brethren (1860) (100 thousand)
        • Church of the Brethren (1719) (162 thousand)
        • Brethren Church (1882) (13 thousand)
        • Old German Baptist Brethren (1881) (5 thousand)
      • Congregationalists
      • United Church of Christ (1931/1957) (1.7 million)

    • Arminians (1610)
      • General Baptists (1611)
        • Free-Will Baptists (1727/1780) (210 thousand)
          National Association of Free Will Baptists (1935) (210 thousand)
        • European Baptists
          • North American Baptist Conference (German) (1843) (43 thousand)
          • Baptist General Conference (Swedish) (1852) (136 thousand)
        • United Free-Will Baptist Church (1901) (100 thousand, mostly Black)
        • General Association of General Baptists (75 thousand)
        • United Baptists (64 thousand)
      • Methodists (1739/1795) (38 million)
        • Methodist Church (1939)
        • Wesleyan Methodist Church (1843)
        • Free Methodist Church (1860) (74 thousand)
        • African Methodist Episcopal Church (1816) (3.5 million, mostly Black)
        • African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church (1820) (1 million, mostly Black)
        • Methodist Episcopal Church, South (1844)
        • Primitive Methodist Church (1797) (8 thousand)
        • Evangelical United Brethren Church (1800/1946) (750 thousand)
        • Christian Methodist Episcopal Church (1870) (720 thousand, mostly Black)
        • United Methodist Church (1968) (10 million)
        • Holiness Movement (1845) (8 million)
          • Salvation Army (1865) (2.5 million) (446 thousand in US)
            • Volunteers of America (1896)
          • Church of the Nazarene (1895-1908) (575 thousand)
          • Wesleyan Church (1968) (100 thousand)
          • Church of God (Anderson, IN) (1880) (215 thousand)
          • Pentecostal Denominations (1896-1906) (51 million)
            • Church of God (Cleveland, TN) (1886) (672 thousand)
            • Church of God in Christ (mostly Black)
            • Apostolic Faith (Portland, OR) (1907) (5 thousand)
            • Pentecostal Holiness Church (few hundred)
            • United Holy Church (mostly Black)
            • Pentecostal Free-Will Baptist Church (1959) (18 thousand)
            • Methodist Pentecostal Church
            • Assemblies of God (1914) (2.3 million)
            • Pentecostal Church of God (1919) (102 thousand)
            • Foursquare Gospel (1890/1927) (207 thousand)
            • Open Bible Standard Church (1919) (40 thousand)
            • Pentecostal Assemblies (1907) (500 thousand)
            • United Pentecostal Church (1945) (550 thousand)
            • Church of God of Prophecy (1923) (72 thousand)
            • Congregational Holiness Church (1921) (7 thousand)
            • "Neo-Pentecostalism" has influenced many denominations (1960) (11 million)
            • many "Charismatic" Churches (~1960)
          • Pilgrim Holiness Church (1897)

  • Anabaptists (re-baptizers) (1525)
    • Mennonites (1536/1632)
      • [Old] Mennonite Church (1683) (100 thousand)
      • General Conference Mennonite Church (1860) (34 thousand)
      • Mennonite Brethren Church (1860) (17 thousand)
      • United Missionary Church (1969)
        Mennonite Brethren in Christ (1863) (16 thousand)
      • Amish (1693) (79 thousand) (35 thousand in US)
        • Old Order Amish Mennonite Church (1693) (24 thousand)
        • Conservative Amish Church
        • Beachy Amish Mennonite Church (1927) (7 thousand)
        • Conference of the Evangelical Mennonite Church (4 thousand)
    • Hutterian Brethren (1535) (20 thousand)
    • Fellowship of Grace Brethren Churches (42 thousand)
    • Swiss Brethren (1527)
    • Swiss Free Church tradition (1525)
    • Socinians (1605)
    • Unitarians (1560/1819) (175 thousand)

  • Anglican Communion (7.4 million in US) (75 million world)
    • Church of England (597) (27 million)
    • Episcopalians (1789) (2.5 million)
    • Oxford Movement (1833)
      Anglo-Catholicism (high church) (1838)
    • Liberals (broad church) (~1690)
    • Evangelicals (low church)
    • Puritans (1605)
      Pilgrims (1620)
    • Parker Society (1840) (none)
  • Mormons (1842) (4.4 million)
    • Church of Jesus Christ LDS (1842) (4.4 million)
    • Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ LDS (1852) (150 thousand)
  • Quakers (1652) (109 thousand) (15 groups)
    • Friends United Meeting (58 thousand in US) (200 thousand world)
    • Friends General Conference (32 thousand)
    • Evangelical Friends Alliance (1947) (9 thousand)
    • Northwest Yearly Meeting of Friends Church (8 thousand)
    • Mid-America Yearly Meeting (8 thousand)
    • Shakers (1747) (about 50)
  • Adventists
    • Seventh Day Adventists (1844) (750 thousand)
    • Advent Christian Church (1860) (28 thousand)
    • Primitive Advent Christian Church (1830) (few hundred)

• Roman Catholics (50/317/1054/1204) (59 million in US) (1 billion world)
  • Roman Catholics (33) (59 million in US)
  • Benedictines (510)
  • Jesuits (1534) (27 thousand)
  • Franciscans (1226)
  • Dominicans (1215)
  • Cistercians (1098)
  • Trappists (1664)
  • Augustinians (1050/1256)
  • Jansenists (1640)
    Old Catholic Church (1724) (four hundred)
  • National Polish Church (1897)
  • Liberal Catholics (1832) (3 thousand)
  • Eastern Rite Catholic Churches (1596) (11 million world)
    • Alexandrian
      • Coptic
      • Ethiopian
    • Antiochene
      • Malankar
      • Maronites of Lebanon (c. 1150 AD)
      • Syrian
    • Byzantine
      • Albanian
      • Bulgarian
      • Georgian
      • Greek
      • Hungarian
      • Italo - Albanian
      • Melchite
      • Romanian Eastern Rite Church (1700)
      • Russian
      • Ruthenian
      • Slovak
      • Ukrainian Catholic Church (1596) (5 million world)
      • White Russian
      • Yugoslavian
    • Chaldean
      • Chaldean
      • Malabar
    • Armenian

• Orthodox Church (50/317/1054/1204) (600 thousand [or 6 million] in US) (173 million world)
  • Patriarchate of Constantinople (first among equals) (320 AD) (a few thousand)
    • Crete
    • Finland
    • Greek Archdiocese of America
  • Patriarchate of Alexandria (over Africa)
  • Patriarchate of Antioch (over Syria, Lebanon and Iraq)
  • Patriarchate of Jerusalem (over Palestine)
  • Patriarchate of Moscow and all Russia (988 AD) (90 million)
    • Japan
  • Patriarch-catholicos of Georgia (near Russia)
  • Patriarchate of Serbia (Yugoslavia)
  • Patriarchate of Romania (Rumania) (21 million)
  • Patriarchate of Bulgaria (864 AD)
  • Patriarchate of Cyprus
  • Patriarchate of Athens and all Greece
  • Metropolitan of Warsaw and all Poland
  • Archbishop of Albania
  • Metropolitan of Prague and all Czechloslovakia
  • Archbishop of New York and North America
    • Orthodox Church in America
• Armenian Church (301) (1.6 million) (564 thousand in US)

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[xzins]

Nice visual.

Lots of things to agree and disagree with.

[HarleyD]

What a great chart and reference point. I'm sure people would argue this until the cows come home but its nice to see such a listing.

[xzins]

I agree.

Personally, I would have put the Anglicans, Catholics, and Orthodox in some kind of Visual relationship. I'd have put the Methodists downline from the Anglicans. (Maybe...maybe...Lutherans, too....not sure on that one....maybe all of protestantism)

But, you are right. It's nice seeing someone try to put it all together. His basic divisions seem to be Calvinist & Arminian; Catholic & Orthodox.

[Titanites]

Here is a chart I find useful, although it also isn't perfect. Be aware that it is in pdf format.

Nazerene

[xzins]

pdf....bleagghhh!

:>)

[Titanites]

Oops. Should read Nazarene.

[Conservative til I die]

I don't think Trappists or Jesuits can correctly be called their own sect within Catholicism. Their religious orders, but their theology and Mass are still the same as other Roman Catholics. And orders are primarily for clergy, monks, brothers, etc., not regular folk.

[Ronzo]

Excellent post. Did you do this yourself?

[Gamecock]

Nice post.

I'll attack/defend in the AM....

[Cleburne]

The Oriental Orthodox should be listed in their own category, as they divided from Eastern Orthodoxy and everything under the category of Western Christianity after Chalcedon.

[broadsword]

Here's another interesting list I found long ago, FWIW:

Ever wonder who, where and when your religion came from?
HERE IS THE HISTORIC RECORD
--------- (according to a Jewish source and double-verified in unbiased historical reference books) ---------

If you are Jewish, your religion was founded by God through Abraham about 4,000 years ago.

If you are Hindu, your religion developed in India around 1500 B.C.

If you claim to be a Druid, your religion may have developed sometime around 900 B.C. in Celtic Europe, but was completely wiped out in about 500 A.D. by the Romans, leaving only Roman writings about it; for the Druids utterly disdained writing.

If you are Shintoist, your religion developed long ago and over an undetermined period of time from the primitive animist religions of Japan.

If you are Buddhist, your religion split from Hinduism, and was founded by Prince Siddhartha Gautama of India, about 500 B.C.

If you are Confuscianist, your religion (really a social philosophy based upon ancient Chinese feudal ritual) was founded on the teachings of K'ung Fu-Tzu in China in about 550 B.C.

If you are a Taoist, your religion (really a naturalistic, philosophic way of life) began with the teachings of Lao Tzu in about 550 B.C.

If you are Roman Catholic, your religion was founded by Jesus Christ in the year 33.

If you are Islamic, your religion was started by Mohammed in the area of what is now Saudi Arabia, about 600 A.D.

If you are Eastern Orthodox, your sect of the Catholic Church separated from Roman Catholicism around the year 1,000.

If you are Sikh, your religion was founded in the Punjab region of India by Guru Nanak in about 1500.

If you are a Lutheran, your religion was founded by Martin Luther, an excommunicated Catholic monk in 1517.

If you are Anglican, your religion was started by King Henry VIII in the year 1534 because the Pope would not grant him a divorce with the right to remarry.

If you are Presbyterian, your religion was founded when John Knox brought the teachings of John Calvin to Scotland in the year 1560.

If you are Unitarian, your religious group developed in Europe in the 1500s.

If you are a Congregationalist, your religion branched off from Puritanism in the early 1600s in England.

If you are a Baptist, your religion was founded by a man named John Smyth, in Amsterdam in 1607.

If you are a Methodist, your religion was founded by John and Charles Wesley in England in 1744.

If you are Episcopalian, your religion was founded by Samuel Seabury in America in 1789, when he broke from the Anglican church of England.

If you are a Mormon, your religion was founded by a man named Joseph Smith in Palmyra, New York in 1830.

If you worship with the Salvation Army, your religion was started by a man named William Booth in London in 1865.

If you are a Jehova's Witness, your religion was founded by Charles Taze Russell in Pennsylvania in the 1870s.

If you are a Christian Scientist, your religion was founded by Mary Baker Eddy in 1879.

If you are Pentecostal, your religion started in the United States in 1901.

If you belong to any one of the countless other protestant denominations or "non-denominational" Christian churches, your sect probably began in this century or even this decade as an offshoot of one of the more mainstream Protestant denominations.

If you are an agnostic, you profess an uncertainty or skepticism about the existence of God, or any being higher than yourself.

If you are an Atheist, your religion denies the existence of any higher being and was later officially founded by Madalyn Murray O'Hair, who, according to her son, disappeared with most of the organization's money and without a trace, years ago.

[ponyespresso]

If you are an Atheist, your religion denies the existence of any higher being and was later officially founded by Madalyn Murray O'Hair, who, according to her son, disappeared with most of the organization's money and without a trace, years ago.

I thought they found her body and solved the case a while ago. I remember seeing it on Forensic Files or some such program, though my memory might be a bit hazy...

[xzins]

No I didn't. The link is at the top of the page.

I would have set it up a bit differently. But, this is one person's idea, so it provides a starting ground.

[jboot]

I'm surprised to see the Brethren/Mennonites under the Calvinist heading. Some of the most strident anti-Calvinist tracts I've ever seen came from a Bretheren church. But everything gets rather mixed up these days.

[drstevej]

J.N. Darby, the founder of the Pllymouth Brethren was a calvinist. Today many are only "moderate" Calminians.

The Mennonites are Anabaptists by heritage and certainly not Calvinistic.

[Sloth]

Is the hierarchy you give meant to show development over time (i.e., where movements came from)? Because Christian Churches and churches of Christ do not claim any affiliation with the Presbyterians, and they certainly do not accept the tenets of Calvinism.

[broadsword]

Yeah. You are right. It's an old list. I didn't feel like putting my two cents into updating it. Good list anyway.

[jude24]

Today many are only "moderate" Calminians.

Thats the understatement of the year....

[Celtman]

Can't resist a few corrections:

• If you are Christian, your religion was founded by Jesus Christ in the year 33.
• If you are a fundamentalist Christian, you follow the teachings of Jesus Christ and his Apostles from the 1st century.
• If you are Roman Catholic, your religion communion was founded by Jesus Christ in the year 33. by the Patriarch of Rome in 1054.
• If you are Eastern Orthodox, your sect of the Catholic Church communion separated from Roman Catholicism around the year 1,000. was founded by the still pagan Emperor Constantine in 325.

p.s.:  There are no unbiased sources.