[af_vet_1981]

Name me a denomination and I’ll be able to pull up statements of faith in a matter of seconds,

1. Do you need to pull up different statements of faith for each Protestant denomination?
2. How many Protestant denominations are there?

but I guarantee you that 95%+ of them believe in salvation by grace through faith.

Arminians Versus Calvinists: Some Surprising Statistics

...

This study looked at various parameters over a period of 10 years from 2000-2010. For the sake of brevity, please assume that Calvinism and Reformed are interchangeable. The same goes for Wesleyan and Arminian. All statistics are from the above Barna article. Please refer to the full article for more in-depth understanding.

Church Size

Calvinist church attendance rose 13%.
Arminian church attendance rose 18%

Church Identity as defined by pastors

-Our church is Calvinist/Reformed
2000: 32%
2010:31%
(Statistically, this group has remained flat)> -Our church is Wesleyan/Arminian
2000:37%
2010:32%
(Statistically this group has had more fluctuation both up and down.)

Does age of a pastor affect the percentage who consider themselves Calvinist versus Arminian?

Ages 27 to 45:
Reformed: 29%
Wesleyan/Arminian: 34%

Ages 46 to 64-Baby Boomers:
Reformed: 34%
Arminian:33%

Ages 65+:
Reformed:26%
Wesleyan:27%
(This group was more likely to eschew labels)

Geographical Location
Reformed churches: Common in the Northeast, least common in the Midwest.
Wesleyan/Arminian churches: Equally likely to appear in each of the four regions.

Types of churches
Mainline Churches (American Baptist Churches, Evangelical Lutheran Churches in America, the Episcopal Church, the United Methodist Church, Presbyterian Church USA, and United Church of Christ.

Reformed: 29%
Wesleyan/Arminian: 47%

Non-mainline
Reformed: 35%
Arminian: 30%

Traditionally charismatic/Pentecostal
Reformed: 31%
Arminian: 27%
(This was the most surprising outcome since these churches tend to come from the holiness or Wesleyan traditions).

Churches that consider themselves doctrinally liberal

Reformed: 17%
Wesleyan: 13%


Conclusion by Barna:

Calvinists, hold your breath, count to 10…. “Kinnaman, who serves as Barna Group president, concluded, "there is no discernable evidence from this research that there is a Reformed shift among U.S. congregation leaders over. . Whatever momentum surrounds Reformed churches and the related leaders, events and associations has not gone much outside traditional boundaries or affected the allegiances of most of today's church leaders.”

(Digression: Is he saying all those conferences are not making a difference?)

However, Barna expects changes to occur over the next decade. “…most of the nation's 300,000 Protestant churches are in a state of theological flux, apparently open to identities and trends that do not necessarily fall within expected denominational or doctrinal boundaries. Given this profile, we expect that new theological, relational, as well as methodological networks that emerge will redefine the Protestant landscape over the next decade."

From my perspective, these statistics were most surprising. The hype in evangelical circles over the past five years has been about the rising star of the Neo-Calvinist movement, along with it’s supposed “superstar” preachers. However, if these statistics are accurate, there has not been a net trend change in the past decade. Could it boil down to “big hat, no cattle? Time and statistics will tell.

[Luircin]

Oh hey, it’s exactly the answer that I expected.

You say that like that’s something to be ashamed of.

Personally, I think the fact that a certain church’s leadership is having cocaine fueled orgies in the Vatican and has been protecting child rapists for decades would be something to be far more ashamed of.

But apparently that’s totally acceptable as long as Catholics can boast about how large their denomination is.