Christianity
Christianity is an Abrahamic monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth. It is the world's largest and most widespread religion with roughly 2.38 billion followers representing one-third of the global pop ...
is the most prevalent
religion in the United States
Christianity is the most widely professed religion in the United States, with Protestantism being its largest branch, although the country is believed to be "rapidly secularizing". . Estimates from 2021 suggest that of the entire
US population
The United States had an official estimated resident population of 333,287,557 on July 1, 2022, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. This figure includes the 50 states and the District of Columbia but excludes the population of five unincorpor ...
(332 million) about 63% is Christian (210 million).
The majority of Christian Americans are
Protestant
Protestantism is a Christian denomination, branch of Christianity that follows the theological tenets of the Reformation, Protestant Reformation, a movement that began seeking to reform the Catholic Church from within in the 16th century agai ...
Christians (140 million; 42%), though there are also significant numbers of American
Roman Catholics
The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...
(70 million; 21%) and other minority Christian denominations such as
Latter-day Saints
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, informally known as the LDS Church or Mormon Church, is a Nontrinitarianism, nontrinitarian Christianity, Christian church that considers itself to be the Restorationism, restoration of the ...
,
Orthodox Christians
Orthodoxy (from Greek: ) is adherence to correct or accepted creeds, especially in religion.
Orthodoxy within Christianity refers to acceptance of the doctrines defined by various creeds and ecumenical councils in Antiquity, but different Churc ...
and
Jehovah's Witnesses
Jehovah's Witnesses is a millenarian restorationist Christian denomination with nontrinitarian beliefs distinct from mainstream Christianity. The group reports a worldwide membership of approximately 8.7 million adherents involved in ...
(about 13 million in total; 4%). The United States has the
largest Christian population in the world and, more specifically, the largest
Protestant population in the world, with nearly 210 million Christians and, as of 2021, over 140 million people affiliated with
Protestant
Protestantism is a Christian denomination, branch of Christianity that follows the theological tenets of the Reformation, Protestant Reformation, a movement that began seeking to reform the Catholic Church from within in the 16th century agai ...
churches, although other countries have higher percentages of Christians among their populations. The
Public Religion Research Institute
The Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI) is an American nonprofit, nonpartisan research and education organization that conducts public opinion polls on a variety of topics, specializing in the quantitative and qualitative study of political ...
's "2020 Census of American Religion", carried out between 2014 and 2020, showed that 70% of Americans identified as Christian during this seven-year interval.
In a 2020 survey by the
Pew Research Center
The Pew Research Center is a nonpartisan American think tank (referring to itself as a "fact tank") based in Washington, D.C.
It provides information on social issues, public opinion, and demographic trends shaping the United States and the w ...
, 65% of adults in the United States identified themselves as Christians.
They were 75% in 2015
70.6% in 2014, 78% in 2012,
81.6% in 2001,
and 85% in 1990. About 62% of those polled claim to be members of a
church congregation. "
In God We Trust
"In God We Trust" (also rendered as "In God we trust") is the United States national motto, official motto of the United States and of the U.S. state of Florida. It was adopted by the U.S. Congress in 1956, replacing ("Out of many, one"), whic ...
" is the modern
official motto of the United States, as established in a 1956 law signed by
President
President most commonly refers to:
*President (corporate title)
*President (education), a leader of a college or university
*President (government title)
President may also refer to:
Automobiles
* Nissan President, a 1966–2010 Japanese ful ...
Dwight D. Eisenhower
Dwight David "Ike" Eisenhower (born David Dwight Eisenhower; ; October 14, 1890 – March 28, 1969) was an American military officer and statesman who served as the 34th president of the United States from 1953 to 1961. During World War II, ...
.
[United States Public Law 84-851](_blank)
United States Public Law 84-851. The phrase first appeared on U.S. coins in 1864.
All
Protestant
Protestantism is a Christian denomination, branch of Christianity that follows the theological tenets of the Reformation, Protestant Reformation, a movement that began seeking to reform the Catholic Church from within in the 16th century agai ...
denominations accounted for 48.5% of the population, making
Protestantism
Protestantism is a branch of Christianity that follows the theological tenets of the Protestant Reformation, a movement that began seeking to reform the Catholic Church from within in the 16th century against what its followers perceived to b ...
the most prevalent form of Christianity in the country and the majority religion in general in the United States, while the
Catholic Church
The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...
by itself, at 22.7% of the population, is the largest individual denomination if Protestantism is divided into various denominations instead of being counted as a single category.
The nation's second-largest church and the single largest Protestant denomination is the
Southern Baptist Convention
The Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) is a Christian denomination based in the United States. It is the world's largest Baptist denomination, and the largest Protestant and second-largest Christian denomination in the United States. The wor ...
.
Among
Eastern Christian
Eastern Christianity comprises Christian traditions and church families that originally developed during classical and late antiquity in Eastern Europe, Southeastern Europe, Asia Minor, the Caucasus, Northeast Africa, the Fertile Crescent and ...
denominations, there are several
Eastern Orthodox
Eastern Orthodoxy, also known as Eastern Orthodox Christianity, is one of the three main branches of Chalcedonian Christianity, alongside Catholicism and Protestantism.
Like the Pentarchy of the first millennium, the mainstream (or "canonical") ...
and
Oriental Orthodox
The Oriental Orthodox Churches are Eastern Christian churches adhering to Miaphysite Christology, with approximately 60 million members worldwide. The Oriental Orthodox Churches are part of the Nicene Christian tradition, and represent o ...
churches, with just below 1 million adherents in the US, or 0.4% of the total population. Christianity is the predominant religion in all US states and territories. Conversion into Christianity has significantly increased among
Korean Americans
Korean Americans are Americans of Korean ancestry (mostly from South Korea). In 2015, the Korean-American community constituted about 0.56% of the United States population, or about 1.82 million people, and was the fifth-largest Asian American ...
,
Chinese Americans
Chinese Americans are Americans of Han Chinese ancestry. Chinese Americans constitute a subgroup of East Asian Americans which also constitute a subgroup of Asian Americans. Many Chinese Americans along with their ancestors trace lineage from ...
, and
Japanese Americans
are Americans of Japanese ancestry. Japanese Americans were among the three largest Asian American ethnic communities during the 20th century; but, according to the 2000 census, they have declined in number to constitute the sixth largest Asi ...
in the United States. In 2012, the percentage of Christians in these communities were 71%, 30% and 37% respectively.
Christianity was introduced to the Americas as it was
first colonized by Europeans beginning in the
16th
16 (sixteen) is the natural number following 15 and preceding 17. 16 is a composite number, and a square number, being 42 = 4 × 4. It is the smallest number with exactly five divisors, its proper divisors being , , and .
In English speech, ...
and
17th centuries. Immigration further increased Christian numbers. Going forward from its foundation, the United States has been called a
Protestant
Protestantism is a Christian denomination, branch of Christianity that follows the theological tenets of the Reformation, Protestant Reformation, a movement that began seeking to reform the Catholic Church from within in the 16th century agai ...
nation by a variety of sources. When the categories of “
irreligion
Irreligion or nonreligion is the absence or rejection of religion, or indifference to it. Irreligion takes many forms, ranging from the casual and unaware to full-fledged philosophies such as atheism and agnosticism, secular humanism and a ...
” and “unaffiliated” are included as religious categories for statistical purposes, Protestantism is technically no longer the religious category of the majority; however, this is primarily the result of an increase in Americans, such as Americans of Protestant descent, professing
no religious affiliation, rather than being the result of an increase in non-Protestant religious affiliations, and Protestantism remains by far the majority or dominant form of religion in the United States among American Christians and those Americans who declare a religion affiliation. Today, most Christian churches in the United States are either
Mainline Protestant
The mainline Protestant churches (also called mainstream Protestant and sometimes oldline Protestant) are a group of Protestant denominations in the United States that contrast in history and practice with evangelical, fundamentalist, and charis ...
,
Evangelical Protestant
Evangelicalism (), also called evangelical Christianity or evangelical Protestantism, is a worldwide interdenominational movement within Protestant Christianity that affirms the centrality of being "born again", in which an individual experi ...
, or
Catholic
The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...
.
Major denominational families
![Plurality Religious Denomination by U](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/ab/Plurality_Religious_Denomination_by_U.S._State.svg)
Christian denominations in the United States are usually divided into three large groups: two types of
Protestantism
Protestantism is a branch of Christianity that follows the theological tenets of the Protestant Reformation, a movement that began seeking to reform the Catholic Church from within in the 16th century against what its followers perceived to b ...
(
Evangelical
Evangelicalism (), also called evangelical Christianity or evangelical Protestantism, is a worldwide Interdenominationalism, interdenominational movement within Protestantism, Protestant Christianity that affirms the centrality of being "bor ...
and
Mainline) and
Catholicism
The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...
. There are also Christian denominations, making up a smaller percentage, that do not fall within the confines of these groups, such as
Eastern
Eastern may refer to:
Transportation
*China Eastern Airlines, a current Chinese airline based in Shanghai
*Eastern Air, former name of Zambia Skyways
*Eastern Air Lines, a defunct American airline that operated from 1926 to 1991
*Eastern Air Li ...
and
Oriental Orthodoxy
The Oriental Orthodox Churches are Eastern Christian churches adhering to Miaphysite Christology, with approximately 60 million members worldwide. The Oriental Orthodox Churches are part of the Nicene Christian tradition, and represent ...
, the
Latter-day Saint movement
The Latter Day Saint movement (also called the LDS movement, LDS restorationist movement, or Smith–Rigdon movement) is the collection of independent church groups that trace their origins to a Christian Restorationist movement founded by Jo ...
, and
Jehovah's Witnesses
Jehovah's Witnesses is a millenarian restorationist Christian denomination with nontrinitarian beliefs distinct from mainstream Christianity. The group reports a worldwide membership of approximately 8.7 million adherents involved in ...
.
A 2004 survey of the United States identified the percentages of these groups as 26.3% (Evangelical), 17.5% (Catholics), and 16% (Mainline); the other groups made up 2.7%.
In a
Statistical Abstract of the United States, based on a 2001 study of the self-described religious identification of the adult population, the percentages for these same groups are 28.6% (Evangelical), 24.5% (Catholics), and 13.9% (Mainline).
[The figures for this 2007 abstract are based on surveies for 1990 and 2001 from the Graduate School and University Center at the ]City University of New York
The City University of New York ( CUNY; , ) is the Public university, public university system of Education in New York City, New York City. It is the largest urban university system in the United States, comprising 25 campuses: eleven Upper divis ...
. Saying that Christian religious groups made up 76.5% of the total, then the other group accounts for 9.5%.
Protestantism
In typical usage, the term ''mainline'' is contrasted with ''evangelical''.
The
Association of Religion Data Archives The Association of Religion Data Archives (ARDA) is a free source of online information related to American and international religion. One of the primary goals of the archive is to democratize access to academic information on religion by making th ...
(ARDA) counts 26,344,933 members of mainline churches versus 39,930,869 members of evangelical Protestant churches.
There is evidence that there has been a shift in membership from mainline denominations to evangelical churches.
As shown in the table below, some denominations with similar names and historical ties to Evangelical groups are considered Mainline.
Evangelical Protestantism
![Growth of Denominations in America 1780 to 1860](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/52/Growth_of_Denominations_in_America_1780_to_1860.jpg)
Evangelicalism is a Protestant Christian movement. In typical usage, the term ''mainline'' is contrasted with ''evangelical''. Most adherents consider the key characteristics of evangelicalism to be: a belief in the need for personal conversion (or being "
born again
Born again, or to experience the new birth, is a phrase, particularly in evangelicalism, that refers to a "spiritual rebirth", or a regeneration of the human spirit. In contrast to one's physical birth, being "born again" is distinctly and sepa ...
"); some expression of the gospel in effort; a high regard for
Biblical authority In Christianity, the term biblical authority refers to two complementary ideas:
* the extent to which one can regard the commandments and doctrines within the Old and New Testament scriptures as authoritative over humans' belief and conduct;
* the ...
; and an emphasis on the
death and resurrection of Jesus
The resurrection of Jesus ( grc-x-biblical, ἀνάστασις τοῦ Ἰησοῦ) is the Christian belief that God raised Jesus on the third day after his crucifixion, starting – or restoring – his exalted life as Christ and Lord. ...
.
David Bebbington
David William Bebbington (born 25 July 1949) is a British historian who is a professor of history at the University of Stirling in Scotland and a distinguished visiting professor of history at Baylor University. He is a Fellow of the Royal Socie ...
has termed these four distinctive aspects ''
conversionism,'' ''activism'', ''biblicism'', and ''crucicentrism'', saying, "Together they form a quadrilateral of priorities that is the basis of Evangelicalism."
Note that the term "Evangelical" does not equal
Fundamentalist Christianity
Christian fundamentalism, also known as fundamental Christianity or fundamentalist Christianity, is a religious movement emphasizing biblical literalism. In its modern form, it began in the late 19th and early 20th centuries among British and ...
, although the latter is sometimes regarded simply as the most theologically conservative subset of the former. The major differences largely hinge upon views of how to regard and approach scripture ("Theology of Scripture"), as well as construing its broader world-view implications. While most conservative Evangelicals believe the label has ''broadened'' too much beyond its more limiting traditional distinctives, this trend is nonetheless strong enough to create significant ambiguity in the term. As a result, the dichotomy between "evangelical" vs. "mainline" denominations is increasingly complex (particularly with such innovations as the "
Emergent Church
The emerging church is a Christian Protestant movement of the late 20th and early 21st centuries that crosses a number of theological boundaries: participants are variously described as Protestant, post-Protestant, evangelical, post-evangelical, l ...
" movement).
The contemporary North American usage of the term is influenced by the evangelical/fundamentalist controversy of the early 20th century. Evangelicalism may sometimes be perceived as the middle ground between the
theological liberalism of the
Mainline (Protestant)
The mainline Protestant churches (also called mainstream Protestant and sometimes oldline Protestant) are a group of Protestant denominations in the United States that contrast in history and practice with evangelical, fundamentalist, and charis ...
denominations and the cultural separatism of
Fundamentalist Protestantism. Evangelicalism has therefore been described as "the third of the leading strands in American Protestantism, straddl
ngthe divide between fundamentalists and liberals." While the North American perception is important to understand the usage of the term, it by no means dominates a wider global view, where the fundamentalist debate was not so influential.
Historically, Evangelicals held the view that modernist and liberal parties in the Protestant churches had compromised Christian teachings by accommodating the views and values of the secular
world
In its most general sense, the term "world" refers to the totality of entities, to the whole of reality or to everything that is. The nature of the world has been conceptualized differently in different fields. Some conceptions see the worl ...
. At the same time, they criticized Fundamentalists for their separatism and rejection of the
Social Gospel
The Social Gospel is a social movement within Protestantism that aims to apply Christian ethics to social problems, especially issues of social justice such as economic inequality, poverty, alcoholism, crime, racial tensions, slums, unclean envir ...
as it had been developed by Protestant activists during the previous century. They argued that the core
Gospel
Gospel originally meant the Christian message ("the gospel"), but in the 2nd century it came to be used also for the books in which the message was set out. In this sense a gospel can be defined as a loose-knit, episodic narrative of the words an ...
and its message needed to be reasserted to distinguish it from the innovations and traditions of the liberals and fundamentalists.
They sought allies in denominational churches and liturgical traditions, disregarding views of eschatology and other "non-essentials," and joined also with Trinitarian varieties of
Pentecostalism
Pentecostalism or classical Pentecostalism is a Protestant Charismatic Christian movement . They believed that in doing so, they were simply re-acquainting Protestantism with its own recent tradition. The movement's aim at the outset was to reclaim the Evangelical heritage in their respective churches, not to begin something new; and for this reason, following their separation from Fundamentalists, the same movement has been better known merely as "Evangelicalism." By the end of the 20th century, this was the most influential development in American Protestant Christianity.
The
National Association of Evangelicals
The National Association of Evangelicals (NAE) is an association of evangelical denominations, organizations, schools, churches and individuals, member of the World Evangelical Alliance. The association represents more than 45,000 local churches ...
is a U.S. agency which coordinates cooperative ministry for its member denominations.
A 2015 global census estimated some 450,000 believers in Christ from a Muslim background in the United States most of whom are evangelicals or Pentecostals.
Mainline Protestantism
![WashingtonNationalCathedralHighsmith15393v](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d8/WashingtonNationalCathedralHighsmith15393v.jpg)
The mainline Protestant Christian denominations are those Protestant denominations that were brought to the United States by its historic immigrant groups; for this reason, they are sometimes referred to as heritage churches. The largest are the
Episcopal (
English
English usually refers to:
* English language
* English people
English may also refer to:
Peoples, culture, and language
* ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England
** English national ide ...
),
Presbyterian
Presbyterianism is a part of the Reformed tradition within Protestantism that broke from the Roman Catholic Church in Scotland by John Knox, who was a priest at St. Giles Cathedral (Church of Scotland). Presbyterian churches derive their nam ...
(
Scottish),
Methodist
Methodism, also called the Methodist movement, is a group of historically related denominations of Protestant Christianity whose origins, doctrine and practice derive from the life and teachings of John Wesley. George Whitefield and John's b ...
(
English
English usually refers to:
* English language
* English people
English may also refer to:
Peoples, culture, and language
* ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England
** English national ide ...
and
Welsh
Welsh may refer to:
Related to Wales
* Welsh, referring or related to Wales
* Welsh language, a Brittonic Celtic language spoken in Wales
* Welsh people
People
* Welsh (surname)
* Sometimes used as a synonym for the ancient Britons (Celtic peop ...
), and
Lutheran
Lutheranism is one of the largest branches of Protestantism, identifying primarily with the theology of Martin Luther, the 16th-century German monk and reformer whose efforts to reform the theology and practice of the Catholic Church launched th ...
(
German
German(s) may refer to:
* Germany (of or related to)
**Germania (historical use)
* Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language
** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law
**Ger ...
and
Scandinavian) churches.
Mainline Protestantism
The mainline Protestant churches (also called mainstream Protestant and sometimes oldline Protestant) are a group of Protestant denominations in the United States that contrast in history and practice with evangelical, fundamentalist, and charism ...
, including the
Episcopalians
Anglicanism is a Western Christian tradition that has developed from the practices, liturgy, and identity of the Church of England following the English Reformation, in the context of the Protestant Reformation in Europe. It is one of th ...
(76%),
the
Presbyterians
Presbyterianism is a part of the Reformed tradition within Protestantism that broke from the Roman Catholic Church in Scotland by John Knox, who was a priest at St. Giles Cathedral (Church of Scotland). Presbyterian churches derive their nam ...
(64%),
and the
United Church of Christ
The United Church of Christ (UCC) is a mainline Protestant Christian denomination based in the United States, with historical and confessional roots in the Congregational, Calvinist, Lutheran, and Anabaptist traditions, and with approximately 4 ...
has the highest number of
graduate and
post-graduate
Postgraduate or graduate education refers to academic or professional degrees, certificates, diplomas, or other qualifications pursued by post-secondary students who have earned an undergraduate ( bachelor's) degree.
The organization and stru ...
degrees per capita,
of any Christian denomination in the United States,
as well as the most
high-income earners.
Episcopalians
Anglicanism is a Western Christian tradition that has developed from the practices, liturgy, and identity of the Church of England following the English Reformation, in the context of the Protestant Reformation in Europe. It is one of th ...
and
Presbyterian
Presbyterianism is a part of the Reformed tradition within Protestantism that broke from the Roman Catholic Church in Scotland by John Knox, who was a priest at St. Giles Cathedral (Church of Scotland). Presbyterian churches derive their nam ...
s tend to be considerably wealthier
and better educated than most other religious groups in Americans, and are disproportionately represented in the upper reaches of American
business
Business is the practice of making one's living or making money by producing or Trade, buying and selling Product (business), products (such as goods and Service (economics), services). It is also "any activity or enterprise entered into for pr ...
,
law
Law is a set of rules that are created and are enforceable by social or governmental institutions to regulate behavior,Robertson, ''Crimes against humanity'', 90. with its precise definition a matter of longstanding debate. It has been vario ...
and
politics
Politics (from , ) is the set of activities that are associated with making decisions in groups, or other forms of power relations among individuals, such as the distribution of resources or status. The branch of social science that studies ...
, especially the
Republican Party. Numbers of the most
wealthy and affluent American families as the
Vanderbilts
The Vanderbilt family is an American family who gained prominence during the Gilded Age. Their success began with the shipping and railroad empires of Cornelius Vanderbilt, and the family expanded into various other areas of industry and philanthr ...
and
Astors
The Astor family achieved prominence in business, society, and politics in the United States and the United Kingdom during the 19th and 20th centuries. With ancestral roots in the Italian Alps region of Italy by way of Germany,
the Astors settled ...
,
Rockefeller Rockefeller is a German surname, originally given to people from the village of Rockenfeld near Neuwied in the Rhineland and commonly referring to subjects associated with the Rockefeller family. It may refer to:
People with the name Rockefeller f ...
,
Du Pont,
Roosevelt
Roosevelt may refer to:
*Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919), 26th U.S. president
* Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882–1945), 32nd U.S. president
Businesses and organisations
* Roosevelt Hotel (disambiguation)
* Roosevelt & Son, a merchant bank
* Rooseve ...
,
Forbes
''Forbes'' () is an American business magazine owned by Integrated Whale Media Investments and the Forbes family. Published eight times a year, it features articles on finance, industry, investing, and marketing topics. ''Forbes'' also re ...
,
Whitney Whitney may refer to:
Film and television
* ''Whitney'' (2015 film), a Whitney Houston biopic starring Yaya DaCosta
* ''Whitney'' (2018 film), a documentary about Whitney Houston
* ''Whitney'' (TV series), an American sitcom that premiered i ...
,
Morgans, and Harrimans are historically
Mainline Protestant
The mainline Protestant churches (also called mainstream Protestant and sometimes oldline Protestant) are a group of Protestant denominations in the United States that contrast in history and practice with evangelical, fundamentalist, and charis ...
families.
According to ''Scientific Elite: Nobel Laureates in the United States'' by
Harriet Zuckerman
Harriet Anne Zuckerman (born July 19, 1937) is an American sociologist and professor emerita of Columbia University.
Zuckerman specializes in the sociology of science.
She is known for her work on the social organization of science, scienti ...
, a review of American Nobel prizes winners awarded between 1901 and 1972, 72% of American
Nobel Prize
The Nobel Prizes ( ; sv, Nobelpriset ; no, Nobelprisen ) are five separate prizes that, according to Alfred Nobel's will of 1895, are awarded to "those who, during the preceding year, have conferred the greatest benefit to humankind." Alfr ...
laureates, have identified from a
Protestant
Protestantism is a Christian denomination, branch of Christianity that follows the theological tenets of the Reformation, Protestant Reformation, a movement that began seeking to reform the Catholic Church from within in the 16th century agai ...
background.
Harriet Zuckerman
Harriet Anne Zuckerman (born July 19, 1937) is an American sociologist and professor emerita of Columbia University.
Zuckerman specializes in the sociology of science.
She is known for her work on the social organization of science, scienti ...
,
Scientific Elite: Nobel Laureates in the United States
' New York, The Free Press, 1977, p.68: Protestants turn up among the American-reared laureates in slightly greater proportion to their numbers in the general population. Thus 72 percent of the seventy-one laureates but about two thirds of the American population were reared in one or another Protestant denomination-) Overall, 84.2% of all the Nobel Prizes awarded to Americans in
Chemistry
Chemistry is the science, scientific study of the properties and behavior of matter. It is a natural science that covers the Chemical element, elements that make up matter to the chemical compound, compounds made of atoms, molecules and ions ...
,
60% in
Medicine
Medicine is the science and practice of caring for a patient, managing the diagnosis, prognosis, prevention, treatment, palliation of their injury or disease, and promoting their health. Medicine encompasses a variety of health care pract ...
,
and 58.6% in
Physics
Physics is the natural science that studies matter, its fundamental constituents, its motion and behavior through space and time, and the related entities of energy and force. "Physical science is that department of knowledge which r ...
between 1901 and 1972 were won by Protestants.
Some of the first colleges and
universities
A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. Universities typically offer both undergraduate and postgraduate programs. In the United States, t ...
in America, including
Harvard
Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...
,
Yale
Yale University is a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and among the most prestigious in the wor ...
,
Princeton
Princeton University is a private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and one of the nine ...
,
Columbia,
Dartmouth,
Williams,
Bowdoin,
Middlebury, and
Amherst Amherst may refer to:
People
* Amherst (surname), including a list of people with the name
* Earl Amherst of Arracan in the East Indies, a title in the British Peerage; formerly ''Baron Amherst''
* Baron Amherst of Hackney of the City of London, ...
, all were founded by the Mainline Protestants, as were later
Carleton,
Duke
Duke is a male title either of a monarch ruling over a duchy, or of a member of royalty, or nobility. As rulers, dukes are ranked below emperors, kings, grand princes, grand dukes, and sovereign princes. As royalty or nobility, they are ran ...
,
Oberlin,
Beloit,
Pomona,
Rollins and
Colorado College
Colorado College is a private liberal arts college in Colorado Springs, Colorado. It was founded in 1874 by Thomas Nelson Haskell in his daughter's memory. The college enrolls approximately 2,000 undergraduates at its campus. The college offer ...
.
Many mainline denominations teach that the Bible is God's word in function, but tend to be open to new ideas and societal changes. They have been increasingly open to the
ordination of women
The ordination of women to ministerial or priestly office is an increasingly common practice among some contemporary major religious groups. It remains a controversial issue in certain Christian traditions and most denominations in which "ordina ...
.
Mainline churches tend to belong to organizations such as the
National Council of Churches
The National Council of the Churches of Christ in the USA, usually identified as the National Council of Churches (NCC), is the largest ecumenical body in the United States. NCC is an ecumenical partnership of 38 Christian faith groups in the Uni ...
and
World Council of Churches
The World Council of Churches (WCC) is a worldwide Christian inter-church organization founded in 1948 to work for the cause of ecumenism. Its full members today include the Assyrian Church of the East, the Oriental Orthodox Churches, most juri ...
.
The seven largest U.S. mainline Protestant denominations were called by William Hutchison the "Seven Sisters of American Protestantism" in reference to the major liberal groups during the period between 1900 and 1960.
These include:
![First_Baptist_Church_in_America_from_Angell_St_2](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/47/First_Baptist_Church_in_America_from_Angell_St_2.jpg)
*
United Methodist Church
The United Methodist Church (UMC) is a worldwide mainline Protestant denomination based in the United States, and a major part of Methodism. In the 19th century, its main predecessor, the Methodist Episcopal Church, was a leader in evangelical ...
: 6,268,310 members (2020)
*
Evangelical Lutheran Church in America
The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) is a mainline Protestant Lutheran church headquartered in Chicago, Illinois. The ELCA was officially formed on January 1, 1988, by the merging of three Lutheran church bodies. , it has approxim ...
: 3,142,777 members (2020)
*
Episcopal Church in the United States of America
The Episcopal Church, based in the United States with additional dioceses elsewhere, is a member church of the worldwide Anglican Communion. It is a mainline Protestant denomination and is divided into nine provinces. The presiding bishop o ...
: 1,576,702 active baptized members (2020)
*
Presbyterian Church (USA)
The Presbyterian Church (USA), abbreviated PC(USA), is a mainline Protestant denomination in the United States. It is the largest Presbyterian denomination in the US, and known for its liberal stance on doctrine and its ordaining of women and ...
: 1,245,354 active members (2020)
*
American Baptist Churches in the USA
The American Baptist Churches USA (ABCUSA) is a mainline/evangelical Baptist Christian denomination within the United States. The denomination maintains headquarters in Valley Forge, Pennsylvania. The organization is usually considered mainli ...
: 1,145,647 members (2017)
*
United Church of Christ
The United Church of Christ (UCC) is a mainline Protestant Christian denomination based in the United States, with historical and confessional roots in the Congregational, Calvinist, Lutheran, and Anabaptist traditions, and with approximately 4 ...
: 773,539 members (2020)
*
Christian Church (Disciples of Christ)
The Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) is a mainline Protestant Christian denomination in the United States and Canada. The denomination started with the Restoration Movement during the Second Great Awakening, first existing during the 19th ...
: 350,618 (2020)
The Association of Religion Data Archives also considers these denominations to be mainline:
*
Reformed Church in America
The Reformed Church in America (RCA) is a Mainline Protestant, mainline Reformed tradition, Reformed Protestant Christian denomination, denomination in Canada and the United States. It has about 152,317 members. From its beginning in 1628 unti ...
: 194,064 members (2019)
*
Religious Society of Friends
Quakers are people who belong to a historically Protestant Christian set of denominations known formally as the Religious Society of Friends. Members of these movements ("theFriends") are generally united by a belief in each human's abili ...
(Quakers): 108,500 members
*
International Council of Community Churches The International Council of Community Churches (ICCC) is a Christian religious association of ecumenically co-operating Protestants and Independent Catholics. Based in Frankfort, Illinois, in the United States, it is the main organization of the ...
: 68,300 members (2010)
*
National Association of Congregational Christian Churches
The National Association of Congregational Christian Churches (NACCC) is an association of about 400 churches providing fellowship for and services to churches from the Congregational tradition. The Association maintains its national office in Oak ...
: 65,569 members (2000)
*
North American Baptist Conference
North American Baptists (NAB) is an association of Baptists in the United States and Canada, generally of German ethnic heritage with roots in Pietism.
History
The roots of the NAB go back to 1839, when Konrad Anton Fleischmann began work in New J ...
: 47,150 members (2006)
*
Moravian Church
The Moravian Church ( cs, Moravská církev), or the Moravian Brethren, formally the (Latin: "Unity of the Brethren"), is one of the oldest Protestantism, Protestant Christian denomination, denominations in Christianity, dating back to the Bohem ...
in America, Southern Province: 21,513 members (1991)
*
Moravian Church
The Moravian Church ( cs, Moravská církev), or the Moravian Brethren, formally the (Latin: "Unity of the Brethren"), is one of the oldest Protestantism, Protestant Christian denomination, denominations in Christianity, dating back to the Bohem ...
in America, Northern Province: 20,220 members (2010)
*
Universal Fellowship of Metropolitan Community Churches
Universal is the adjective for universe.
Universal may also refer to:
Companies
* NBCUniversal, a media and entertainment company
** Universal Animation Studios, an American Animation studio, and a subsidiary of NBCUniversal
** Universal TV, a t ...
: 15,666 members (2006)
*
Latvian Evangelical Lutheran Church in America
The Latvian Evangelical Lutheran Church in America ( lv, Latviešu evangeliski luteriska Baznica Amerika; LELBA) is a Lutheran denomination, formed in 1957 as a federation, and reorganized in 1975 as a formal denomination. In 1978 Lauma Lagzdins ...
: 12,000 members (2007)
* Congregational Christian Churches (not part of any national CCC body)
*
Moravian Church
The Moravian Church ( cs, Moravská církev), or the Moravian Brethren, formally the (Latin: "Unity of the Brethren"), is one of the oldest Protestantism, Protestant Christian denomination, denominations in Christianity, dating back to the Bohem ...
in America, Alaska Province
The
Association of Religion Data Archives The Association of Religion Data Archives (ARDA) is a free source of online information related to American and international religion. One of the primary goals of the archive is to democratize access to academic information on religion by making th ...
has difficulties collecting data on traditionally
African American
African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American" generally denotes descendants of ens ...
denominations. Those churches most likely to be identified as mainline include these
Methodist
Methodism, also called the Methodist movement, is a group of historically related denominations of Protestant Christianity whose origins, doctrine and practice derive from the life and teachings of John Wesley. George Whitefield and John's b ...
groups:
*
African Methodist Episcopal Church
The African Methodist Episcopal Church, usually called the AME Church or AME, is a Black church, predominantly African American Methodist Religious denomination, denomination. It adheres to Wesleyan-Arminian theology and has a connexionalism, c ...
*
Christian Methodist Episcopal Church
The Christian Methodist Episcopal (C.M.E.) Church is a historically black denomination within the broader context of Wesleyan Methodism founded and organized by John Wesley in England in 1744 and established in America as the Methodist Episcopal ...
Catholic Church
![Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/80/Basilica_of_the_National_Shrine_of_the_Immaculate_Conception.jpg)
The
Catholic Church
The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...
arrived in what is now the continental
United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...
during the earliest days of the
European colonization of the Americas
During the Age of Discovery, a large scale European colonization of the Americas took place between about 1492 and 1800. Although the Norse had explored and colonized areas of the North Atlantic, colonizing Greenland and creating a short ter ...
. It secured and established itself formally as early as 1565, with the establishment of the first Catholic parish of the United States at
St. Augustine, Florida. It spread in the 1600s through missionaries including Jesuit missionaries like
Eusebio Kino
Eusebio Francisco Kino ( it, Eusebio Francesco Chini, es, Eusebio Francisco Kino; 10 August 1645 – 15 March 1711), often referred to as Father Kino, was a Tyrolean Jesuit, missionary, geographer, explorer, cartographer and astronomer born i ...
,
Jacques Marquette
Jacques Marquette S.J. (June 1, 1637 – May 18, 1675), sometimes known as Père Marquette or James Marquette, was a French Jesuit missionary who founded Michigan's first European settlement, Sault Sainte Marie, and later founded Saint Igna ...
,
Isaac Jogues
Isaac Jogues, S.J. (10 January 1607 – 18 October 1646) was a French missionary and martyr who traveled and worked among the Iroquois, Huron, and other Native populations in North America. He was the first European to name Lake George, calli ...
and
Andrew White (Jesuit)
Andrew White, SJ (1579 – December 27, 1656) was an English Jesuit missionary who was involved in the founding of the Maryland colony. He was a chronicler of the early colony, and his writings are a primary source on the land, the Native Ame ...
. At the time the country was founded (meaning the
Thirteen Colonies
The Thirteen Colonies, also known as the Thirteen British Colonies, the Thirteen American Colonies, or later as the United Colonies, were a group of Kingdom of Great Britain, British Colony, colonies on the Atlantic coast of North America. Fo ...
in 1776, along the Atlantic seaboard), only a small fraction of the population there were Catholic, mostly in
Maryland
Maryland ( ) is a state in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States. It shares borders with Virginia, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia to its south and west; Pennsylvania to its north; and Delaware and the Atlantic Ocean to ...
, a "Catholic Proprietary," established in 1634 by the second Lord Baltimore,
Cecilius Calvert, 2nd Baron Baltimore
Cecil Calvert, 2nd Baron Baltimore (8 August 1605 – 30 November 1675), also often known as Cecilius Calvert, was an English nobleman, who was the first Proprietor of the Province of Maryland, ninth Proprietary Governor of the Colony of Newfo ...
; however, as a result of expansion in former
French,
Spanish
Spanish might refer to:
* Items from or related to Spain:
**Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain
**Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many Latin American countries
**Spanish cuisine
Other places
* Spanish, Ontario, Cana ...
and
Mexican
Mexican may refer to:
Mexico and its culture
*Being related to, from, or connected to the country of Mexico, in North America
** People
*** Mexicans, inhabitants of the country Mexico and their descendants
*** Mexica, ancient indigenous people ...
(i.e., purchase of Louisiana Territory, of Florida, the acquisition of territory after the Mexican–American War) territories, and immigration over the country's history, the number of adherents has grown dramatically and it is now the largest denomination in the United States today. With over 67 million registered residents professing the faith in 2008, the United States has the fourth largest Catholic population in the world after
Brazil
Brazil ( pt, Brasil; ), officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: ), is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. At and with over 217 million people, Brazil is the world's fifth-largest country by area ...
,
Mexico
Mexico (Spanish: México), officially the United Mexican States, is a country in the southern portion of North America. It is bordered to the north by the United States; to the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; to the southeast by Guatema ...
, and the
Philippines
The Philippines (; fil, Pilipinas, links=no), officially the Republic of the Philippines ( fil, Republika ng Pilipinas, links=no),
* bik, Republika kan Filipinas
* ceb, Republika sa Pilipinas
* cbk, República de Filipinas
* hil, Republ ...
, respectively.
The Church's leadership body in the United States is the
United States Conference of Catholic Bishops
The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) is the episcopal conference of the Catholic Church in the United States. Founded in 1966 as the joint National Conference of Catholic Bishops (NCCB) and United States Catholic Conference (US ...
, made up of the hierarchy of
bishop
A bishop is an ordained clergy member who is entrusted with a position of authority and oversight in a religious institution.
In Christianity, bishops are normally responsible for the governance of dioceses. The role or office of bishop is ca ...
s and
archbishop
In Christian denominations, an archbishop is a bishop of higher rank or office. In most cases, such as the Catholic Church, there are many archbishops who either have jurisdiction over an ecclesiastical province in addition to their own archdi ...
s of the United States and the
U.S. Virgin Islands, although each bishop is independent in his own
diocese
In Ecclesiastical polity, church governance, a diocese or bishopric is the ecclesiastical district under the jurisdiction of a bishop.
History
In the later organization of the Roman Empire, the increasingly subdivided Roman province, pro ...
, answerable only to the
Pope
The pope ( la, papa, from el, πάππας, translit=pappas, 'father'), also known as supreme pontiff ( or ), Roman pontiff () or sovereign pontiff, is the bishop of Rome (or historically the patriarch of Rome), head of the worldwide Cathol ...
.
No
primate
Primates are a diverse order of mammals. They are divided into the strepsirrhines, which include the lemurs, galagos, and lorisids, and the haplorhines, which include the tarsiers and the simians (monkeys and apes, the latter including huma ...
for Catholics exists in the United States. The
Archdiocese of Baltimore
The Metropolitan Archdiocese of Baltimore ( la, link=no, Archidiœcesis Baltimorensis) is the premier (or first) see of the Latin Church of the Catholic Church in the United States. The archdiocese comprises the City of Baltimore and nine of Mar ...
has ''Prerogative of Place'', which confers to
its archbishop a subset of the leadership responsibilities granted to primates in other countries, possibly because at the time it was created an archdiocese (and metropolitan see) in 1808, four newly created dioceses (Boston, New York, Bardstown
Y and Philadelphia) were subject to it. In addition, the "principal determining elements in the character of American Catholicism" seemed to coalesce under the leadership of Archbishop John Carroll of Baltimore (the first bishop of the United States, consecrated in London, 1790) and his native Maryland Catholics, descendants of the original Catholic families of Maryland's Catholic Proprietary. In this regard, Baltimore had, among other things, a "prerogative of place," both historically and culturally, in the American Catholic mind and in Rome. This would change, of course, with immigration and the acquisition of new territories that currently make up continental U.S. It is important to note, however, the openness of Carroll to the American experiment. As early as 1784, he "wholeheartedly" affirmed the pattern of church-state relations then emerging in the new country, later to be incorporated into the Constitution. He also praised the promise which civil and religious liberty held out for all denominations, noting in an address to Catholics (
Annapolis
Annapolis ( ) is the capital city of the U.S. state of Maryland and the county seat of, and only incorporated city in, Anne Arundel County. Situated on the Chesapeake Bay at the mouth of the Severn River, south of Baltimore and about east o ...
, MD), that "if we have the wisdom and temper to preserve, America may come to exhibit a proof to the world, that general and equal toleration, by giving a free circulation to fair argument, is the most effectual method to bring all denominations of Christians to a unity of faith."
The number of Catholics grew from the early 19th century through immigration and the acquisition of the predominantly Catholic former possessions of France, Spain, and Mexico, followed in the mid-19th century by a rapid influx of
Irish
Irish may refer to:
Common meanings
* Someone or something of, from, or related to:
** Ireland, an island situated off the north-western coast of continental Europe
***Éire, Irish language name for the isle
** Northern Ireland, a constituent unit ...
,
German
German(s) may refer to:
* Germany (of or related to)
**Germania (historical use)
* Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language
** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law
**Ger ...
,
Italian
Italian(s) may refer to:
* Anything of, from, or related to the people of Italy over the centuries
** Italians, an ethnic group or simply a citizen of the Italian Republic or Italian Kingdom
** Italian language, a Romance language
*** Regional Ita ...
and
Polish
Polish may refer to:
* Anything from or related to Poland, a country in Europe
* Polish language
* Poles, people from Poland or of Polish descent
* Polish chicken
*Polish brothers (Mark Polish and Michael Polish, born 1970), American twin screenwr ...
immigrants from Europe, making Catholicism the largest Christian denomination in the United States. This increase was met by widespread prejudice and hostility, often resulting in riots and the burning of churches, convents, and seminaries. The integration of Catholics into American society was marked by the election of
John F. Kennedy
John Fitzgerald Kennedy (May 29, 1917 – November 22, 1963), often referred to by his initials JFK and the nickname Jack, was an American politician who served as the 35th president of the United States from 1961 until his assassination ...
as
president
President most commonly refers to:
*President (corporate title)
*President (education), a leader of a college or university
*President (government title)
President may also refer to:
Automobiles
* Nissan President, a 1966–2010 Japanese ful ...
in 1960. Since then, the percentage of Americans who are Catholic has remained at around 25%.
According to the Association of Catholic Colleges and Universities in 2011, there are approximately 230
Roman Catholic universities and colleges in the United States
There are 197 US members of ACCU ( Association of Catholic Colleges and Universities) as of 2014. They make up a significant number of the total number of Catholic universities and colleges in the world.
Adorers of the Blood of Christ
* Newma ...
with nearly 1 million students and some 65,000 professors. 12 Catholic universities are listed among the top 100 national universities in the US.
Catholic schools
Catholic schools are pre-primary, primary and secondary educational institutions administered under the aegis or in association with the Catholic Church. , the Catholic Church operates the world's largest religious, non-governmental school syst ...
educate 2.7 million students in the United States, employing 150,000 teachers. In 2002, Catholic health care systems, overseeing 625 hospitals with a combined revenue of 30 billion dollars, comprised the nation's largest group of nonprofit systems. Owing to its size, more Catholics hold college degrees (26% of all US Catholics) and earn over $100,000 per year (19% of all US Catholics) than do members of any other US denomination.
Eastern Orthodox Christianity
![St Nicholas Wash DC1](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/2d/St_Nicholas_Wash_DC1.jpg)
Groups of immigrants from several different regions, mainly
Eastern Europe
Eastern Europe is a subregion of the Europe, European continent. As a largely ambiguous term, it has a wide range of geopolitical, geographical, ethnic, cultural, and socio-economic connotations. The vast majority of the region is covered by Russ ...
and the
Middle East
The Middle East ( ar, الشرق الأوسط, ISO 233: ) is a geopolitical region commonly encompassing Arabian Peninsula, Arabia (including the Arabian Peninsula and Bahrain), Anatolia, Asia Minor (Asian part of Turkey except Hatay Pro ...
, brought
Eastern Orthodoxy
Eastern Orthodoxy, also known as Eastern Orthodox Christianity, is one of the three main Branches of Christianity, branches of Chalcedonian Christianity, alongside Catholic Church, Catholicism and Protestantism.
Like the Pentarchy of the first m ...
to the United States. This traditional branch of Eastern Christianity has since spread beyond the boundaries of ethnic immigrant communities and now include multi-ethnic membership and parishes. Currently, there are between 6 and 7 million Eastern Christians in the United States of America, with most of them. There are several Eastern Orthodox ecclesiastical jurisdictions in the US, organized within the ''Assembly of Canonical Orthodox Bishops of the United States of America''. Statistically, Eastern Orthodox Christians are among the wealthiest Christian denominations in the United States,
and they also tend to be better educated than most other religious groups in America, in the sense that they have a high number of
graduate (68%) and
post-graduate
Postgraduate or graduate education refers to academic or professional degrees, certificates, diplomas, or other qualifications pursued by post-secondary students who have earned an undergraduate ( bachelor's) degree.
The organization and stru ...
degrees (28%) per capita.
Oriental Orthodox Christianity
Several groups of Christian immigrants, mainly from the
Middle East
The Middle East ( ar, الشرق الأوسط, ISO 233: ) is a geopolitical region commonly encompassing Arabian Peninsula, Arabia (including the Arabian Peninsula and Bahrain), Anatolia, Asia Minor (Asian part of Turkey except Hatay Pro ...
,
Caucasus
The Caucasus () or Caucasia (), is a region between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea, mainly comprising Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, and parts of Southern Russia. The Caucasus Mountains, including the Greater Caucasus range, have historically ...
,
Africa
Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent, after Asia in both cases. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of Earth's total surface area ...
and
India
India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...
, brought
Oriental Orthodoxy
The Oriental Orthodox Churches are Eastern Christian churches adhering to Miaphysite Christology, with approximately 60 million members worldwide. The Oriental Orthodox Churches are part of the Nicene Christian tradition, and represent ...
to the United States. This ancient branch of Eastern Christianity includes several ecclesiastical jurisdictions in the US, like
Armenian Apostolic Church in the United States, and
Coptic Orthodox Church in the United States
Copts, many of whom are adherents of the Coptic Orthodox Church, began migrating to the United States of America in the late 1940s. After 1952, the rate of Coptic immigration from Egypt to the United States increased. The first Coptic church in the ...
. There are also dioceses of the
Ethiopian Orthodox Church
The Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church ( am, የኢትዮጵያ ኦርቶዶክስ ተዋሕዶ ቤተ ክርስቲያን, ''Yäityop'ya ortodoks täwahedo bétäkrestyan'') is the largest of the Oriental Orthodox Churches. One of the few Chris ...
,
Eritrean Orthodox Church
The Eritrean Orthodox Tewahedo Church ( ti, ቤተ ክርስትያን ተዋህዶ ኤርትራ) is one of the Oriental Orthodox Churches with its headquarters in Asmara, Eritrea. Its autocephaly was recognised by Pope Shenouda III of Alexandri ...
,
Syriac Orthodox Church
, native_name_lang = syc
, image = St_George_Syriac_orthodox_church_in_Damascus.jpg
, imagewidth = 250
, alt = Cathedral of Saint George
, caption = Cathedral of Saint George, Damascus ...
, Also, there are dioceses of the
Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church
The Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church (MOSC) also known as the Indian Orthodox Church (IOC) or simply as the Malankara Church, is an autocephalous Oriental Orthodox church headquartered in Devalokam, near Kottayam, India. The church serve ...
. The
Malankara Mar Thoma Syrian Church
The Malankara Mar Thoma Syrian Church, often shortened to Mar Thoma Church, and known also as the Reformed Syrian ChurchS. N. Sadasivan. A Social History of India'. APH Publishing; 2000. . p. 442. and the Mar Thoma Syrian Church of Malabar ...
, an
Oriental Protestant body in the
Saint Thomas Christian
The Saint Thomas Christians, also called Syrian Christians of India, ''Marthoma Suriyani Nasrani'', ''Malankara Nasrani'', or ''Nasrani Mappila'', are an ethno-religious community of Indian Christians in the state of Kerala (Malabar region), ...
tradition, also has congregations in the United States.
Latter Day Saint movement
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, informally known as the LDS Church or Mormon Church, is a Nontrinitarianism, nontrinitarian Christianity, Christian church that considers itself to be the Restorationism, restoration of the ...
is a
nontrinitarian
Nontrinitarianism is a form of Christianity that rejects the mainstream Christian doctrine of the Trinity—the belief that God is three distinct hypostases or persons who are coeternal, coequal, and indivisibly united in one being, or essence ...
restorationist
Restorationism (or Restitutionism or Christian primitivism) is the belief that Christianity has been or should be restored along the lines of what is known about the apostolic early church, which restorationists see as the search for a purer a ...
denomination. The church is headquartered in
Salt Lake City
Salt Lake City (often shortened to Salt Lake and abbreviated as SLC) is the Capital (political), capital and List of cities and towns in Utah, most populous city of Utah, United States. It is the county seat, seat of Salt Lake County, Utah, Sal ...
, and is the largest originating from the
Latter Day Saint movement
The Latter Day Saint movement (also called the LDS movement, LDS restorationist movement, or Smith–Rigdon movement) is the collection of independent church groups that trace their origins to a Christian Restorationist movement founded by Jo ...
which was founded by
Joseph Smith
Joseph Smith Jr. (December 23, 1805June 27, 1844) was an American religious leader and founder of Mormonism and the Latter Day Saint movement. When he was 24, Smith published the Book of Mormon. By the time of his death, 14 years later, he ...
in
Upstate New York
Upstate New York is a geographic region consisting of the area of New York State that lies north and northwest of the New York City metropolitan area. Although the precise boundary is debated, Upstate New York excludes New York City and Long Is ...
in 1830. It forms the majority in
Utah
Utah ( , ) is a state in the Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. Utah is a landlocked U.S. state bordered to its east by Colorado, to its northeast by Wyoming, to its north by Idaho, to its south by Arizona, and to it ...
, the plurality in
Idaho
Idaho ( ) is a state in the Pacific Northwest region of the Western United States. To the north, it shares a small portion of the Canada–United States border with the province of British Columbia. It borders the states of Montana and Wyom ...
, and high percentages in
Nevada
Nevada ( ; ) is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, Western region of the United States. It is bordered by Oregon to the northwest, Idaho to the northeast, California to the west, Arizona to the southeast, and Utah to the east. N ...
,
Arizona
Arizona ( ; nv, Hoozdo Hahoodzo ; ood, Alĭ ṣonak ) is a state in the Southwestern United States. It is the 6th largest and the 14th most populous of the 50 states. Its capital and largest city is Phoenix. Arizona is part of the Fou ...
, and
Wyoming
Wyoming () is a U.S. state, state in the Mountain states, Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. It is bordered by Montana to the north and northwest, South Dakota and Nebraska to the east, Idaho to the west, Utah to the south ...
; in addition to sizable numbers in
Colorado
Colorado (, other variants) is a state in the Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. It encompasses most of the Southern Rocky Mountains, as well as the northeastern portion of the Colorado Plateau and the western edge of t ...
,
Montana
Montana () is a state in the Mountain West division of the Western United States. It is bordered by Idaho to the west, North Dakota and South Dakota to the east, Wyoming to the south, and the Canadian provinces of Alberta, British Columbi ...
,
Washington
Washington commonly refers to:
* Washington (state), United States
* Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States
** A metonym for the federal government of the United States
** Washington metropolitan area, the metropolitan area centered o ...
,
Oregon
Oregon () is a U.S. state, state in the Pacific Northwest region of the Western United States. The Columbia River delineates much of Oregon's northern boundary with Washington (state), Washington, while the Snake River delineates much of it ...
,
Alaska
Alaska ( ; russian: Аляска, Alyaska; ale, Alax̂sxax̂; ; ems, Alas'kaaq; Yup'ik: ''Alaskaq''; tli, Anáaski) is a state located in the Western United States on the northwest extremity of North America. A semi-exclave of the U.S., ...
,
Hawaii
Hawaii ( ; haw, Hawaii or ) is a state in the Western United States, located in the Pacific Ocean about from the U.S. mainland. It is the only U.S. state outside North America, the only state that is an archipelago, and the only stat ...
and
California
California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...
. Current membership in the U.S. is 6.7 million
and total membership is 16.7 million worldwide, as of December 2020.
In 2021, around 12–13% of Latter-day Saints lived in Utah, the center of cultural influence for the Latter Day Saint movement. Utah Latter-day Saints (as well as Latter-day Saints living in the
Intermountain West
The Intermountain West, or Intermountain Region, is a geographic and geological region of the Western United States. It is located between the front ranges of the Rocky Mountains on the east and the Cascade Range and Sierra Nevada on the west ...
) are on average more culturally and politically conservative and Libertarian than those living in some cosmopolitan centers elsewhere in the U.S. Utahns self-identifying as Latter-day Saints also attend church somewhat more on average than Latter-day Saints living in other states. (Nonetheless, whether they live in Utah or elsewhere in the U.S., Latter-day Saints tend to be more culturally and politically conservative than members of other U.S. religious groups.) Utah Latter-day Saints often place a greater emphasis on pioneer heritage than international Latter-day Saints who generally are not descendants of the early
Latter-day Saint pioneers.
The
Community of Christ
The Community of Christ, known from 1872 to 2001 as the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (RLDS), is an American-based international church, and is the second-largest denomination in the Latter Day Saint movement. The churc ...
(formerly the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints) is a trinitarian restorationist denomination based in
Independence, Missouri
Independence is the fifth-largest city in Missouri and the county seat of Jackson County, Missouri, Jackson County. Independence is a satellite city of Kansas City, Missouri, and is the largest suburb on the Missouri side of the Kansas City metro ...
, at the theologically significant
Temple Lot
The Temple Lot, located in Independence, Missouri, is the first site to be dedicated for the construction of a temple in the Latter Day Saint movement. The area was dedicated on August 3, 1831, by the movement's founder, Joseph Smith Jr., and p ...
. Community of Christ is the second largest denomination in the Latter Day Saint movement with 130,000 members in the United States and 250,000 worldwide (See
Community of Christ membership statistics
Community of Christ membership and field organization is governed by the scriptures, resolutions and Bylaws of Community of Christ and administered by the First Presidency, Council of Twelve and others. To be considered a member of Community of Ch ...
). The church owns some of the early Latter Day Saint historic sites, including the
Kirtland Temple
The Kirtland Temple is a National Historic Landmark in Kirtland, Ohio, United States, on the eastern edge of the Cleveland metropolitan area. Owned and operated by the Community of Christ, formerly the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of La ...
, near Cleveland, Ohio, and the Joseph Smith properties in
Nauvoo, Illinois
Nauvoo ( ; from the ) is a small city in Hancock County, Illinois, United States, on the Mississippi River near Fort Madison, Iowa. The population of Nauvoo was 950 at the 2020 census. Nauvoo attracts visitors for its historic importance and its ...
. The Community of Christ has taken an ecumenical and progressive approach recent years including joining the
National Council of Churches
The National Council of the Churches of Christ in the USA, usually identified as the National Council of Churches (NCC), is the largest ecumenical body in the United States. NCC is an ecumenical partnership of 38 Christian faith groups in the Uni ...
, ordaining women to the church's priesthood since 1984, and more recently approving the blessing of same-sex marriages.
Small churches within the Latter-day Saint movement include
Church of Christ (Temple Lot)
The Church of Christ, informally called Hedrickites and the Church of Christ (Temple Lot), is a denomination of the Latter Day Saint movement headquartered in Independence, Missouri, on what is known as the Temple Lot. The nickname for members of ...
,
Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints
The Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (FLDS Church) is a religious sect of the fundamentalist Mormon denominations whose members practice polygamy. The fundamentalist Mormon movement emerged in the early 20th century, ...
,
Restoration Branches, and
Remnant Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints
The Remnant Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, usually referred to as the Remnant Church, is a denomination in the Latter Day Saint movement. The prophet / president of the church is Terry W. Patience.
History
In the 1970s and 1980s, ...
.
History
Christianity was introduced during the period of
European colonization
The historical phenomenon of colonization is one that stretches around the globe and across time. Ancient and medieval colonialism was practiced by the Phoenicians, the Greeks, the Turks, and the Arabs.
Colonialism in the modern sense began ...
. The Spanish and French brought
Catholicism
The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...
to the colonies of
New Spain
New Spain, officially the Viceroyalty of New Spain ( es, Virreinato de Nueva España, ), or Kingdom of New Spain, was an integral territorial entity of the Spanish Empire, established by Habsburg Spain during the Spanish colonization of the Am ...
and
New France
New France (french: Nouvelle-France) was the area colonized by France in North America, beginning with the exploration of the Gulf of Saint Lawrence by Jacques Cartier in 1534 and ending with the cession of New France to Great Britain and Spai ...
respectively, while British and Germans introduced Protestantism. Among Protestants, adherents to
Anglicanism
Anglicanism is a Western Christian tradition that has developed from the practices, liturgy, and identity of the Church of England following the English Reformation, in the context of the Protestant Reformation in Europe. It is one of the ...
, the
Baptist Church
Baptists form a major branch of Protestantism distinguished by baptizing professing Christian believers only (believer's baptism), and doing so by complete immersion. Baptist churches also generally subscribe to the doctrines of soul compete ...
,
Calvinism
Calvinism (also called the Reformed Tradition, Reformed Protestantism, Reformed Christianity, or simply Reformed) is a major branch of Protestantism that follows the theological tradition and forms of Christian practice set down by John Cal ...
,
Congregationalism
Congregationalist polity, or congregational polity, often known as congregationalism, is a system of ecclesiastical polity in which every local church (congregation) is independent, ecclesiastically sovereign, or "autonomous". Its first articul ...
,
Presbyterianism
Presbyterianism is a part of the Reformed tradition within Protestantism that broke from the Roman Catholic Church in Scotland by John Knox, who was a priest at St. Giles Cathedral (Church of Scotland). Presbyterian churches derive their nam ...
,
Lutheranism
Lutheranism is one of the largest branches of Protestantism, identifying primarily with the theology of Martin Luther, the 16th-century German monk and Protestant Reformers, reformer whose efforts to reform the theology and practice of the Cathol ...
,
Quakerism,
Anabaptism
Anabaptism (from Neo-Latin , from the Greek : 're-' and 'baptism', german: Täufer, earlier also )Since the middle of the 20th century, the German-speaking world no longer uses the term (translation: "Re-baptizers"), considering it biased. ...
,
Methodism
Methodism, also called the Methodist movement, is a group of historically related denominations of Protestant Christianity whose origins, doctrine and practice derive from the life and teachings of John Wesley. George Whitefield and John's br ...
, and
Moravian Church
The Moravian Church ( cs, Moravská církev), or the Moravian Brethren, formally the (Latin: "Unity of the Brethren"), is one of the oldest Protestantism, Protestant Christian denomination, denominations in Christianity, dating back to the Bohem ...
were the first to settle in the American colonies.
Early colonial period
The
Dutch
Dutch commonly refers to:
* Something of, from, or related to the Netherlands
* Dutch people ()
* Dutch language ()
Dutch may also refer to:
Places
* Dutch, West Virginia, a community in the United States
* Pennsylvania Dutch Country
People E ...
founded the colony of
New Netherland
New Netherland ( nl, Nieuw Nederland; la, Novum Belgium or ) was a 17th-century colonial province of the Dutch Republic that was located on the East Coast of the United States, east coast of what is now the United States. The claimed territor ...
in 1624; they established the
Dutch Reformed Church
The Dutch Reformed Church (, abbreviated NHK) was the largest Christian denomination in the Netherlands from the onset of the Protestant Reformation in the 16th century until 1930. It was the original denomination of the Dutch Royal Family and ...
as the colony's official religion in 1628. When
Sweden
Sweden, formally the Kingdom of Sweden,The United Nations Group of Experts on Geographical Names states that the country's formal name is the Kingdom of SwedenUNGEGN World Geographical Names, Sweden./ref> is a Nordic country located on ...
established
New Sweden
New Sweden ( sv, Nya Sverige) was a Swedish colony along the lower reaches of the Delaware River in what is now the United States from 1638 to 1655, established during the Thirty Years' War when Sweden was a great military power. New Sweden form ...
in the Delaware River Valley in 1638,
Church of Sweden
The Church of Sweden ( sv, Svenska kyrkan) is an Evangelical Lutheran national church in Sweden. A former state church, headquartered in Uppsala, with around 5.6 million members at year end 2021, it is the largest Christian denomination in Sw ...
was the colony's religion.
Spanish colonies
Spain established missions and towns in what are now
Texas
Texas (, ; Spanish language, Spanish: ''Texas'', ''Tejas'') is a state in the South Central United States, South Central region of the United States. At 268,596 square miles (695,662 km2), and with more than 29.1 million residents in 2 ...
,
New Mexico
)
, population_demonym = New Mexican ( es, Neomexicano, Neomejicano, Nuevo Mexicano)
, seat = Santa Fe
, LargestCity = Albuquerque
, LargestMetro = Tiguex
, OfficialLang = None
, Languages = English, Spanish ( New Mexican), Navajo, Ker ...
,
Arizona
Arizona ( ; nv, Hoozdo Hahoodzo ; ood, Alĭ ṣonak ) is a state in the Southwestern United States. It is the 6th largest and the 14th most populous of the 50 states. Its capital and largest city is Phoenix. Arizona is part of the Fou ...
,
Florida
Florida is a state located in the Southeastern region of the United States. Florida is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the northwest by Alabama, to the north by Georgia, to the east by the Bahamas and Atlantic Ocean, and to ...
, and
California
California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...
. Many cities and towns still retain the names of the Catholic saints these missions were named for; an excellent example of this is the full legal name of the city of Los Angeles: ''El Pueblo de Nuestra Señora Reina de Los Ángeles del Río Porciúncula'', or ''The Town of Our Lady, Queen of the Angels of the Porciuncula River''. The city was founded by Franciscan friars, who named their tiny church and later the town that formed around it after the Virgin Mary, also known to Catholics as Our Lady, Queen of the Angels. Similar patterns emerged wherever the Spanish went, such as
San Antonio, Texas
("Cradle of Freedom")
, image_map =
, mapsize = 220px
, map_caption = Interactive map of San Antonio
, subdivision_type = Country
, subdivision_name = United States
, subdivision_type1= State
, subdivision_name1 = Texas
, subdivision_t ...
(named for
Anthony of Padua
Anthony of Padua ( it, Antonio di Padova) or Anthony of Lisbon ( pt, António/Antônio de Lisboa; born Fernando Martins de Bulhões; 15 August 1195 – 13 June 1231) was a Portuguese people, Portuguese Catholic Church, Catholic priesthood (Cath ...
),
Santa Fe, New Mexico
Santa Fe ( ; , Spanish for 'Holy Faith'; tew, Oghá P'o'oge, Tewa for 'white shell water place'; tiw, Hulp'ó'ona, label=Tiwa language, Northern Tiwa; nv, Yootó, Navajo for 'bead + water place') is the capital of the U.S. state of New Mexico. ...
(named after
Francis of Assisi
Giovanni di Pietro di Bernardone, better known as Saint Francis of Assisi ( it, Francesco d'Assisi; – 3 October 1226), was a mystic Italian Catholic friar, founder of the Franciscans, and one of the most venerated figures in Christianit ...
,) and
Saint Augustine, Florida
St. Augustine ( ; es, San Agustín ) is a city in the Southeastern United States and the county seat of St. Johns County on the Atlantic coast of northeastern Florida. Founded in 1565 by Spanish explorers, it is the oldest continuously inhabit ...
(named for
Augustine of Hippo
Augustine of Hippo ( , ; la, Aurelius Augustinus Hipponensis; 13 November 354 – 28 August 430), also known as Saint Augustine, was a theologian and philosopher of Berber origin and the bishop of Hippo Regius in Numidia, Roman North Af ...
), as was Saint Lucy County and Port Saint Lucy in Florida named for Saint Lucy/Santa Lucia although
Saint Petersburg, Florida
St. Petersburg is a city in Pinellas County, Florida, United States. As of the 2020 census, the population was 258,308, making it the fifth-most populous city in Florida and the second-largest city in the Tampa Bay Area, after Tampa, Florida, T ...
was not named for St. Peter, but for the city of the same name in Russia.
Conversion of Native Americans to Catholicism was a main goal of the Catholic missionaries, especially the Jesuits. This was common in places where French influence was strong, like Detroit or Louisiana. However, Christianity is also implicated in the
deaths of one third of the indigenous population of California.
British colonies
Many of the British North American colonies that eventually formed the United States of America were settled in the 17th century by men and women, who, in the face of European
religious persecution
Religious persecution is the systematic mistreatment of an individual or a group of individuals as a response to their religion, religious beliefs or affiliations or their irreligion, lack thereof. The tendency of societies or groups within soc ...
, refused to compromise passionately-held religious convictions and fled Europe.
=Virginia
=
An Anglican chaplain was among the first group of English colonists, arriving in 1607. The
Church of England
The Church of England (C of E) is the established Christian church in England and the mother church of the international Anglican Communion. It traces its history to the Christian church recorded as existing in the Roman province of Britain ...
was legally established in the colony in 1619; with a total of 22 Anglican clergymen having arrived by 1624. In practice, "establishment" meant that local taxes were funneled through the local parish to handle the needs of local government, such as roads and poor relief, in addition to the salary of the minister. There never was a bishop in colonial Virginia; the local vestry consisted of laymen controlled the parish. The colonists were typically inattentive, uninterested, and bored during church services, according to the ministers, who complained that the people were sleeping, whispering, ogling the fashionably dressed women, walking about and coming and going, or at best looking out the windows or staring blankly into space. There were too few ministers for the widely scattered population, so ministers encouraged parishioners to become devout at home, using the ''Book of Common Prayer'' for private prayer and devotion (rather than the Bible). The stress on personal piety opened the way for the
First Great Awakening
The First Great Awakening (sometimes Great Awakening) or the Evangelical Revival was a series of Christian revivals that swept Britain and its thirteen North American colonies in the 1730s and 1740s. The revival movement permanently affecte ...
, which pulled people away from the established church and into the unauthorized Baptist and Methodist movements.
=New England
=
A group which later became known as the
Pilgrims settled the
Plymouth Colony
Plymouth Colony (sometimes Plimouth) was, from 1620 to 1691, the British America, first permanent English colony in New England and the second permanent English colony in North America, after the Jamestown Colony. It was first settled by the pa ...
in
Plymouth
Plymouth () is a port city and unitary authority in South West England. It is located on the south coast of Devon, approximately south-west of Exeter and south-west of London. It is bordered by Cornwall to the west and south-west.
Plymouth ...
,
in 1620, seeking refuge from persecution in Europe.
The
Puritans
The Puritans were English Protestants in the 16th and 17th centuries who sought to purify the Church of England of Roman Catholic practices, maintaining that the Church of England had not been fully reformed and should become more Protestant. P ...
, a much larger group than the Pilgrims, established the
Massachusetts Bay Colony
The Massachusetts Bay Colony (1630–1691), more formally the Colony of Massachusetts Bay, was an English settlement on the east coast of North America around the Massachusetts Bay, the northernmost of the several colonies later reorganized as the ...
in 1629 with 400 settlers. Puritans were English Protestants who wished to reform and purify the
Church of England
The Church of England (C of E) is the established Christian church in England and the mother church of the international Anglican Communion. It traces its history to the Christian church recorded as existing in the Roman province of Britain ...
in the New World of what they considered to be unacceptable residues of Catholicism. Within two years, an additional 2,000 settlers arrived.
From 1620 to 1640 Puritans emigrated to New England from England to escape persecution and gain the liberty to worship as they chose independently of the
Church of England
The Church of England (C of E) is the established Christian church in England and the mother church of the international Anglican Communion. It traces its history to the Christian church recorded as existing in the Roman province of Britain ...
, England being on the verge of the
English Civil War
The English Civil War (1642–1651) was a series of civil wars and political machinations between Parliamentarians (" Roundheads") and Royalists led by Charles I ("Cavaliers"), mainly over the manner of England's governance and issues of re ...
. Most settled in New England, but some went as far as the
West Indies
The West Indies is a subregion of North America, surrounded by the North Atlantic Ocean and the Caribbean Sea that includes 13 independent island countries and 18 dependencies and other territories in three major archipelagos: the Greater A ...
. Theologically, the Puritans were "non-separating
Congregationalists." The Puritans created a deeply religious, socially tight-knit and politically innovative culture that is still present in the modern United States. They hoped this new land would serve as a "
redeemer nation
American exceptionalism is the belief that the United States is inherently different from other nations.[King Philip's War
King Philip's War (sometimes called the First Indian War, Metacom's War, Metacomet's War, Pometacomet's Rebellion, or Metacom's Rebellion) was an armed conflict in 1675–1676 between indigenous inhabitants of New England and New England coloni ...](_blank)
, 1675-76. From the pulpits of New England's Puritan divines came "an unvarying message" of the "evil native genius" that needed to be dealt with.
=Tolerance in Rhode Island and Pennsylvania
=
Roger Williams
Roger Williams (21 September 1603between 27 January and 15 March 1683) was an English-born New England Puritan minister, theologian, and author who founded Providence Plantations, which became the Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantation ...
, who preached religious tolerance, separation of church and state, and a complete break with the Church of England, was banished from Massachusetts and founded
Rhode Island Colony
The Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations was one of the original Thirteen Colonies established on the east coast of America, bordering the Atlantic Ocean. It was founded by Roger Williams. It was an English colony from 1636 until 1 ...
, which became a haven for other religious refugees from the Puritan community. Some migrants who came to Colonial America were in search of the freedom to practice forms of Christianity which were prohibited and persecuted in Europe. Since there was no state religion, and since Protestantism had no central authority, religious practice in the colonies became diverse.
The
Quakers
Quakers are people who belong to a historically Protestant Christian set of denominations known formally as the Religious Society of Friends. Members of these movements ("theFriends") are generally united by a belief in each human's abil ...
formed in England in 1652, where they were severely persecuted in England for daring to deviate so far from orthodox Anglican Christianity. Many sought refuge in New Jersey, Rhode Island and especially Pennsylvania, which was owned by
William Penn
William Penn ( – ) was an English writer and religious thinker belonging to the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers), and founder of the Province of Pennsylvania, a North American colony of England. He was an early advocate of democracy a ...
, a rich Quaker. The Quakers kept political control until Indian wars broke out; the Quakers were pacifists and gave up control to groups that were eager to fight the Indians.
Beginning in 1683 many German-speaking immigrants arrived in Pennsylvania from the Rhine Valley and Switzerland. Starting in the 1730s Count
Zinzendorf
Nikolaus Ludwig, Reichsgraf von Zinzendorf und Pottendorf (26 May 1700 – 9 May 1760) was a German religious and social reformer, bishop of the Moravian Church, founder of the Herrnhuter Brüdergemeine, Christian mission pioneer and a major figu ...
and the
Moravian Brethren
, image = AgnusDeiWindow.jpg
, imagewidth = 250px
, caption = Church emblem featuring the Agnus Dei.Stained glass at the Rights Chapel of Trinity Moravian Church, Winston-Salem, North Carolina, United States
, main_classification = Proto-Prot ...
sought to minister to these immigrants while they also began missions among the Native American tribes of New York and Pennsylvania.
Heinrich Melchior Muehlenberg organized the first
Lutheran
Lutheranism is one of the largest branches of Protestantism, identifying primarily with the theology of Martin Luther, the 16th-century German monk and reformer whose efforts to reform the theology and practice of the Catholic Church launched th ...
Synod in Pennsylvania in the 1740s.
=Maryland
=
In the English colonies, Catholicism was introduced with the
settling of Maryland. Catholic fortunes fluctuated in Maryland during the rest of the 17th century, as they became an increasingly smaller minority of the population. After the
Glorious Revolution of 1689 in England,
penal laws deprived Catholics of the right to vote, hold office, educate their children or worship publicly. Until the
American Revolution
The American Revolution was an ideological and political revolution that occurred in British America between 1765 and 1791. The Americans in the Thirteen Colonies formed independent states that defeated the British in the American Revolut ...
, Catholics in Maryland, like
Charles Carroll of Carrollton
Charles Carroll (September 19, 1737 – November 14, 1832), known as Charles Carroll of Carrollton or Charles Carroll III, was an Irish-American politician, planter, and signatory of the Declaration of Independence. He was the only Catholic sign ...
, were dissenters in their own country but keeping loyal to their convictions. At the time of the Revolution, Catholics formed less than 1% of the population of the thirteen colonies, in 2007, Catholics comprised 24% of US population.
Great Awakening
![Church in Shandon, CA](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/cf/Church_in_Shandon%2C_CA.jpg)
Evangelicalism is difficult to date and to define. Scholars have argued that, as a self-conscious movement, evangelicalism did not arise until the mid-17th century, perhaps not until the Great Awakening itself. The fundamental premise of evangelicalism is the conversion of individuals from a state of sin to a "
new birth
Born again, or to experience the new birth, is a phrase, particularly in evangelicalism, that refers to a "spiritual rebirth", or a regeneration of the human spirit. In contrast to one's physical birth, being "born again" is distinctly and sepa ...
" through the preaching of the Word. The
Great Awakening
Great Awakening refers to a number of periods of religious revival in American Christian history. Historians and theologians identify three, or sometimes four, waves of increased religious enthusiasm between the early 18th century and the late ...
refers to a northeastern Protestant revival movement that took place in the 1730s and 1740s.
The first generation of New England Puritans required that church members undergo a conversion experience that they could describe publicly. Their successors were not as successful in reaping harvests of redeemed souls. The movement began with
Jonathan Edwards, a Massachusetts preacher who sought to return to the Pilgrims' strict
Calvinist
Calvinism (also called the Reformed Tradition, Reformed Protestantism, Reformed Christianity, or simply Reformed) is a major branch of Protestantism that follows the theological tradition and forms of Christian practice set down by John Ca ...
roots. British preacher
George Whitefield
George Whitefield (; 30 September 1770), also known as George Whitfield, was an Anglican cleric and evangelist who was one of the founders of Methodism and the evangelical movement.
Born in Gloucester, he matriculated at Pembroke College at th ...
and other itinerant preachers continued the movement, traveling across the colonies and preaching in a dramatic and emotional style. Followers of Edwards and other preachers of similar religiosity called themselves the "New Lights," as contrasted with the "Old Lights," who disapproved of their movement. To promote their viewpoints, the two sides established academies and colleges, including
Princeton
Princeton University is a private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and one of the nine ...
and
Williams College
Williams College is a Private college, private liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college in Williamstown, Massachusetts. It was established as a men's college in 1793 with funds from the estate of Ephraim Williams, a col ...
. The Great Awakening has been called the first truly American event.
The supporters of the Awakening and its evangelical thrust—
Presbyterian
Presbyterianism is a part of the Reformed tradition within Protestantism that broke from the Roman Catholic Church in Scotland by John Knox, who was a priest at St. Giles Cathedral (Church of Scotland). Presbyterian churches derive their nam ...
s, Baptists, and
Methodist
Methodism, also called the Methodist movement, is a group of historically related denominations of Protestant Christianity whose origins, doctrine and practice derive from the life and teachings of John Wesley. George Whitefield and John's b ...
s—became the largest American Protestant denominations by the first decades of the 19th century. By the 1770s, the Baptists were growing rapidly both in the north (where they founded
Brown University
Brown University is a private research university in Providence, Rhode Island. Brown is the seventh-oldest institution of higher education in the United States, founded in 1764 as the College in the English Colony of Rhode Island and Providenc ...
), and in the South. Opponents of the Awakening or those split by it—Anglicans, Quakers, and Congregationalists—were left behind.
The First Great Awakening of the 1740s increased religiosity in most of the colonies. By 1780 the percentage of adult colonists who formally held membership in a church was between 10-30%. North Carolina had the lowest percentage at about 4%, while New Hampshire and South Carolina were tied for the highest, at about 16%. Many others informally associated with the churches.
American Revolution
The Revolution split some denominations, notably the Church of England, most of whose ministers supported the king. The Quakers and some German sects were pacifists and remained neutral. Religious practice suffered in certain places because of the absence of ministers and the destruction of churches, but in other areas, religion flourished.
Badly hurt, the Anglicans reorganized after the war. It became the
Protestant Episcopal Church
The Episcopal Church, based in the United States with additional dioceses elsewhere, is a member church of the worldwide Anglican Communion. It is a mainline Protestant denomination and is divided into nine Ecclesiastical provinces and dioces ...
.
In 1794, the Russian Orthodox missionary
St. Herman of Alaska arrived on Kodiak island in Alaska and began significantly evangelizing the native peoples. Nearly all Russians left in 1867 when the U.S. purchased Alaska, but the
Eastern Orthodox
Eastern Orthodoxy, also known as Eastern Orthodox Christianity, is one of the three main branches of Chalcedonian Christianity, alongside Catholicism and Protestantism.
Like the Pentarchy of the first millennium, the mainstream (or "canonical") ...
faith remained.
Lambert (2003) has examined the religious affiliations and beliefs of the
Founding Fathers of the United States
The Founding Fathers of the United States, known simply as the Founding Fathers or Founders, were a group of late-18th-century American Revolution, American revolutionary leaders who United Colonies, united the Thirteen Colonies, oversaw the Am ...
. Of the 55 delegates to the 1787 Constitutional Convention, 49 were
Protestants
Protestantism is a branch of Christianity that follows the theological tenets of the Protestant Reformation, a movement that began seeking to reform the Catholic Church from within in the 16th century against what its followers perceived to b ...
, and two were
Catholics
The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...
(D. Carroll, and Fitzsimons).
Among the Protestant delegates to the Constitutional Convention, 28 were
Church of England
The Church of England (C of E) is the established Christian church in England and the mother church of the international Anglican Communion. It traces its history to the Christian church recorded as existing in the Roman province of Britain ...
(or
Episcopalian
Anglicanism is a Western Christian tradition that has developed from the practices, liturgy, and identity of the Church of England following the English Reformation, in the context of the Protestant Reformation in Europe. It is one of the l ...
, after the
American Revolutionary War
The American Revolutionary War (April 19, 1775 – September 3, 1783), also known as the Revolutionary War or American War of Independence, was a major war of the American Revolution. Widely considered as the war that secured the independence of t ...
was won), eight were
Presbyterians
Presbyterianism is a part of the Reformed tradition within Protestantism that broke from the Roman Catholic Church in Scotland by John Knox, who was a priest at St. Giles Cathedral (Church of Scotland). Presbyterian churches derive their nam ...
, seven were
Congregationalists
Congregational churches (also Congregationalist churches or Congregationalism) are Protestant churches in the Calvinist tradition practising congregationalist church governance, in which each congregation independently and autonomously runs its ...
, two were
Lutherans
Lutheranism is one of the largest branches of Protestantism, identifying primarily with the theology of Martin Luther, the 16th-century German monk and reformer whose efforts to reform the theology and practice of the Catholic Church launched ...
, two were
Dutch Reformed
The Dutch Reformed Church (, abbreviated NHK) was the largest Christian denomination in the Netherlands from the onset of the Protestant Reformation in the 16th century until 1930. It was the original denomination of the Dutch Royal Family an ...
, and two were
Methodists.
Church and state debate
After independence, the American states were obliged to write
constitution
A constitution is the aggregate of fundamental principles or established precedents that constitute the legal basis of a polity, organisation or other type of Legal entity, entity and commonly determine how that entity is to be governed.
When ...
s establishing how each would be governed. For three years, from 1778 to 1780, the political energies of Massachusetts were absorbed in drafting a charter of government that the voters would accept. One of the most contentious issues was whether the state would support the church financially. Advocating such a policy were the ministers and most members of the Congregational Church, which received public financial support, during the colonial period. The Baptists tenaciously adhered to their ancient conviction that churches should receive no support from the state. The Constitutional Convention chose to support the church and Article Three authorized a general religious tax to be directed to the church of a taxpayers' choice.
Such tax laws also took effect in
Connecticut
Connecticut () is the southernmost state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It is bordered by Rhode Island to the east, Massachusetts to the north, New York to the west, and Long Island Sound to the south. Its cap ...
and
New Hampshire
New Hampshire is a U.S. state, state in the New England region of the northeastern United States. It is bordered by Massachusetts to the south, Vermont to the west, Maine and the Gulf of Maine to the east, and the Canadian province of Quebec t ...
.
19th century
Separation of church and state
In October 1801, members of the Danbury Baptists Associations wrote a letter to the new President-elect
Thomas Jefferson
Thomas Jefferson (April 13, 1743 – July 4, 1826) was an American statesman, diplomat, lawyer, architect, philosopher, and Founding Fathers of the United States, Founding Father who served as the third president of the United States from 18 ...
. Baptists, being a minority in Connecticut, were still required to pay fees to support the Congregationalist majority. The Baptists found this intolerable. The Baptists, well aware of Jefferson's own unorthodox beliefs, sought him as an ally in making all religious expression a fundamental human right and not a matter of government largesse.
In his January 1, 1802, reply to the Danbury Baptist Association Jefferson summed up the First Amendment's original intent, and used for the first time anywhere a now-familiar phrase in today's political and judicial circles: the amendment, he wrote, established a "wall of separation between church and state." Largely unknown in its day, this phrase has since become a major Constitutional issue. The first time the U.S. Supreme Court cited that phrase from Jefferson was in 1878, 76 years later.
Second Great Awakening
The Second
Great Awakening
Great Awakening refers to a number of periods of religious revival in American Christian history. Historians and theologians identify three, or sometimes four, waves of increased religious enthusiasm between the early 18th century and the late ...
was a Protestant movement that began around 1790, gained momentum by 1800, and after 1820 membership rose rapidly among Baptist and Methodist congregations whose preachers led the movement. It was past its peak by the 1840s. It was a reaction against skepticism,
deism
Deism ( or ; derived from the Latin ''deus'', meaning "god") is the Philosophy, philosophical position and Rationalism, rationalistic theology that generally rejects revelation as a source of divine knowledge, and asserts that Empirical evi ...
, and rational Christianity, and was especially attractive to young women. Millions of new members enrolled in existing evangelical denominations and led to the formation of new denominations. Many converts believed that the Awakening heralded a new
millennial age. The Second Great Awakening stimulated the establishment of many reform movements designed to remedy the evils of society before the anticipated
Second Coming
The Second Coming (sometimes called the Second Advent or the Parousia) is a Christian (as well as Islamic and Baha'i) belief that Jesus will return again after his ascension to heaven about two thousand years ago. The idea is based on messi ...
of
Jesus Christ
Jesus, likely from he, יֵשׁוּעַ, translit=Yēšūaʿ, label=Hebrew/Aramaic ( AD 30 or 33), also referred to as Jesus Christ or Jesus of Nazareth (among other names and titles), was a first-century Jewish preacher and religious ...
.
[Timothy L. Smith, ''Revivalism and Social Reform: American Protestantism on the Eve of the Civil War'' (1957)] The network of voluntary reform societies inspired by the Awakening was called the
Benevolent Empire.
[.]
During the Second Great Awakening, new Protestant denominations emerged such as
Adventists
Adventism is a branch of Protestant Christianity that believes in the imminent Second Coming (or the "Second Advent") of Jesus Christ. It originated in the 1830s in the United States during the Second Great Awakening when Baptist preacher Wil ...
, churches in the
Restoration Movement
The Restoration Movement (also known as the American Restoration Movement or the Stone–Campbell Movement, and pejoratively as Campbellism) is a Christian movement that began on the United States frontier during the Second Great Awakening (179 ...
, and groups such as
Jehovah's Witnesses
Jehovah's Witnesses is a millenarian restorationist Christian denomination with nontrinitarian beliefs distinct from mainstream Christianity. The group reports a worldwide membership of approximately 8.7 million adherents involved in ...
and
the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, informally known as the LDS Church or Mormon Church, is a Nontrinitarianism, nontrinitarian Christianity, Christian church that considers itself to be the Restorationism, restoration of the ...
. While the First Great Awakening was centered on reviving the spirituality of established congregations, the Second focused on the unchurched and sought to instill in them a deep sense of personal salvation as experienced in revival meetings.
The principal innovation produced by the revivals was the
camp meeting
The camp meeting is a form of Protestant Christian religious service originating in England and Scotland as an evangelical event in association with the communion season. It was held for worship, preaching and communion on the American frontier d ...
. When assembled in a field or at the edge of a forest for a prolonged religious meeting, the participants transformed the site into a camp meeting. Singing and preaching were the main activities for several days. The revivals were often intense and created intense emotions. Some fell away but many if not most became permanent church members. The Methodists and Baptists made them one of the evangelical signatures of the denomination.
African American churches
![Interior_of_the_African_meeting_house](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3d/Interior_of_the_African_meeting_house.jpg)
The
Christianity of the black population was grounded in evangelicalism. The Second Great Awakening has been called the "central and defining event in the development of Afro-Christianity." During these revivals Baptists and Methodists converted large numbers of blacks. However, many were disappointed at the treatment they received from their fellow believers and at the backsliding in the commitment to abolish
slavery
Slavery and enslavement are both the state and the condition of being a slave—someone forbidden to quit one's service for an enslaver, and who is treated by the enslaver as property. Slavery typically involves slaves being made to perf ...
that many white Baptists and Methodists had advocated immediately after the American Revolution.
When their discontent could not be contained, forceful black leaders followed what was becoming an American habit—they formed new denominations. In 1787,
Richard Allen and his colleagues in Philadelphia broke away from the Methodist Church and in 1815 founded the
African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church.
After the Civil War, Black Baptists desiring to practice Christianity away from racial discrimination, rapidly set up several separate state Baptist conventions. In 1866, black Baptists of the South and West combined to form the Consolidated American Baptist Convention. This convention eventually collapsed but three national conventions formed in response. In 1895 the three conventions merged to create the
National Baptist Convention. It is now the largest African-American religious organization in the United States.
Liberal Christianity
![St Philip's Church of the Highlands](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/2e/St_Philip%27s_Church_of_the_Highlands.jpg)
The "secularization of society" is attributed to the time of the
Enlightenment. In the United States, religious observance is much higher than in Europe, and the United States' culture leans conservative in comparison to other western nations, in part due to the Christian element.
Liberal Christianity
Liberal Christianity, also known as Liberal Theology and historically as Christian Modernism (see Catholic modernism
The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 bill ...
, exemplified by some theologians, sought to bring to churches new critical approaches to the Bible. Sometimes called "liberal theology", liberal Christianity is an umbrella term covering movements and ideas within 19th- and 20th-century Christianity. New attitudes became evident, and the practice of questioning the nearly universally accepted Christian orthodoxy began to come to the forefront.
In the post–World War I era, liberalism was the faster-growing sector of the American church. Liberal wings of denominations were on the rise, and a considerable number of seminaries held and taught from a liberal perspective as well. In the post–World War II era, the trend began to swing back towards the conservative camp in America's seminaries and church structures.
Catholic Church
![Saint_Patrick's_Cathedral,_looking_upwards](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/fb/Saint_Patrick%27s_Cathedral%2C_looking_upwards.jpg)
By 1850 Catholics had become the country's largest single denomination. Between 1860 and 1890 the population of Catholics in the United States tripled through immigration; by the end of the decade, it would reach seven million. These huge numbers of immigrant Catholics came from
Ireland
Ireland ( ; ga, Éire ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe, north-western Europe. It is separated from Great Britain to its east by the North Channel (Grea ...
,
Quebec
Quebec ( ; )According to the Canadian government, ''Québec'' (with the acute accent) is the official name in Canadian French and ''Quebec'' (without the accent) is the province's official name in Canadian English is one of the thirtee ...
, Southern Germany, Italy, Poland and
Eastern Europe
Eastern Europe is a subregion of the Europe, European continent. As a largely ambiguous term, it has a wide range of geopolitical, geographical, ethnic, cultural, and socio-economic connotations. The vast majority of the region is covered by Russ ...
. This influx would eventually bring increased political power for the Catholic Church and a greater cultural presence led at the same time to a growing fear of the Catholic "menace". As the 19th century wore on, animosity waned; Protestant Americans realized that Catholics were not trying to seize control of the government.
Fundamentalism
Protestant fundamentalism
Christian fundamentalism, also known as fundamental Christianity or fundamentalist Christianity, is a religious movement emphasizing biblical literalism. In its modern form, it began in the late 19th and early 20th centuries among British and ...
began as a movement in the late 19th century and early 20th century to reject influences of
secular humanism
Secular humanism is a philosophy, belief system or life stance that embraces human reason, secular ethics, and philosophical naturalism while specifically rejecting religious dogma, supernaturalism, and superstition as the basis of morality an ...
and source criticism in modern Christianity. In reaction to liberal Protestant groups that denied doctrines considered fundamental to these conservative groups, they sought to establish tenets necessary to maintaining a Christian identity, the "fundamentals," hence the term fundamentalist.
Over time, the movement divided, with the label ''Fundamentalist'' being retained by the smaller and more hard-line group(s). ''
Evangelical
Evangelicalism (), also called evangelical Christianity or evangelical Protestantism, is a worldwide Interdenominationalism, interdenominational movement within Protestantism, Protestant Christianity that affirms the centrality of being "bor ...
'' has become the main identifier of the groups holding to the movement's moderate and earliest ideas.
20th century
Evangelicalism
![AngelusTemple](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e2/AngelusTemple.jpg)
In the U.S. and elsewhere in the world, there has been a marked rise in the
evangelical
Evangelicalism (), also called evangelical Christianity or evangelical Protestantism, is a worldwide Interdenominationalism, interdenominational movement within Protestantism, Protestant Christianity that affirms the centrality of being "bor ...
wing of
Protestant
Protestantism is a Christian denomination, branch of Christianity that follows the theological tenets of the Reformation, Protestant Reformation, a movement that began seeking to reform the Catholic Church from within in the 16th century agai ...
denominations, especially those that are more exclusively evangelical, and a corresponding decline in the mainstream liberal churches.
The 1950s saw a boom in the Evangelical church in America. The post–World War II prosperity experienced in the U.S. also had its effects on the church. Church buildings were erected in large numbers, and the Evangelical church's activities grew along with this expansive physical growth. In the southern U.S., the Evangelicals, represented by leaders such as
Billy Graham
William Franklin Graham Jr. (November 7, 1918 – February 21, 2018) was an American evangelist and an ordained Southern Baptist minister who became well known internationally in the late 1940s. He was a prominent evangelical Christi ...
, have experienced a notable surge displacing the caricature of the pulpit pounding country preachers of fundamentalism. The stereotypes have gradually shifted.
Although the Evangelical community worldwide is diverse, the ties that bind all Evangelicals are still apparent: a "high view" of Scripture, belief in the Deity of Christ, the Trinity, salvation by grace through faith, and the bodily resurrection of Christ.
National associations
The Federal Council of Churches, founded in 1908, marked the first major expression of a growing modern ecumenical movement among Christians in the United States. It was active in pressing for reform of public and private policies, particularly as they impacted the lives of those living in poverty, and developed a comprehensive and widely debated ''Social Creed'' which served as a humanitarian "bill of rights" for those seeking improvements in American life.
In 1950, the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the USA (usually identified as
National Council of Churches
The National Council of the Churches of Christ in the USA, usually identified as the National Council of Churches (NCC), is the largest ecumenical body in the United States. NCC is an ecumenical partnership of 38 Christian faith groups in the Uni ...
, or NCC) represented a dramatic expansion in the development of ecumenical cooperation. It was a merger of the Federal Council of Churches, the International Council of Religious Education, and several other interchurch ministries. Today, the NCC is a joint venture of 35
Christian
Christians () are people who follow or adhere to Christianity, a monotheistic Abrahamic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus Christ. The words ''Christ'' and ''Christian'' derive from the Koine Greek title ''Christós'' (Χρι ...
denominations in the United States with 100,000 local congregations and 45,000,000 adherents. Its member communions include
Mainline Protestant
The mainline Protestant churches (also called mainstream Protestant and sometimes oldline Protestant) are a group of Protestant denominations in the United States that contrast in history and practice with evangelical, fundamentalist, and charis ...
,
Eastern Orthodox
Eastern Orthodoxy, also known as Eastern Orthodox Christianity, is one of the three main branches of Chalcedonian Christianity, alongside Catholicism and Protestantism.
Like the Pentarchy of the first millennium, the mainstream (or "canonical") ...
,
Oriental Orthodox
The Oriental Orthodox Churches are Eastern Christian churches adhering to Miaphysite Christology, with approximately 60 million members worldwide. The Oriental Orthodox Churches are part of the Nicene Christian tradition, and represent o ...
, African-American, Evangelical and historic Peace churches. The NCC took a prominent role in the Civil Rights Movement and fostered the publication of the widely used ''Revised Standard Version of the Bible'', followed by an updated ''New Revised Standard Version'', the first translation to benefit from the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls. The organization is headquartered in New York City, with a public policy office in Washington, DC. The NCC is related fraternally to hundreds of local and regional councils of churches, to other national councils across the globe, and to the
World Council of Churches
The World Council of Churches (WCC) is a worldwide Christian inter-church organization founded in 1948 to work for the cause of ecumenism. Its full members today include the Assyrian Church of the East, the Oriental Orthodox Churches, most juri ...
. All of these bodies are independently governed.
Carl McIntire led in organizing the
American Council of Christian Churches The American Council of Christian Churches (ACCC) is a fundamentalist organization set up in opposition to the Federal Council of Churches (now National Council of Churches).
The council's motto is Jude 3, "Earnestly contending for the Faith".
His ...
(ACCC), now with 7 member bodies, in September 1941. It was a more militant and
fundamentalist
Fundamentalism is a tendency among certain groups and individuals that is characterized by the application of a strict literal interpretation to scriptures, dogmas, or ideologies, along with a strong belief in the importance of distinguishing ...
organization set up in opposition to what became the National Council of Churches.
The National Association of Evangelicals for United Action was formed in St. Louis, Missouri on April 7–9, 1942. It soon shortened its name to the
National Association of Evangelicals
The National Association of Evangelicals (NAE) is an association of evangelical denominations, organizations, schools, churches and individuals, member of the World Evangelical Alliance. The association represents more than 45,000 local churches ...
(NEA). There are currently 60 denominations with about 45,000 churches in the organization. The NEA is related fraternally the
World Evangelical Fellowship
The World Evangelical Alliance (WEA) is an interdenominational organization of evangelical Christian churches, serving more than 600 million evangelicals, founded in 1846 in London, England, United Kingdom to unite evangelicals worldwide. WEA i ...
.
In 2006, 39 communions and 7 Christian organizations officially launched
Christian Churches Together
Christian Churches Together in the USA (CCT) is an organization formed in 2006 to "broaden and expand fellowship, unity and witness among the diverse expressions of Christian traditions in the USA."
Christian Churches Together was created as a ...
in the USA (CCT). CCT provides a space that is inclusive of the diversity of Christian traditions in the United States—Evangelical/Pentecostal, Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, Catholic, historic Protestant, and historic Black churches. CCT is characterized by its emphasis on relationships and prayer. Every year these communions and organizations meet over four days to discuss critical social issues, pray and strengthen their relationships.
Pentecostalism
Another noteworthy development in 20th-century Christianity was the rise of the modern
Pentecostal
Pentecostalism or classical Pentecostalism is a Protestant Charismatic Christian movement movement.
Pentecostalism
Pentecostalism or classical Pentecostalism is a Protestant Charismatic Christian movement , which had its roots in the
Pietism
Pietism (), also known as Pietistic Lutheranism, is a movement within Lutheranism that combines its emphasis on biblical doctrine with an emphasis on individual piety and living a holy Christian life, including a social concern for the needy and ...
and the
Holiness movement
The Holiness movement is a Christian movement that emerged chiefly within 19th-century Methodism, and to a lesser extent other traditions such as Quakerism, Anabaptism, and Restorationism. The movement is historically distinguished by its emph ...
, many will cite that it arose out of the meetings in 1906 at an urban mission on
Azusa Street
The Azusa Street Revival was a historic series of revival meetings that took place in Los Angeles, California. It was led by William J. Seymour, an African-American preacher. The revival began on April 9, 1906, and continued until roughly 1915. O ...
in Los Angeles, but it actually started in 1900 in Topeka, Kansas with a group led by
Charles Parham
Charles F. Parham (June 4, 1873 – January 29, 1929) was an American preacher and evangelism, evangelist. Together with William J. Seymour, Parham was one of the two central figures in the development and early spread of American Pentecostalis ...
and the Bethel Bible School. From there it spread by those who experienced what they believed to be miraculous moves of God there.
Pentecostalism would later birth the
Charismatic movement
The charismatic movement in Christianity is a movement within established or mainstream Christian denominations to adopt beliefs and practices of Charismatic Christianity with an emphasis on baptism with the Holy Spirit, and the use of spirit ...
within already established denominations, and it continues to be an important force in Western Christianity.
Catholic Church
By the beginning of the 20th century, approximately one-sixth of the population of the United States was Catholic. Modern Catholic immigrants come to the United States from the
Philippines
The Philippines (; fil, Pilipinas, links=no), officially the Republic of the Philippines ( fil, Republika ng Pilipinas, links=no),
* bik, Republika kan Filipinas
* ceb, Republika sa Pilipinas
* cbk, República de Filipinas
* hil, Republ ...
, Poland, and
Latin America
Latin America or
* french: Amérique Latine, link=no
* ht, Amerik Latin, link=no
* pt, América Latina, link=no, name=a, sometimes referred to as LatAm is a large cultural region in the Americas where Romance languages — languages derived f ...
, especially from Mexico. This
multiculturalism
The term multiculturalism has a range of meanings within the contexts of sociology, political philosophy, and colloquial use. In sociology and in everyday usage, it is a synonym for "Pluralism (political theory), ethnic pluralism", with the tw ...
and diversity have greatly impacted the flavor of Catholicism in the United States. For example, many dioceses serve in both the
English language
English is a West Germanic language of the Indo-European language family, with its earliest forms spoken by the inhabitants of early medieval England. It is named after the Angles, one of the ancient Germanic peoples that migrated to the is ...
and the
Spanish language
Spanish ( or , Castilian) is a Romance languages, Romance language of the Indo-European language family that evolved from colloquial Latin spoken on the Iberian peninsula. Today, it is a world language, global language with more than 500 millio ...
.
21st century
Youth programs
While children and youth in the colonial era were treated as small adults, awareness of their special status and needs grew in the nineteenth century, as one after another the denominations large and small began special programs for their young people. Protestant theologian
Horace Bushnell
Horace Bushnell (April 14, 1802February 17, 1876) was an American Congregational minister and theologian.
Life
Bushnell was born in the village of Bantam, township of Litchfield, Connecticut. He attended Yale College where he roomed with fu ...
in ''Christian Nurture'' (1847) emphasized the necessity of identifying and supporting the religiosity of children and young adults. Beginning in the 1790s the Protestant denominations set up
Sunday school
A Sunday school is an educational institution, usually (but not always) Christian in character. Other religions including Buddhism, Islam, and Judaism have also organised Sunday schools in their temples and mosques, particularly in the West.
Su ...
programs. They provided a major source of new members. Urban Protestant churchmen set up the interdenominational
YMCA
YMCA, sometimes regionally called the Y, is a worldwide youth organization based in Geneva, Switzerland, with more than 64 million beneficiaries in 120 countries. It was founded on 6 June 1844 by George Williams in London, originally ...
(and later the
YWCA
The Young Women's Christian Association (YWCA) is a nonprofit organization with a focus on empowerment, leadership, and rights of women, young women, and girls in more than 100 countries.
The World office is currently based in Geneva, Swi ...
) programs in cities from the 1850s. Methodists looked on their youth as potential political activists, providing them with opportunities to engage in social justice movements such as prohibition. Black Protestants, especially after they could form their own separate churches, integrated their young people directly into the larger religious community. Their youth played a major role in the leadership of the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and the 1960s. White evangelicals in the twentieth century set up Bible clubs for teenagers and experimented with the use of music to attract young people. The Catholics set up an entire network of parochial schools, and by the late nineteenth century probably more than half of their young members were attending elementary schools run by local parishes. Some Missouri Synod German Lutherans and Dutch Reformed churches also set up parochial schools. In the twentieth century, all the denominations sponsored programs such as the Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts.
Demographics
Demographics by state
Beliefs and attitudes
![Christmas Eve2](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/45/Christmas_Eve2.jpg)
The
Baylor University
Baylor University is a private Baptist Christian research university in Waco, Texas. Baylor was chartered in 1845 by the last Congress of the Republic of Texas. Baylor is the oldest continuously operating university in Texas and one of the fir ...
Institute for Studies of Religion conducted a survey covering various aspects of American religious life.
The researchers analyzing the survey results have categorized the responses into what they call the "four Gods": An ''authoritarian'' God (31%), a ''benevolent'' God (25%), a ''distant God'' (23%), and a ''critical'' God (16%).
[ A major implication to emerge from this survey is that "the type of god people believe in can predict their political and moral attitudes more so than just looking at their religious tradition."][
As far as religious tradition, the survey determined that 33.6% of respondents are evangelical Protestants, while 10.8% had no religious affiliation at all. Out of those without affiliation, 62.9% still indicated that they "believe in God or some higher power".][
Another study, conducted by '']Christianity Today
''Christianity Today'' is an evangelical Christian media magazine founded in 1956 by Billy Graham. It is published by Christianity Today International based in Carol Stream, Illinois. ''The Washington Post'' calls ''Christianity Today'' "evange ...
'' with ''Leadership'' magazine, attempted to understand the range and differences among American Christians. A national attitudinal and behavioral survey found that their beliefs and practices clustered into five distinct segments. Spiritual growth for two large segments of Christians may be occurring in non-traditional ways. Instead of attending church on Sunday mornings, many opt for personal, individual ways to stretch themselves spiritually.["5 Kinds of Christians — Understanding the disparity of those who call themselves Christian in America.](_blank)
''Leadership Journal'', Fall 2007.
* 19 percent of American Christians are described by the researchers as ''Active Christians''. They believe salvation comes through Jesus Christ
Jesus, likely from he, יֵשׁוּעַ, translit=Yēšūaʿ, label=Hebrew/Aramaic ( AD 30 or 33), also referred to as Jesus Christ or Jesus of Nazareth (among other names and titles), was a first-century Jewish preacher and religious ...
, attend church regularly, are Bible readers, invest in personal faith development through their church, accept leadership positions in their church, and believe they are obligated to "share [their] faith", that is, to Evangelism, evangelize others.
* 20 percent are referred to as ''Professing Christians''. They are also committed to "accepting Christ as Savior and Lord" as the key to being a Christian, but focus more on personal relationships with God and Jesus than on church, Bible reading or evangelizing.
* 16 percent fall into a category named ''Liturgy, Liturgical Christians''. They are predominantly Lutheran
Lutheranism is one of the largest branches of Protestantism, identifying primarily with the theology of Martin Luther, the 16th-century German monk and reformer whose efforts to reform the theology and practice of the Catholic Church launched th ...
, Catholic, Episcopal Church (United States), Episcopalian, Eastern Orthodox
Eastern Orthodoxy, also known as Eastern Orthodox Christianity, is one of the three main branches of Chalcedonian Christianity, alongside Catholicism and Protestantism.
Like the Pentarchy of the first millennium, the mainstream (or "canonical") ...
or Oriental Orthodox
The Oriental Orthodox Churches are Eastern Christian churches adhering to Miaphysite Christology, with approximately 60 million members worldwide. The Oriental Orthodox Churches are part of the Nicene Christian tradition, and represent o ...
. They are regular churchgoers, have a high level of spiritual activity and recognize the authority of the church.
* 24 percent are considered ''Private Christians''. They own a Bible but do not tend to read it. Only about one-third attend church at all. They believe in God and in doing good things, but not necessarily within a church context. This was the largest and youngest segment. Almost none are church leaders.
* 21 percent in the research are called ''Cultural Christians''. These do not view Jesus as essential to salvation. They exhibit little outward religious behavior or attitudes. They favor a universalism, universality theology that sees many ways to God. Yet, they clearly consider themselves to be Christians.
Church attendance
Gallup poll, Gallup International indicates that 41% of American citizens report they regularly attend places of worship, religious services, compared to 15% of Culture of France#Religion, French citizens, 10% of Religion in the United Kingdom, British citizens, and 7.5% of Religion in Australia, Australian citizens.
The Bible Belt is an informal term for a region in the Southern United States in which socially conservative evangelical Protestantism is a significant part of the culture and Christian church attendance across the denominations is generally higher than the nation's average. By contrast, religion plays the least important role in New England and in the Western United States.
By state
Church attendance varies significantly by state and region. In a 2014 Gallup survey, less than half of Americans said that they attended church or synagogue weekly. The figures ranged from 51% in Utah
Utah ( , ) is a state in the Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. Utah is a landlocked U.S. state bordered to its east by Colorado, to its northeast by Wyoming, to its north by Idaho, to its south by Arizona, and to it ...
to 17% in Vermont.
U.S. territories
Below is the percent of population that are Christians in the Territories of the United States, U.S. territories in 2015.
Race
Data from the Pew Research Center
The Pew Research Center is a nonpartisan American think tank (referring to itself as a "fact tank") based in Washington, D.C.
It provides information on social issues, public opinion, and demographic trends shaping the United States and the w ...
show that as of 2008, the majority of White Americans were Christians, Christian, and about 51% of the White American were Protestant, and 26% were Catholic.
The most methodologically rigorous study of Hispanic and Latino Americans religious affiliation to date was th
Hispanic Churches in American Public Life
(HCAPL) National Survey, conducted between August and October 2000. This survey found that 70% of all Hispanic and Latino Americans are Catholic, 20% are Protestant, 3% are "alternative Christians" (such as Mormonism, Latter-Day Saints or Jehovah's Witnesses
Jehovah's Witnesses is a millenarian restorationist Christian denomination with nontrinitarian beliefs distinct from mainstream Christianity. The group reports a worldwide membership of approximately 8.7 million adherents involved in ...
). According to a Public Religion Research Institute
The Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI) is an American nonprofit, nonpartisan research and education organization that conducts public opinion polls on a variety of topics, specializing in the quantitative and qualitative study of political ...
study in 2017, the majority of Hispanic and Latino Americans are Christianity, Christians (76%),[America’s Changing Religious Identity](_blank)
/ref> and about 11% of Americans identify as Hispanic or Latino Christian.
The majority of African American
African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American" generally denotes descendants of ens ...
s are Protestant
Protestantism is a Christian denomination, branch of Christianity that follows the theological tenets of the Reformation, Protestant Reformation, a movement that began seeking to reform the Catholic Church from within in the 16th century agai ...
(78%), many of whom follow the historically black churches.[U.S.Religious Landscape Survey p.40]
The Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life (February 2008). Retrieved July 20, 2009. A 2012 Pew Research Center
The Pew Research Center is a nonpartisan American think tank (referring to itself as a "fact tank") based in Washington, D.C.
It provides information on social issues, public opinion, and demographic trends shaping the United States and the w ...
study found that 42% of Asian Americans identify themselves as Christians.
Ethnicity
Beginning around 1600, Northern European settlers introduced Anglicanism, Anglican and Puritan religion, as well as Baptist, Presbyterian, Lutheran
Lutheranism is one of the largest branches of Protestantism, identifying primarily with the theology of Martin Luther, the 16th-century German monk and reformer whose efforts to reform the theology and practice of the Catholic Church launched th ...
, Religious Society of Friends, Quaker, and Moravian Church, Moravian denominations.
Beginning in the 16th century, the Spanish (and later the French and English) introduced Catholicism. From the 19th century to the present, Catholics came to the US in large numbers due to the immigration of Irish American, Irish, German American, Germans, Italian American, Italians, Hispanics, Portuguese American, Portuguese, French American, French, Polish American, Polish, Highland Scots, Dutch, Flemish, Hungarian people, Hungarians, Lebanese American, Lebanese (Maronite), and other ethnic groups.
Most of the Eastern Orthodox
Eastern Orthodoxy, also known as Eastern Orthodox Christianity, is one of the three main branches of Chalcedonian Christianity, alongside Catholicism and Protestantism.
Like the Pentarchy of the first millennium, the mainstream (or "canonical") ...
adherents in the United States are descended from immigrants of Eastern Europe
Eastern Europe is a subregion of the Europe, European continent. As a largely ambiguous term, it has a wide range of geopolitical, geographical, ethnic, cultural, and socio-economic connotations. The vast majority of the region is covered by Russ ...
an or Middle East
The Middle East ( ar, الشرق الأوسط, ISO 233: ) is a geopolitical region commonly encompassing Arabian Peninsula, Arabia (including the Arabian Peninsula and Bahrain), Anatolia, Asia Minor (Asian part of Turkey except Hatay Pro ...
ern background, especially from Greek American, Greek, Russian American, Russian, Ukrainian American, Ukrainian, Arab American, Arab, Bulgarian American, Bulgarian, Romanian American, Romanian, or Serbian American, Serbian backgrounds.
Most of the Oriental Orthodox
The Oriental Orthodox Churches are Eastern Christian churches adhering to Miaphysite Christology, with approximately 60 million members worldwide. The Oriental Orthodox Churches are part of the Nicene Christian tradition, and represent o ...
adherents in the United States are from Armenian American, Armenian, Coptic Americans, Coptic-Egyptian Americans, Egyptian and Ethiopian Americans, Ethiopian-Eritrean Americans, Eritrean backgrounds.
Along with the Ethiopian Americans, Ethiopian-Eritrean Americans, Eritrean Christians also came the P'ent'ay (Ethiopian Evangelicalism), P'ent'ay Evangelical Churches, a part of Evangelicalism that maintains the Eastern Christian
Eastern Christianity comprises Christian traditions and church families that originally developed during classical and late antiquity in Eastern Europe, Southeastern Europe, Asia Minor, the Caucasus, Northeast Africa, the Fertile Crescent and ...
Calendar and other cultural traditions.
Most of the traditional Assyrian Church of the East, Church of the East adherents in the United States are ethnically Assyrian American, Assyrian.
Data from the Pew Research Center
The Pew Research Center is a nonpartisan American think tank (referring to itself as a "fact tank") based in Washington, D.C.
It provides information on social issues, public opinion, and demographic trends shaping the United States and the w ...
show that as of 2013, there were about 1.6 million Christians from Jewish background, most of them Protestant
Protestantism is a Christian denomination, branch of Christianity that follows the theological tenets of the Reformation, Protestant Reformation, a movement that began seeking to reform the Catholic Church from within in the 16th century agai ...
. According to the same data, most of the Christians of Jewish descent were raised as Jews or are Jews by ancestry.
Conversion
A study from 2015 estimated some 450,000 Islam in the United States, American Muslims who had convert to Christianity, converted to Christianity, most of whom belong to an evangelical or Pentecostal
Pentecostalism or classical Pentecostalism is a Protestant Charismatic Christian movement community. In 2010 there were approximately 180,000 Arab American, Arab-Americans and about 130,000 Iranian Americans who converted from Islam to Christianity. Dudley Woodbury, a Fulbright scholar of Islam, estimates that 20,000 Muslims convert to Christianity annually in the United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...
. Many Druze immigrants to the United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...
converted to Protestantism
Protestantism is a branch of Christianity that follows the theological tenets of the Protestant Reformation, a movement that began seeking to reform the Catholic Church from within in the 16th century against what its followers perceived to b ...
, becoming communicants of the Presbyterian
Presbyterianism is a part of the Reformed tradition within Protestantism that broke from the Roman Catholic Church in Scotland by John Knox, who was a priest at St. Giles Cathedral (Church of Scotland). Presbyterian churches derive their nam ...
or Methodist
Methodism, also called the Methodist movement, is a group of historically related denominations of Protestant Christianity whose origins, doctrine and practice derive from the life and teachings of John Wesley. George Whitefield and John's b ...
Churches.
It's been also reported that conversion into Christianity is significantly increasing among Korean Americans
Korean Americans are Americans of Korean ancestry (mostly from South Korea). In 2015, the Korean-American community constituted about 0.56% of the United States population, or about 1.82 million people, and was the fifth-largest Asian American ...
, Chinese Americans
Chinese Americans are Americans of Han Chinese ancestry. Chinese Americans constitute a subgroup of East Asian Americans which also constitute a subgroup of Asian Americans. Many Chinese Americans along with their ancestors trace lineage from ...
, and Japanese Americans
are Americans of Japanese ancestry. Japanese Americans were among the three largest Asian American ethnic communities during the 20th century; but, according to the 2000 census, they have declined in number to constitute the sixth largest Asi ...
. By 2012, the percentage of Christians within the mentioned communities was 71%, more than 30%[Pew Forum - Chinese Americans' Religions](_blank)
. and 37%.
Messianic Judaism (or Messianic Movement) is the name of a Protestant movement comprising a number of streams, whose members may consider themselves Jewish.[
] It blends elements of religious Judaism, Jewish practice with evangelical Protestantism. Messianic Judaism affirms Christian creeds such as the messiahship and divinity of "Yeshua (name), Yeshua" (the Hebrew name of Jesus) and the Triune Nature of God, while also adhering to some Jewish dietary laws and customs. , population estimates for the United States were between 175,000 and 250,000 members.[
]
A 2013 Pew Research Center report found that 1.7 million American Jewish adults, 1.6 million of whom were raised in Jewish homes or had Jewish ancestry, identified as Christians or Messianic Judaism, Messianic Jews but also consider themselves ethnically Jewish. According to a 2020 study by the Pew Research Center
The Pew Research Center is a nonpartisan American think tank (referring to itself as a "fact tank") based in Washington, D.C.
It provides information on social issues, public opinion, and demographic trends shaping the United States and the w ...
, 19% of those who say they were raised Jewish, consider themselves Christian.
Self-reported membership statistics
This table lists total membership and number of congregations in the United States for religious bodies with more than 1 million members. Numbers are from reports on the official web sites, which can vary widely based on information source and membership definition.
See also
* Christian nationalism
* Demographics of the United States
* History of religion in the United States
* Religion in the United States
* Yearbook of American and Canadian Churches
References
Sources
*
*
Further reading
* Ahlstrom, Sydney E. ''A Religious History of the American People'' (1972, 2004) the standard histor
excerpt and text search
* Askew, Thomas A., and Peter W. Spellman. ''The Churches and the American Experiment: Ideals and Institutions'' (1984).
* Balmer, Randall. ''Protestantism in America'' (2005)
* Balmer, Randall. ''The Encyclopedia of Evangelicalism'' (2002
excerpt and text search
* Bonomi, Patricia U. ''Under the Cope of Heaven: Religion, Society, and Politics in Colonial America'' Oxford University Press, 198
online edition
* Butler, Jon, et al. ''Religion in American Life: A Short History'' (2011)
* Dolan, Jay P. ''The American Catholic Experience'' (1992)
* Johnson, Paul, ed. ''African-American Christianity: Essays in History,'' (1994
complete text online free
* Keller, Rosemary Skinner, and Rosemary Radford Ruether, eds. ''Encyclopedia of Women and Religion in North America'' (3 vol 2006)
* Noll, Mark A. ''American Evangelical Christianity: An Introduction'' (2000
excerpt and text search
* Wigger, John H.. and Nathan O. Hatch. ''Methodism and the Shaping of American Culture.'' (2001
excerpt and text search
External links
{{DEFAULTSORT:Christianity In The United States
Christianity in the United States,