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New Thread For What Denomination(s) Are You From


R. S. Martin

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Here is the new thread I promised for What denomination are you from. The first thread is here. I am hoping that the people who voted on the other thread also vote here. No offense on my part if you copy your other post here.

 

I incorporated as many suggestions as I could from the original thread. In the end, some arbitrary choices had to be made. There is only room for 20 denominations (out of 34,000 world-wide). Choose the one(s) that best describe the denomination(s) you are from. I set it so you can choose more than one answer. If you choose "other," please write a post to specify. Thank you.

 

Here is some explanation for how choices were made, and some other "behind the scenes" decisions:

 

Originally, the idea to do a poll on this came from LosingMyReligion's thread on which denomination is worse--Southern Baptist or Roman Catholic. Before that, I had already noticed that we have large numbers of exSouthern Baptists on this forum. I have also noticed a number of people talking about a KJV only church which I understand is yet another kind of Baptist.

 

For these reasons, I am especially interested in polling different kinds of Baptists and the Roman Catholics. Since Baptists in general are so strongly represented on this forum, I can't just leave out Baptists who don't fit these two groups. Thus we end up having three Baptist groups and none of some other names.

I do what I can to avoid duplication such as making separate options for the same church with different names in different locations. The big one in this category is Episcopal/Anglican/Church of England.

 

 

I really don't know what constitutes a denomination. For example, from the outside the Amish and conservative Mennonnites look the same. But they are NOT the same. They split three centuries ago (1693). I get the impression there are other churches with similar histories. All the same, I put the Amish and Mennonites together because they are so similar.

 

Another major problem is that Mennonite covers a huge spectrum of cultures here in North America, not to mention Africa and China. In North American, it includes people who don't have electricity or driver's license to people who go to church in shorts and sandles with the fanciest cars available and own the most sophisticated technology invented. On the confessional level, however, I think the differences are minor. I would say the difference between Amish and Mennonites on the confessional level is greater than between the horse and buggy Mennonites and the most liberal Mennonites. There may be other denominations with similar profiles and I just don't know this much about them.

 

My biggest interest in this project is to see what kind of churches are hardest on their members. I start with the hypothesis that the churches that are most difficult for their members lose more people. However, I realize that this is not necessarily true. Possibly the most difficult churches keep their members so totally cowed that leaving is not an option. That was my case for a large portion of my life and I know a Mennonite group that loses practically none of their members.

 

 

Anyway, this is an informal project, though it occurs to me to do a more formal project at some point in my life. That is when real decisions have to be made on how to divide up the different churches and/or theologies. I include Universalist Unitarian in the list below because there are a significant number of Christians in UU churches.

 

Feedback is welcome.

 

Here is a list with more names than fit onto the poll:

 

 

Anglican/Episcopalian/Church of England

Apostolic

Assembly of God

Brethern

Baptist (all types except Southern and Fundamental)

Calvary Chapel

Church of God

Congregational

Evangelical (if this was main identity)

Fundamental Baptist (KJV only)

German Lutheran

Greek Orthodox

Hutterite

Independent Christian Church

Jehovah's Witness

Latter Day Saints

Lutheran

Mennonite/Amish

Methodist/Quaker

Missionary Alliance

Mormon

Nondenominational

Pentecostal/Charismatic

Plymouth Brethren

Presbyterian/Reformed Church

River Brethern/Dunkard

Roman Catholic

Salvation Army

Seventh Day Adventist

Southern Baptist

United Church of Canada

Universalist Unitarian

Other (please indicate what)

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I come from a Oneness, Jesus-name-only, KJV-only, holiness, Apostolic Pentecostal church; the particular church I was brought up in was associated with the UPCI. Their salvation requirements are very strict -- both in obtaining and maintaining salvation. UPCI churches tend to develop personality cults surrounding the pastor, largely due to the amount of authority he is given.

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Parents - Methodist/Excommunicated Roman, baptised Anglican.

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This poll works better for me (and it's clearly all about me! :lol:). I started out in Presbyterian and Methodist churches as a kid (depending on where I was living at the time), but then my girlfriend in college wanted to attend a Southern Baptist church. I spent a few years in this denomination and got extremely burned out and took a hiatus from any kind of religion for a few years. After the birth of my first child, I started attending a Methodist church again for a while, and this was the last of the creed-based xtian institutions that I attended.

 

After that, I attended Quaker meetings for a while (would still go now, but I moved away), some Buddhist meditation, and am now attending at a Unitarian Universalist church. It's the best place that an Atheist family can attend in my area (as far as I know) and has no creed, etc... it works.

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Pentecostal, Evangelical, and then Word of Life/Word of Faith and Calvary Chapel. (Been around a little)

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Where I came from (and voted for): Episcopalian

 

Where I am now (and did not vote for): OTHER (AKA Unitarian Universalism, where an Atheist can be a member of the board of governors without anyone batting an eye, and the only time Jesus's name is mentioned in church is when the maintenance guy drops his hammer on his big toe....LOL)

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Roman Catholic.

 

Though, if I may be permitted a regression into some of my old apologetics, the 'Roman' church is technically only one of about 3 or 4 churches that comprise the Latin Rite. The Latin Rite is in turn only one of the 23 Rites that form the Catholic Church, the rest all being Eastern Catholic.

 

Yeah, I know... :loser:

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Baptized as a Roman Catholic, confirmed as a Methodist. Now I'm a proud pagan. :)

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Hey guys, thanks all of you for entering this new survey. I have a positive feeling about it and I see so do you. It looks like a healthy beginning. That's great!

 

The first survey with its many suggestions and other input from participants was very helpful in setting this one up. I always feel encouraged when former foundations can serve as building blocks for new edifaces. It means the past was not wasted and there is hope for the future. That means we're on the right track. Thanks again, folks.

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This poll works better for me (and it's clearly all about me! :lol: ).

 

:) :) :)

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My biggest interest in this project is to see what kind of churches are hardest on their members. I start with the hypothesis that the churches that are most difficult for their members lose more people. However, I realize that this is not necessarily true. Possibly the most difficult churches keep their members so totally cowed that leaving is not an option. That was my case for a large portion of my life and I know a Mennonite group that loses practically none of their members.

 

I do realise that all people tend to lean towards where they came from when answering questions like this. For that reason I can't say nondenom churches are the hardest on their members, I also think what is hard for one person could be not as bad for another, with that said I see a particular problem with nondemons.

 

The So Bap can be very loose on how the denom rules over each indivdidual church, BUT still a Pastor could end up answering to someone if they sway away from firmly held doctrine or get caught doing something "really bad", usaully illegal, but not always. Fred Phelps started off as a baptist, the church still carries a baptist tag, although no babtist denom claims them. Mr. Phelps went too far and they would no longer claim him as their own. This makes it where all those that were members of his church could leave with a church blessing, it also gave them somewhere to complain to. Unfortunatly the story is not the same for his family. Who are now stuck with no higher athority to go to for help. A pastor can hold a lot of power over a congregation, even one that is not his family. A pastor is a person people go to when in crisis looking for wise, godly advice. People in vunerable places, sometimes young and suggestable. If a pastor actaully breaks the law yes, you can turn to the athorities, but a lot of damage can be done to a person, to a marriage and to a family before any laws are broken. I realise that any denom can do things like this, the clergy in pretty much all denoms seems to manage to hurt people. With a denom though a pastor, preist, or whoever often has someone else to answer to for his decisions, which can lead to a healthier balance. In a nondenom though, until a pastor crosses a line of law, his word is THE word in HIS chruch. You know what they say about absolute power......

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Raised a Mormon and when I moved away for university, I decided to hang around the churches my friends went to, mainly Catholic, Presbyterian and Pentecostal.

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I'll just qualify my choices here a bit. I chose Anglican, Baptist (non-southern), and Other. I was primarily an Evangelical Baptist for most of my sojourn in christendom; I converted into an Evangelical Baptist church. However, i took a wild swing into non-denominational charismatic xianity, hence the 'Other' choice, for several years. In the year before my deconversion, as a last-ditch effort, I tried the Anglican church and attended regularly there for about nine months. So there you have it.

 

(this post is an edited version of the one on the other thread.) Thanks for re-doing the poll, Ruby! It's interesting to see all the different backgrounds here.

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Pentecostal. But not Holiness Pentecostal. Charismatic. Can Holiness Pents be charismatic, too?

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Seems like the ex-Cathoholics are in the lead. Count another one in ;)

 

Was born and raised a Roman Catholic, ditched it for about a year in my late teens for nondenominational fundamentalism, then reconverted to Catholicism with a vengeance. Somewhere between my 26th and 27th years of life, I kicked Jebus to the curb.

 

Now a proud Pagan :pureevil:

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Another escapee from the catholic camp here.

 

Raised in a catholic central american country (El Salvador, San Salvador - The Savior, Holy Savior) with a 99% catholic population.

 

Solitary pagan atheist now and proud of it.

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Thanks so much for your input, everybody. Sarahgrace, I thought your post looked somewhat like the other one and then you clarified. I think it's better, too, than the other one. :)

 

Evergreen said:

 

Pentecostal. But not Holiness Pentecostal. Charismatic. Can Holiness Pents be charismatic, too?

 

This is an interesting question. I ended up writing a whole batch of questions about it because it really catches my interest. I realized it's rather off-topic and could turn into a discussion all its own so I started a new thread in General Theological Issues.

 

Edited to add link.

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I am hoping that the people who voted on the other thread also vote here.

 

Just done that... still "German (read: lukewarm) Lutheran" over here.

 

(that does mean that I voted "other'" and "Lutheran", just to have stated it...)

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Thanks, ExCOG and Thurisaz.

 

I notice a major difference between this poll and the other one. In the other one, Southern Baptists and Roman Catholics were about equal. One would be leading, then the other pulled ahead. Here RC is WAY ahead of Southern Baptist and all others. Is that because the exSouthern Baptists have not bothered voting again but the exCatholics do? or is there some other reason? What would be the reason for that? I mean, why would the difference run along denominational lines as to who votes again and who doesn't?

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Thanks, ExCOG and Thurisaz.

 

I notice a major difference between this poll and the other one. In the other one, Southern Baptists and Roman Catholics were about equal. One would be leading, then the other pulled ahead. Here RC is WAY ahead of Southern Baptist and all others. Is that because the exSouthern Baptists have not bothered voting again but the exCatholics do? or is there some other reason? What would be the reason for that? I mean, why would the difference run along denominational lines as to who votes again and who doesn't?

It's possible that not everyone voted again on your second poll. But a more likely reason is that your original poll only offered Baptists one choice: Southern Baptists. Other Baptists may have clicked on that catagory because it was the nearest to what they were. The new poll gives Baptists three different choices, thus splitting the vote.

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Just checked and you're right. Didn't know at the time there were this many different kinds of Baptists. I learned a lot through these surveys. I appreciate that people obliged. Thanks!

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TBH the Baptists can schism if they don't like the Pastor's wife's beard...

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As a kid till I was a teen, it was an Evangelical church and school, but 90% of the students and teachers were Southern Baptist.

 

Really, the only difference between the two was that Baptists thought all the wine mentioned in the Bible was grape juice, and they believe dancing (all forms...even ballroom) is inherently evil.

 

As a late teen/young adult, I drifted around various pentecostalish/non-denominational churches.

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  • 1 year later...
Guest Ronnie45

Former Jehovah's Witness here.

Spent my first 29 years in the JW's and now been free for the last 11.

 

The jw's are one to avoid...

 

I'm trying to learn more about other religions here since I've never been to any other ones besides that one.

 

 

If any former jw's are on this site, you can find recovery as I did, but it takes patience and work.

 

for any ex-jws (or interested ones)...

 

Ex-JW Forum/Recovery

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