A map, not a league table. Every entry here is somebody’s home, and each family is described the way its own members would describe it. If a Catholic reads the Catholic entry and thinks yes, that is what we hold, it has done its job; if they think that is what our critics say we hold, it has failed.
Adherent numbers are estimates. They are self-reported, counted differently from tradition to tradition, and contested at the edges.
What actually divides
Most people meet denominations as a list of names, and the names are the least informative part. These six questions predict where a body lands far better than its label does, and several of them cut across families rather than between them.
Scripture alone, Scripture within tradition, or Scripture with a living teaching office. This single question sorts more of the map than any other, and it is what 1517 was really about once you get past the .
Infants of believing parents, on the pattern, or only those old enough to profess faith for themselves. This is not a minor question about a rite: it follows directly from what you think the church is.
, without an explanation attached, spiritual presence received by faith, or memorial. Traditions that agree on nearly everything else have divided here, and it was the point Luther and Zwingli could not get past.
Bishops standing in historic succession, elected elders in graded courts, or the local congregation itself answering to no one above it. As many splits have come from this as from doctrine, and it is the quietest of the six.
Whether saving can finally be resisted, and what part the human will plays in it. The and Arminian streams run THROUGH several families rather than separating them, which is why two Baptists can differ here more than a Baptist and a .
or . The newest of the six, barely a question before 1906, and now the one dividing the fastest-growing part of the church.
Compare them
Line any two or three up on the same six questions. The groupings people expect are wrong in interesting ways: Lutherans and Catholics sit closer on communion than Lutherans and Baptists do, and the grace question runs straight through the Baptists rather than around them.
Continue, though ordinarily rare; charismatic renewal accepted
Generally cessationist
Mostly cessationist; charismatic Baptists exist
The great splits, and what they were over
451
The Oriental Orthodox separate after Chalcedon
How to state that Christ is God and man: one nature from two, or one person in two natures. Modern joint declarations between these churches and both Rome and Constantinople have concluded the difference was substantially about language rather than belief, which is a striking thing to learn about a fifteen-hundred-year division.
1054
East and West, the Great Schism
The authority of the bishop of Rome over the other ancient , and the , a clause the West added to the saying the Spirit proceeds from the Father AND the Son. The date is symbolic; the estrangement took centuries and was made far worse by the sack of Constantinople in 1204.
1517
The Reformation begins
Immediately, indulgences. Underneath, where authority finally rests. Everything in the Protestant family tree grows from that root.
1525
The Radical Reformation
Whether the Reformation had gone far enough. The Anabaptists baptised believing adults, refused oaths and the sword, and separated church from state entirely. They were persecuted by and Protestants alike.
1529
Luther and Zwingli fail to agree at Marburg
Communion, and nothing else. They agreed on fourteen articles and broke on the fifteenth. Luther is said to have chalked THIS IS MY BODY on the table and refused to move. It is the moment Protestantism becomes plural.
1534
The English Reformation
Beginning with Henry VIII's marriage and the crown's authority over the church, and settling into something deliberately broad: catholic order with reformed doctrine.
1610
The Remonstrance, and Dort
Whether grace can be resisted. Followers of Arminius published five objections to strict ; the of Dort answered with five points of its own. Both sets of five are still being argued over, inside nearly every Protestant family.
1738 onward
The Evangelical Revival and Methodism
Not doctrine at first but practice: field preaching, personal conversion, small accountable groups, and hymns. Methodism became a separate church largely because the Church of England would not ordain enough ministers for America.
1906
Azusa Street and Pentecostalism
Whether the gifts described in Acts are for the present. From a small revival in a Los Angeles mission it became the fastest-growing Christian movement of the twentieth century.
The families
Roman Catholic
About 1.3 billion
Claims continuous institutional descent from the apostolic church; distinct from the East after 1054
The church as a visible, historic body with a teaching office, holding that Christ established a structure with Peter and his successors at its head, and that the faith is handed on through Scripture and Tradition together.
What you would find here and almost nowhere else
A living teaching office that can settle a question. No other tradition has a mechanism by which a disputed doctrine can be definitively closed, which is why Catholic doctrinal development looks like a slow accumulation of settled points rather than a series of splits.
Why they hold it, at its strongest
The New Testament nowhere hands anyone a table of contents. The itself was recognised by the church, over centuries, through councils and bishops; if that process was reliable enough to give you your Bible, it is strange to declare it unreliable the moment it says anything else. Christ promised the gates of hell would not prevail and that the Spirit would lead into all truth, and he made those promises to a community, not to a book that did not yet exist. Every tradition has an interpretive authority; ours is visible and accountable and can be named. The alternative has not produced unity but forty thousand bodies, each certain it is reading plainly.
Authority
Scripture and Sacred Tradition together, interpreted by the . Papal infallibility applies narrowly, to solemn definitions on faith and morals, and has been invoked rarely.
Sacraments
Seven: baptism, confirmation, Eucharist, reconciliation, anointing of the sick, holy orders, matrimony. Infant baptism. Transubstantiation.
Government
, worldwide, under the bishop of Rome.
Often mistaken for
That Catholics worship Mary and the saints. The distinction drawn is between latria, worship due to God alone, and dulia, honour given to saints as one asks a friend to pray. Catholics would say the difference is not a technicality but the whole point.
Branches within it · 5 ›
Latin Church — The Western church, by far the largest part, using the Roman rite.
Eastern Catholic Churches — Twenty-three churches with Byzantine, Syriac, Coptic and other rites, in communion with Rome while keeping their own liturgy, canon law and married priesthood. Maronite, Ukrainian Greek Catholic, Chaldean and others.Split 1596 onward: Not a split from Rome but a series of reunions with it, most famously the Union of Brest, in which Eastern churches entered communion while keeping their rites. Their existence is one of the sorest points in Catholic-Orthodox relations.
Society of St Pius X — Traditionalist, celebrating the older Latin Mass; canonically irregular rather than formally separate.Split 1970: Rejection of the reforms of the Second Vatican Council, particularly the vernacular liturgy and the declaration on religious liberty.
Old Catholic Churches — Small European bodies with valid orders, now in communion with Anglicans.Split 1870: Refusal of the definition of papal infallibility at the First Vatican Council.
Religious orders — Not denominations but distinct traditions within: Benedictine stability, Franciscan poverty, Dominican preaching, Jesuit mission and education, Carmelite contemplation.
Eastern Orthodox
About 220 million
The churches of the East, distinct from Rome after 1054
A communion of self-governing national churches holding the faith of the seven ecumenical councils unchanged, with a strong emphasis on worship as the place theology lives, and on , the transformation of a person into the likeness of God.
What you would find here and almost nowhere else
Theology as something you enter rather than something you conclude. Orthodoxy resists systematising, prefers to say what God is not, and treats the rather than a as the primary carrier of the faith. It is also the only major tradition that has added nothing to its doctrinal deposit since the eighth century, and regards that as the point.
Why they hold it, at its strongest
We have changed nothing. Every other tradition on this page can be dated to a moment when someone decided something new had to be said: a clause added to the creed, an office defined, a doctrine developed. We received the faith of the councils and have kept it, and the burden of proof lies with whoever departed. The West has spent a thousand years solving problems its own innovations created, and calls the solutions development. Where Scripture and the Fathers are silent we are content to be silent, because the mystery is not a gap in our knowledge to be filled but the thing itself.
Authority
Scripture within Holy Tradition, defined by the seven ecumenical councils and the consensus of the Fathers. No bishop has universal jurisdiction; Constantinople is first in honour, not in power.
Sacraments
Seven, usually called mysteries, though Orthodoxy is reluctant to number them tightly. Infants are baptised, and communed at once. How Christ is present is deliberately left unexplained.
Government
Episcopal, in national churches.
Often mistaken for
That it is Catholicism without a pope. Orthodoxy differs on , , the filioque and the whole shape of how salvation is described, and would say the differences run considerably deeper than governance.
Branches within it · 4 ›
Greek, Russian, Serbian, Romanian, Bulgarian, Georgian — Autocephalous churches, each governing itself, in full communion with one another. The differences are national and liturgical rather than doctrinal.
Antiochian and Alexandrian — The ancient patriarchates, now with substantial Western diasporas and a notable number of Protestant converts.
Old Believers — Preserve pre-reform Russian practice; several sub-groups, some without priests at all.Split 1666: Patriarch Nikon's liturgical reforms, including how many fingers to use for the sign of the cross and how many times to sing alleluia. The ferocity is only intelligible if you grant that for Orthodoxy the liturgy IS the theology.
Ukrainian Orthodox Church — Granted autocephaly by Constantinople in 2019, which Moscow does not recognise.Split 2018-19: Jurisdiction over Ukraine. Moscow broke communion with Constantinople over it, the most serious rupture within Orthodoxy in centuries.
Oriental Orthodox
About 60 million
Separated after the Council of Chalcedon in 451
The ancient churches of Egypt, Ethiopia, Armenia, Syria and India, holding the first three ecumenical councils. Among the oldest continuous Christian communities anywhere, and in several cases long-persecuted minorities.
What you would find here and almost nowhere else
Fifteen centuries of continuous Christian life largely outside Europe, under Persian, Islamic and colonial rule, with liturgies in Coptic, Ge'ez, Armenian and Syriac. The Ethiopian church has the largest biblical canon in Christianity, including Enoch and Jubilees.
Why they hold it, at its strongest
We were not condemned for what we believe but for the words we would not use. Cyril of Alexandria's formula, one incarnate nature of the Word, was when he taught it and became heresy when Chalcedon preferred another phrase; we declined to abandon our own Father's language under imperial pressure. We confess Christ fully God and fully man, without confusion, without change. That the Catholic and Orthodox churches have now signed declarations saying our faith is theirs is not a concession we sought. It is what we said in 451.
Authority
Scripture and the tradition of the first three councils and their own Fathers.
That they deny Christ's humanity. The label is rejected by these churches; they say , one incarnate nature from two, fully God and fully human. Joint statements with Rome and Constantinople in recent decades have affirmed a shared faith in different words.
Branches within it · 5 ›
Coptic Orthodox — Egypt, tracing its founding to Mark, with the monastic tradition that shaped all later Christian monasticism.
Ethiopian and Eritrean Orthodox Tewahedo — Ancient and distinctive: the broadest canon in Christianity, a form of sabbath observance, and claims regarding the ark.
Armenian Apostolic — Armenia was the first state to adopt Christianity, in 301.
Syriac Orthodox and Malankara — Syria and India; the Indian churches trace their founding to Thomas.
Assyrian Church of the East — Often listed alongside but technically separate, holding only the first two councils.Split 431: Ephesus, and the condemnation of Nestorius. This church carried Christianity along the Silk Road to China and India centuries before European missions.
Lutheran
About 75 million
Germany, from 1517
The first Protestant tradition, holding that a person is justified by grace through faith alone, and keeping whatever in catholic practice Scripture does not forbid, which made it liturgically conservative compared with what followed.
What you would find here and almost nowhere else
Law and gospel as the key that unlocks the whole Bible: every text is doing one of two things, either showing you your need or announcing what God has done about it. Also the regulative principle in reverse — where the Reformed asked what Scripture commands, Lutherans asked only what it forbids, and kept the rest.
Why they hold it, at its strongest
The conscience cannot be comforted by anything it must contribute to. If rests to any degree on my cooperation, then in the hour I most need it, at a deathbed or in real guilt, it will fail, because I know exactly how much my cooperation is worth. must therefore be entirely outside me, given, received by faith, or it is not good news but a further demand. And this is why we kept the liturgy, the vestments, the real presence: none of them are things I do. They are places God has promised to act on me. We did not set out to found a church. We asked one question about how a sinner is right with God, and were told to leave.
Authority
Scripture alone as the norm, confessed through the Book of Concord. Law and gospel as the interpretive key.
Sacraments
Two. Infant baptism, genuinely regenerative. The real presence, in, with and under the bread and wine, without adopting transubstantiation as an explanation.
Government
Varies by country: episcopal in Scandinavia, synodical elsewhere.
Often mistaken for
That faith alone means works do not matter. Lutherans hold that works follow from faith as fruit from a tree, and that the error is making them a cause rather than a consequence.
Branches within it · 5 ›
Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) — The larger and more liberal American body; ordains women and, since 2009, partnered clergy.
Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod (LCMS) — Confessional and conservative; biblical inerrancy, does not ordain women.Split 1847, and again 1974: Founded by Saxon immigrants seeking to preserve confessional Lutheranism. The 1974 Seminex walkout, when most of the St Louis faculty and students left over historical-critical method, decided the synod's direction for a generation.
Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod (WELS) — More conservative still, with a stricter practice of closed communion and of fellowship generally.
Church of Sweden, Church of Norway, and other Nordic churches — Episcopal, historically established, now largely disestablished and theologically liberal.
North American Lutheran Church, LCMC — Conservative bodies formed by congregations leaving the ELCA.Split 2010: The ELCA's 2009 decision on partnered clergy.
Reformed and Presbyterian
About 80 million
Switzerland from the 1520s, through Zwingli and then Calvin
Organised around the sovereignty of God over all of life, covenant as the framework of Scripture, and government by elders. It produced the most systematic theology of the Reformation and a formidable tradition of education.
What you would find here and almost nowhere else
Covenant as the key to the whole Bible, which is why infants are baptised on the same logic by which they were circumcised, and why the Old Testament is read as one continuous story with the New rather than as a preface to it. Also the conviction that there is no sphere of life outside Christ's claim, which produced both Geneva's civic order and a long tradition of political engagement.
Why they hold it, at its strongest
If salvation depends at any point on a choice I contribute, then the decisive factor in my redemption is me, and grace has become an offer rather than a rescue. Scripture describes us as dead, not ailing, and the dead do not cooperate. That God chose before the foundation of the world is not a doctrine we invented for tidiness; it is in Ephesians, and every alternative has to spend its energy explaining what that chapter cannot mean. The doctrine humbles rather than paralyses: it removes any ground for looking down on anyone, and it is the only foundation on which assurance can rest, because what I did not begin I cannot undo.
Authority
Scripture alone, confessed through the Westminster Standards or the Three Forms of Unity, and read covenantally across both Testaments.
Sacraments
Two. Infant baptism as the covenant sign corresponding to circumcision. Christ truly present in communion spiritually, received by faith.
Government
Presbyterian: elected elders in graded courts, session, , general assembly. No bishops.
Often mistaken for
That predestination makes evangelism pointless. The tradition's own answer is that God ordains means as well as ends, and it has one of the more energetic missionary histories in Protestantism.
Branches within it · 6 ›
Presbyterian Church (USA) — The larger and more liberal American body; ordains women and LGBT clergy.
Presbyterian Church in America (PCA) — Conservative, holds to Westminster, does not ordain women.Split 1973: Departure from the southern Presbyterian church over biblical authority, theological liberalism in the seminaries, and the ordination of women.
Orthodox Presbyterian Church — Small, rigorously confessional.Split 1936: The fundamentalist-modernist controversy; J. Gresham Machen was suspended for founding an independent mission board and left with those who followed.
Free Church of Scotland, Reformed Presbyterian — Scottish bodies, several practising exclusive psalmody and unaccompanied singing.
Continental Reformed — Dutch, Swiss and Hungarian churches holding the Three Forms of Unity. The Dutch tradition in particular has divided repeatedly, each secession usually over confessional strictness.
Congregationalist and the United Church of Christ — Same theology historically, different government: each congregation self-governing.Split 1580s onward: Not a doctrinal break but an ecclesiological one, over whether a church may be governed from above at all. The New England Puritans were of this kind.
Anglican and Episcopal
About 85 million
England, from 1534
Deliberately a middle way, keeping catholic order, bishops and liturgy alongside reformed doctrine. Its unity has historically rested on praying the same words rather than on subscribing to the same system.
What you would find here and almost nowhere else
A church held together by a prayer book rather than a confession. Anglicanism's doctrinal standards are largely embedded in what it says when it worships, which is why liturgical revision is so fiercely contested: changing the words changes the theology in a way no other tradition quite parallels.
Why they hold it, at its strongest
The Reformation was right that the church had erred and right that Scripture judges the church. It did not follow that everything before it was worthless. We kept the ministry the church had always had, the liturgy shaped over centuries, and the , while submitting all of it to Scripture — and we declined to make a system out of the result. What looks from outside like indecision is a considered judgment that the church's unity is not a doctrinal system but a common life of prayer, and that Christians who cannot agree about predestination can still kneel at the same rail. Whether that judgment can survive the present pressures is a fair question, and we are living it.
Authority
Scripture as primary, with tradition and reason. The Book of Common Prayer does much of the work a confession does elsewhere.
Sacraments
Two as generally necessary, with five other rites commonly called sacramental. Infant baptism. Views of communion range widely, and the latitude is intentional.
Government
Episcopal, in autonomous national provinces in communion with Canterbury.
Often mistaken for
That it is Catholic-lite, or Protestantism with better robes. Anglicans across the range would say the settlement is a positive claim about how much can be held together, not a failure to decide.
Branches within it · 5 ›
Anglo-Catholic (High Church) — Sacraments, ceremony and continuity with the pre-Reformation church. Grew out of the Oxford Movement of the 1830s.
Evangelical (Low Church) — Scripture, preaching and conversion; the Reformation inheritance foremost.
Broad Church and liberal — Reason, inclusion, and engagement with modern scholarship.
Anglican Church in North America (ACNA) and GAFCON — Conservative realignment, with much of its strength in Africa, where Anglicanism is now most numerous.Split 2008-09: The consecration of a partnered gay bishop in 2003, and behind it a longer disagreement about biblical authority. The realignment is notable for southern provinces asserting leadership over the historic centre.
Continuing Anglican churches — Small bodies using older prayer books.Split 1977: The ordination of women and the 1979 American prayer book.
Anabaptist
About 2 million, with influence far beyond the numbers
Switzerland, 1525
The radical wing of the Reformation: baptism on profession of faith, a church of committed disciples, separation from the state, and in most branches a refusal of violence including in war.
What you would find here and almost nowhere else
The Sermon on the Mount read as directly binding policy rather than as an ideal. Anabaptists were the first Western Christians to argue for the complete separation of church and state, at a time when both Catholic and Protestant authorities regarded that as sedition, and they were executed by both for it.
Why they hold it, at its strongest
Christendom was the fall of the church, not its triumph. From the moment an emperor could make Christianity compulsory, the church acquired members who had never chosen anything and a sword it was never given. We baptise those who can answer for themselves because the church is a body of disciples, not a population. We refuse the sword because our Lord refused it and told Peter to put his away, and no amount of theological ingenuity has ever made love your enemies mean what the state needs it to mean. That we were drowned for this by people who agreed with us about justification tells you something about what was actually at stake.
Authority
Scripture, read with the Sermon on the Mount as the interpretive centre, and discerned by the gathered congregation.
Sacraments
rather than sacraments: believer's baptism, the Lord's Supper, and in many congregations foot washing.
Government
, with strong communal discipline.
Often mistaken for
That the plain-dress groups are the whole of it. Most Mennonites drive cars and hold ordinary jobs; the horse-and-buggy Amish are one comparatively small branch.
Branches within it · 5 ›
Mennonite — The largest branch, named for Menno Simons; prominent in peace work and disaster relief worldwide.
Amish — Plain dress, limited technology, Pennsylvania German.Split 1693: Jakob Ammann held that shunning must be applied strictly and that the Swiss Brethren had grown lax. The division was about church discipline, not about technology, which was not an issue for another two centuries.
Hutterite — Full community of goods, on colonies across the northern plains and prairies.Split 1528: A decision that Acts 2 requires holding all property in common, not merely generosity.
Brethren in Christ, Church of the Brethren — Anabaptist convictions blended with Pietist warmth; trine immersion in some.
Bruderhof — Twentieth-century communal movement, distinct in origin but Anabaptist in conviction.
Baptist
About 100 million
England and Holland, from about 1609
Believer's baptism by , regenerate church membership, and the autonomy of the local congregation. Historically among the strongest voices anywhere for religious liberty.
What you would find here and almost nowhere else
Local church autonomy taken to its limit: no association, convention or council can bind a congregation, and every Baptist body is a voluntary society its churches may leave at will. Combined with competency, this produces enormous internal variety under one name.
Why they hold it, at its strongest
A church is a gathering of people who have been born again, and there is no other kind in the New Testament. Every baptism recorded there follows belief; not one infant is baptised on any page. The moment you baptise those who cannot believe, you have a church coextensive with a society, full of members who have never repented, and the discipline the New Testament assumes becomes impossible. And because faith cannot be coerced, the state has no business in it — which is why Baptists argued for religious liberty when it cost them, for everyone, including those they thought entirely wrong.
Authority
Scripture alone, with a strong doctrine of soul competency: each believer answers to God directly. Confessions are usually descriptive rather than binding.
Sacraments
Two ordinances: baptism by immersion on profession of faith, and the Lord's Supper, generally as a memorial.
Government
Congregational and fiercely local. Associations are voluntary and cannot bind a church.
Often mistaken for
That Baptists are Anabaptists. The convictions overlap on baptism, but Baptists arose separately out of English Separatism, and most Baptists are not pacifists.
Branches within it · 6 ›
Southern Baptist Convention — The largest Protestant body in the United States.Split 1845, and a course change in 1979: Founded when northern Baptists refused to appoint slaveholders as missionaries; the convention formally apologised for that origin in 1995. The Conservative Resurgence from 1979 turned the convention decisively toward inerrancy.
National Baptist and Progressive National Baptist — Historically Black denominations; the Progressive convention formed in 1961 partly over support for civil rights activism, and was King's church home.
American Baptist Churches USA — More theologically diverse; ordains women.
Reformed Baptist — Calvinist soteriology with Baptist ecclesiology; the 1689 London Confession, which is Westminster with the baptism and church-government chapters rewritten.
Free Will Baptist, General Baptist — Arminian, holding that grace may be resisted. The General Baptists are actually the older stream.
Primitive Baptist — Strongly predestinarian, rejecting mission societies, Sunday schools and instruments as human inventions.
Methodist and Wesleyan
About 80 million
England, from 1738
Grew out of a renewal movement inside Anglicanism under John and Charles Wesley. Marked by the conviction that grace goes ahead of us, that assurance can be known, and that holiness is something God actually works in a life.
What you would find here and almost nowhere else
— the teaching that God is already at work in every person before they know it, which is how Methodism holds free will without making salvation a human achievement. Also the class meeting: small groups where members answered weekly for how their souls prospered, which is the engine that made the movement grow.
Why they hold it, at its strongest
God is not the author of anyone's damnation. A decree that consigns some to ruin before they exist, for his glory, is not a doctrine we can square with the God who so loved the world, and Scripture's invitations are not offers made to people who cannot accept them. But neither is salvation a human work: no one seeks God unaided, and the grace that goes before us makes the response possible in the first place. And salvation is not merely a verdict. God intends actually to make us holy, in this life, not only to declare us so — otherwise grace changes our standing and leaves us as we are.
Authority
Scripture as primary, with tradition, reason and experience. Wesley's sermons and notes function as doctrinal standards.
Sacraments
Two. Infant baptism is practised, believers' baptism accepted. Communion as a genuine means of grace.
Government
: a mix of episcopal and conference structures, with ministers appointed by the connexion rather than called by congregations.
Often mistaken for
That entire means claiming to be sinless. Wesley meant a heart wholly turned to love of God and neighbour, and hedged it carefully.
Branches within it · 5 ›
United Methodist Church — The largest body, and until recently the third-largest denomination in the United States.Split 2019-24: Sexuality, and behind it biblical authority. Roughly a quarter of American congregations disaffiliated.
Global Methodist Church — Formed in 2022 by conservative congregations leaving the UMC.
African Methodist Episcopal (AME), AME Zion, CME — Historically Black Methodist denominations.Split 1816 and after: The AME was founded after Richard Allen and others were pulled from their knees during prayer in a segregated Philadelphia church. The split was over racism, and nothing else.
Church of the Nazarene, Wesleyan Church, Free Methodist — The Holiness movement, teaching a definite second work of grace.Split 1840s-1900s: A conviction that mainstream Methodism had let Wesley's teaching on entire sanctification go quiet, along with disputes over pew rents and, for the Free Methodists, over slavery.
The Salvation Army — Methodist in theology, military in organisation, and one of two significant bodies practising no water baptism or communion at all — holding that the inward grace does not require the outward sign.
Pentecostal and Charismatic
About 600 million counting charismatics across all traditions; the fastest growing
Los Angeles, 1906, with roots in the Holiness movement
Holds that the gifts described in Acts and 1 Corinthians are for now: tongues, prophecy, healing. Worship is expressive and expectant, and the movement has grown most explosively in Africa, Latin America and Asia.
What you would find here and almost nowhere else
An expectation that God will act audibly and visibly in an ordinary Sunday service. Also, historically, the Azusa Street revival was strikingly interracial in the segregated America of 1906, and a movement led substantially by people with no formal theological training, which is part of why it spread as fast as it did.
Why they hold it, at its strongest
Nowhere does Scripture say the gifts would cease with the apostles; that is an inference, built mainly on a reading of one verse and on the experience of churches that had stopped expecting anything. Acts is not a museum. If the Spirit was poured out on all flesh, as Joel said and Peter said had happened, then the church of the twenty-first century has the same Spirit as the church of the first, and the burden of proof lies on whoever says he has gone quiet. And look where the church is growing. It is not growing where the gifts are denied.
Authority
Scripture, alongside a strong expectation that the Spirit speaks and acts now. How the two are weighed is itself debated within the movement.
Sacraments
Two ordinances; believer's baptism by immersion. Many bodies also teach a distinct baptism in the Holy Spirit after conversion.
Government
Varies widely, from denominational to entirely independent.
Often mistaken for
That it is uniformly prosperity-preaching. The prosperity gospel is a real and contested current within the movement, and many of the movement's own leaders and theologians are among its sharpest critics.
Branches within it · 6 ›
Assemblies of God — The largest Pentecostal denomination worldwide; formed in 1914 to bring order to a movement with none.
Church of God in Christ (COGIC) — The largest historically Black Pentecostal body in the United States, and older than the Assemblies.
Oneness Pentecostal — Baptises in Jesus' name only.Split 1913-16: The New Issue: a claim that the apostles baptised in Jesus' name rather than in the triune formula, which developed into a rejection of the Trinity itself. The Assemblies of God adopted a trinitarian statement in 1916 specifically to exclude it, and most other Christian bodies regard the position as a departure from the creeds.
Charismatic renewal — Not a denomination: charismatic movements inside Catholic, Anglican, Lutheran and other churches from the 1960s.
Neo-charismatic and independent — Vineyard, Hillsong, and an enormous number of independent churches worldwide. The largest and least-mapped part of the movement.
Apostolic and New Apostolic Reformation networks — Governed by living apostles and prophets rather than by boards; contested within Pentecostalism itself.
Restorationist (Stone-Campbell)
About 7 million
The American frontier, from about 1801
Sought to bypass denominational division by restoring the New Testament church directly, taking no name but Christian and no creed but the Bible.
What you would find here and almost nowhere else
A movement founded specifically to end denominations, which became three of them. Its watchword — in essentials unity, in opinions liberty, in all things charity — is still one of the better things any tradition has said about the others.
Why they hold it, at its strongest
Every creed in history was written to settle an argument, and every one of them started a new one. The church already has a sufficient rule; adding a summary of it and then requiring assent to the summary is how division gets manufactured. Do what the first Christians did, call yourselves what they called themselves, and the walls come down on their own. We are not claiming to be the only Christians. We are trying to be Christians only.
Authority
Scripture alone, with a deliberate rejection of creeds as tests of fellowship.
Sacraments
Baptism by immersion for the remission of sins; the Lord's Supper, in most of these churches weekly.
Government
Congregational.
Often mistaken for
That having no creed means having no doctrine. These churches hold definite positions; the objection is to binding them on others as a test of fellowship.
Branches within it · 4 ›
Churches of Christ — A cappella singing.Split recognised 1906: Instrumental music and missionary societies. The argument was really about hermeneutics: whether Scripture's silence permits or forbids.
Christian Church / Churches of Christ — Independent, instrumental, congregational.
Disciples of Christ — The most theologically liberal stream, and the most formally organised.Split 1968: Restructure into a denomination proper, which the independents had opposed for decades.
International Churches of Christ — A discipling movement that separated in the 1990s; contested within the wider family over its authority structures.
Adventist
About 22 million
The United States, from the 1840s
Grew out of the expectation of Christ's imminent return. Distinctive in keeping the seventh-day sabbath, in holding that the dead sleep until the , and in a strong emphasis on health.
What you would find here and almost nowhere else
A whole-person theology worked out in practice: because the body is not a container for a soul, health, diet and rest are religious matters. Adventist populations are among the longest-lived on earth and have been studied for decades on exactly that account.
Why they hold it, at its strongest
The sabbath was instituted at creation, before Israel existed, and sits in the middle of the Ten Commandments — the only one that begins with remember. No text anywhere records its transfer to another day; the change happened by custom and by imperial decree, and everyone knows it. And once you read the human person as Scripture does, a living being rather than a body plus an immortal soul, the whole architecture changes: death is a sleep, resurrection is the hope, and God does not keep anyone alive forever to torment them.
Authority
Scripture alone, with the writings of Ellen G. White regarded as a lesser but genuine prophetic gift, subordinate to and tested by Scripture.
Sacraments
Believer's baptism by immersion; the Lord's Supper with foot washing.
Government
Representative, with a worldwide conference structure.
Often mistaken for
That it is not orthodox Christianity. Seventh-day Adventists hold the and the deity of Christ and are recognised as Christian by most other bodies, whatever the disagreements about the sabbath and the state of the dead.
Branches within it · 3 ›
Seventh-day Adventist Church — By far the largest body, with a global education and hospital network.
Advent Christian Church — Does not hold Ellen White's writings as prophetic, and worships on Sunday.Split 1860s: Disagreement over the sabbath and over White's visions, in the sorting that followed the Great Disappointment of 1844.
Seventh Day Baptists — Older than Adventism and not descended from it; sabbath-keeping Baptists from the 1650s, and the channel by which the early Adventists first met the seventh-day argument.
Non-denominational and independent
Tens of millions and rising fast; hard to count by definition
Recognisable as a category from the mid-twentieth century
Congregations belonging to no denomination, usually broadly evangelical, often charismatic in style, typically governed by their own elders or a board.
What you would find here and almost nowhere else
The absence of inherited machinery. No denominational property, pension fund, judicial process or historic confession — which makes these churches unusually fast to plant, to adapt, and to fail, and unusually dependent on the character of one or two people.
Why they hold it, at its strongest
Denominational structures were built to solve problems most of them no longer have, and they consume resources that could go to mission. The New Testament shows local congregations with elders, related to one another by affection and letters rather than by courts. We are not against history; we are against inheriting a bureaucracy along with the gospel. And in practice, people who would never walk into a building with a denominational name on it will walk into ours, which is not a small argument.
Authority
Scripture alone, generally without a confession. In practice much rests on the teaching of the lead pastor, which supporters count as freedom and critics as a structural risk.
Sacraments
Two ordinances; believer's baptism by immersion is usual.
Government
Independent. Networks exist but do not govern.
Often mistaken for
That non-denominational means neutral or without tradition. These churches usually sit squarely in a recognisable stream, most often Baptist or charismatic, and the absence of a label is not the absence of a position.
Branches within it · 4 ›
Community and megachurches — Often the largest congregations in a region, with attendance in the thousands.
Church networks — Acts 29, Sovereign Grace, Calvary Chapel, Vineyard: shared conviction and some accountability without denominational structure.
House church and simple church — Deliberately small, unstructured, often meeting in homes.
Bible churches — Usually dispensational in theology, descended from the Bible conference movement.
Where the boundary itself is disputed
Some groups understand themselves as Christian while differing from the ecumenical creeds on the Trinity or the deity of Christ, and most historic bodies therefore describe them as outside the shared confession. This is a real disagreement about definition. What these groups teach is stated, what the creeds say is stated, and readers can see where the line is being drawn and by whom.
Jehovah's Witnesses — Reject the Trinity and hold Christ to be a created being; about 8 million.
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints — Holds additional scripture and a distinct account of God and of human destiny; about 17 million.
Christadelphians, Unitarians, Oneness Pentecostals — Non-trinitarian, from different roots and by different routes.
Keep reading
The doctrines these families divide over are argued out one at a time in Ways Christians See It, and the shared confession they mostly hold in common is set out in Creeds & Councils.
No tradition on this page is presented as the correct one. Where a body is described by others as outside the shared confession, that is stated as a description made by those others, with the reason given.
