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KARL KEATING'S E-LETTER
TOPICS:
WHOSE CHURCHES ARE LARGER?
GOOD PROPAGANDA IN IRAQ
A THING AS LOVELY AS A TREE
Dear Friend of Catholic Answers:
I have refrained, in public talks and in print, from claiming that there are X number
of Protestant denominations. Other Catholic apologists have bandied about five-digit
figures, but I never have been able to track down the source for their numbers. It has
been sufficient to say that there are "countless" divisions within Protestantism and
that many of those divisions resulted in the establishment of new churches.
But now I find that someone indeed has counted the countless denominations. The "World
Christian Encyclopedia" reportedly states that there are 33,830 Christian
denominations in the world. Subtract the Catholic Church and the Eastern churches, and
you are left with about 33,800 other churches, those descended from the Protestant
Reformation.
No doubt one could quibble about how the compilers of the encyclopedia decided what
was to be thought of as a distinct denomination and what was not. Even if one
dismissed nine-tenths of the listed groups, saying that most of them should be
regarded as internal variants (somewhat along the lines of the Benedictines,
Franciscans, and Jesuits not being separate churches but separate "emphases" within
the single Catholic Church), that still would leave 3,380 separate--and
separated--Protestant denominations.
And this hardly can be a reflection of what Christ intended when he said, in Matthew
16:18, that "upon this rock I will build my church" (note the singular).
WHO IS THE BIGGEST OF THEM ALL?
A study conducted at the divinity school of Duke University gives some unexpected (to
me, at least) data about church size.
If you work in my field for only a short time, you start hearing about Evangelical
"mega-churches." They have parking lots more capacious than your local mall's and
scores of ministers to minister to the thousands who show up on Sunday. It turns out
there are so few such churches that they are statistically insignificant. They may
make good copy for the religion section of the newspaper and for "Christianity Today"
magazine, but they do not represent the real world of Evangelicalism.
The Duke study divided churches into four sizes: small (fewer than 100 attendees),
medium (101-350), large (351-1,000), and mega (over 1,000).
Only 10 percent of Catholic churches fall into the small category. Among mainline
Protestant churches, 54 percent are there; among Evangelical churches, 66 percent.
(Since Evangelicals in the U.S. number about the same as Catholics, this implies there
must be a tremendously large number of small Evangelical churches.)
In the medium category we find 34 percent of Catholic churches, 40 percent of mainline
Protestant churches, and 28 percent of Evangelical churches.
Catholics leap out in front in the large category, where 35 percent of their churches
are situated. For mainline Protestants the number is only 6 percent and for
Evangelicals only 5 percent.
Then comes the last category, mega. Here we find 20 percent of Catholic churches, no
mainline Protestant churches (come to think of it, have you ever stumbled across a
truly populous liberal Protestant church? I haven't), and less than one percent of
Evangelical churches. The latter figure takes into account those (very few)
mega-churches that are featured in newspapers and magazines.
As I said, those Evangelical mega-churches seem to be ubiquitous but aren't. In the
U.S., virtually all large churches are Catholic churches. But large-population
Catholic churches are so common (nearly every city has several with registered
membership in four digits) that they are not newsworthy.
Granted, it may be that no Catholic church in the country equals in Sunday attendance
those handful of Evangelical churches loved by feature writers. After all,
man-bites-dog gets the headlines--but the Hound of Heaven is working more obviously,
even in terms of raw numbers, through the Catholic Church than through any other
religious body.
OUR MAN IN IRAQ
Nine years ago Eric Johnson worked as a summer intern at Catholic Answers. Five years
ago he got married. Five months ago he found himself deployed to Iraq. Eric is in the
Marine Corps Reserve.
His wife, Paige, realizing that good reading matter is not easily found in Al Kut (no
doubt the place does not have a Catholic book store--or any other kind), has been
sending "This Rock" to Eric, and he has been sharing the magazine with young Marines
who are stationed with him. They may not be in foxholes right now, but apparently
their minds are turning to things religious, and Eric is taking advantage of the
opportunity.
WHICH, FOR SOME REASON, BRINGS ME TO ...
In 1778 Samuel Johnson remarked that "every man thinks meanly of himself for not
having been a soldier, or not having been at sea." I long have had an analogous
feeling that is reflected in a to-do note that I placed in my Palm Pilot: "Read trees
books."
When I hike desert or mountain trails, I am annoyed at myself for not knowing the
names of many of the plants I see everywhere around me. I have no trouble identifying
my favorite desert plant, the ocotillo, and I can tell you a few things about it. I
can distinguish the cholla cactus from the prickly pear. That's easy. In the mountains
I visit the plant varieties may be fewer, but I have more trouble in telling one
species from another. (Is this is a Jeffrey pine or a Ponderosa?)
So I have resolved to hit the books before the hiking season goes into full swing. I
don't aim to end up a botanist or horticulturalist, but I want to have some facility
in placing names correctly and in understanding what distinguishes one plant from
another.
This long weekend I spent a day and a half "Jeeping" in local mountains, some of which
were burned last year and now sport the beginnings of new vegetation. Charred slopes
were draped in blue flowers. "That's blue verbena," I explained over the CB radio to
the others in the group. But was I sure about that? Better check the identification
with the guidebook.
Now that I have mentioned my study plan in public, I'm committed to it. I have little
choice. The alternative would be readers' endless needling (no pine-related pun
intended).
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