I often hear progressive Christians here accuse atheists and oppressed GLBT folk of "painting with a broad brush" when making generalizations about Christians. As a consequence, I decided to look into the denominational Christianity in the United States. As it turns out, these numbers are hard to find. While there's good numbers on the religious/nonreligious breakdown in the United States, it's surprisingly hard to find a breakdown of Christian Americans by denomination. The best I was able to find were these 2001 numbers from Adherents.com. This website gave the estimated number of Christians in the United States, as well as the estimated number of adult members for the various major denominations. Here's what I found:
In 2001, 159,030,000 Americans were Christians. The percentages for denominations break down as follows:
31% Catholics
21% Baptist
8% Methodist
6% Lutheran
3% Presbyterian
2% Episcopal
2% Mormon
2% Church of Christ
1% United Church of Christ
1% Jehovah's Witness
1% Assemblies of God
If Baptists, Mormans, Church of Christ, Jehovah's Witnesses, and Assemblies of God are treated as "evangelicals", then this means that 30% of Christians in the United States are Evangelical, while 13% of Christians are Mainline Protestant. Remember, these numbers are based on the largest denominations, which is why it doesn't add up to 100%.
Given that Catholics and Evangelicals are the major groups that are pushing against GLBT equality, women's rights, draconian positions on abortion and contraception, and are the ones that are continuously pushing against science and seeking to enshrine their views in our government through the force of law, and given that they make up 61% of Christians (and here we should remember that Mainline Protestants are far from uniformly progressive), it follows that it is perfectly justified to make generalizations about Christianity. You don't describe a statistical curve by its outliers. Here some might object that they are Catholic, etc., but don't support these views. However, if you are giving money to your church you are contributing to these political causes. It would be like me giving money to the Republican party and trying to say that I don't support the Republican party's platforms.
Setting this aside, I am glad there are progressive Christians out there and respect what you do in your political activism. I find your metaphysical beliefs a little strange and silly, but I don't really care. This issue is about how groups and institutions actually function in American politics, not your personal beliefs. You make it more difficult to address this oppression when you confuse this with a discussion of your personal faith. However, I do not appreciate it being suggested that certain political positions, platforms, and aims are not representative of mainstream Christianity and that they are not dominant views within Christianity. I really wish those of you who are furious about these generalizations would step up, form large coalitions, march in the streets, and find ways to get on the news to both denounce Christian oppressors and provide an alternative view to the public. Your silence is deafening. I will also add that currently, according to the Pew Statistics, Evangelical Christianity is the fastest growing branch, while Mainline Protestantism is the quickest declining. Given that Evangelicism and Catholicism are the branches of Christianity where we're most likely to find oppressive conservative positions and that Mainline Christianity is where we're most likely to find progressive political positions, this says a lot about the state of Christianity in the United States today. I wish you guys would quit beating up atheists, GLBT, and women who rightly point out the oppressiveness of this religion tradition and how it functions in the United States and would start taking to the streets against the actual oppressors. Were I to see this it would be a whole lot easier for me to buy the "painting with a broad brush" argument. Silence is complicitous.
If someone has better and more current numbers please let me know.