ohwilleke

Fundies are not a majority in North Dakota. According to Glenmary, a Catholic organization which does more detailed geographical studies of church membership than anyone else, there are 470,112 church members in North Dakota, with the top eight denominations as follows:

Catholic:179,349
ELCA Lutheran:174,554
Missouri Synod Lutheran:23,720
United Methodist: 20,159
Assembly of God: 9,994
Presbyterian USA: 8,740
United Church of Christ: 6,697
American Baptist Church (i.e. N. Baptist): 5,386

Of these, only the Missouri Synod Lutherans and Assembly of God folks would be considered fundamentalist. Thus, while fundies are on the rise, North Dakota, in these year 2000 numbers, still have a very low percentage of fundamentalists.

simian

The numbers you will find on the number of people that will identify themselves as members of a fundamentalist church are quite low. What troubles me is that the members of the mainstream churches don't even know their church's stand on issues. I know YEC Catholics. I know quite a number of people of mainsteam denominations that assume that because the bible says it, it must be true. I have heard indirect stories of ministers in this region modifying their message during the sermon so as not to tick off their congregation.

So, what I have seen is that those who are members of mainstream denominations taking on characterists of the fundamentalists, and liberal christians being silent, as if their views are some how less "Christian" than the views of the fundamentalists. This, of course, leads to the views shifting even more toward fundamentalism....

Simian

Goliath

Thank you all for your replies. I'll ponder over them. Perhaps things are not as bad as I feared.

However, if fundamentalists are a minority, and liberal xians don't agree with fundamentalists, then why the silence? Why don't the liberal xians fight back against the fundamentalism that they supposedly dislike?

Hmmmm...perhaps this is a topic for another thread?

Sincerely,

Goliath

I ate Pascal's Wafer

Actually, I don't think the liberal xians really care all that much to want to fight this. I was a liberal xian for awhile, along with my family and several friends, and none of us really bothered to bring this up. We just considered fundies to be a harmless cult. This topic isn't as big of a topic to them as it is the fundies and us, so most of them see no reason to fight back against fundamentalism.

-Nick

The Admiral

As I drive about this city I am totally amazed by the number of churches under construction. Not little wooden churches, big expensive stone churches. Not store fronts in the run down sections but some of the best real estate in the area. I thought we had all the churches we could afford years ago, but I was wrong. I would say that the majority of this new construction appears to be for fundamentalist sects.

The Admiral

Psycho Economist

They don't have any reason to speak up, the world is pretty much hunky-dory if you have a faith that permits teaching of evolution in schools, elective abortion, and church/state seperation and that also opposes institutionalized discrimination against racial, sexual and religious minorities, and discrimination against women.

And they especially have reason to stay shut up: to avoid offending fundies. The easiest way for a large demonination to lose membership in a hurry is to have the local fundie churches start targeting your membership for recruitment...

Do you think they're going to hurt themselves (in the pocketbook, no less) to protect a secular state?

[ November 05, 2002: Message edited by: Psycho Economist ]</p>