After noodling around on the 'net, I gave up looking and thought I’d come here and ask. Does anyone know where I can find information on the percentage of Christians in the US who believe the Bible to be free of error? I guess what I’m really asking is what percent of Christians are Fundamentalist.
I’m sure you realize how difficult it is to answer that question. After all, you have to define fundamentalism and I have a feeling a lot of people have different ideas about that. I’m not even sure that biblical inerrancy is a necessary qualifier. (I’ve always assumed that was a key point myself)
It may help to look at the site below. (not a link)
www.gc.cuny.edu/studies/key_findings.htm
This is a survey of Americans regarding religion. It breaks things down pretty well.
Oh. I guess it is a link. D’oh!
According to this link, the World Congress of Fundamentalists espoused this definition in 1976:-
This is, to put it mildly, a minority position within Christianity as a whole. The largest Christian denomination - Roman Catholicism - does not subscribe to these views; neither do most of the mainstream Protestant congregations (such as the Church of England, of which I’m a member). Fundamentalists are a very vocal and militant minority within Christianity as a whole, but they are very much a minority.
Thanks photopat & Steve Wright for a couple of good sites. They’ll come in handy.
I just want to re-emphasize photopat’s point, based on the link he provided. The first table on that page says that there are 61,000 Fundamentalists in the United States, but I think that’s because “Fundamentalist” is something of a derisive term. I’d wager that a not-insignificant percentage of “Baptists” are Biblical Innerants (which is close enough to “Fundie” for me) – perhaps 30-50%. I’d also be wary of the “Protestant – no denomination supplied” guys and the “Christian – no denomination supplied.” Back when I was a Fundie, if I were to be asked what my religion was, I’d often answer that I’m not religious, but am a Christian. (Which, incidentally, is now one of my biggest pet peeves, now that I’m an apostate… after all, if Christianity isn’t a religion, what is??) Churches of Christ tend to be Literalists, as would Seventh-Day Adventists (with some other odd dogma thrown into the mix), Assemblies of God (who are Pentacostal), Church of God, Born Again, and probably two or three more on that list.
IOW, yeah, it’s tough to nail down how many Fundies there are, but I guarantee you that it’s WAY more than 61,000… perhaps more by a factor of 10.
Quix
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If there are people who consider themselves Christian but not religious, what do they think “religious” means?
I’m not trying to make a point - I’m genuinely curious.
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Have to say it: cite? (I know there are some very hard-line Baptist congregations, but I find those percentages rather hard to credit.)
My first reaction, on seeing anyone classify their religion this way, would be to assume that they’re non-churchgoers who rarely think about religion at all - the “Christian-by-default” types. It seems more likely than some sort of Fundamentalist Fifth Column. Incidentally, in my experience (which may be limited, I admit), Fundamentalists do not regard the “Fundamentalist” label as pejorative.
That would still make them a very small minority of Christians, both in the US and in the world at large.
Well, okay, let’s look at the Southern Baptist website, which says that there are 15.9 million Southern Baptists. Furthermore, they believe that
15.9 million is 47% of the 33.8 million total Baptists given on photopat’s website. I said 30-50%, which allows some leeway for non-unilateral thinking in the Southern Baptist community, as well as Literalist thinking in non-Southern Baptist Baptists.
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Eh, perhaps you’re right. Fundie is definitely perjorative, but not necessarily Fundamentalist.
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Well, roughly 10% of the Christians in the US, and much smaller in the world at large. But no other primarily Christian nation seems to be as gung-ho about religion as the US is… perhaps because they do not have 10% Fundamentalists.
Quix
So many that it boggles my mind. 
Count me as one.
Not all groups that are fundamentalists are labeled as fundamentalists. For one, many Conservative Anabaptist groups believe in biblical inerrancy but are not necessarily the “born again”-types. This, of course, poses the question of what “born again” means.
Also, there are biblical-inerrancy groups out there who are extremely liberal and therefore, most so-called “fundamentalists” would not see fit to include them within their group.
If you want to see the aboved-cited group’s version of Chick Tracts, look at this website. It’s not exactly the friendliest, but it is absolutely worth the effort to examinine some of their work.
here is a good tract example for all those that are intimidated by directory structures.
You aren’t kidding. Also, please note that within the denomination, individual churches aren’t bound to follow Nashville’s (where the SBC has it’s HQ) dictates.