Prolades Toward a Classification System of Religious Groups in The

LATIN AMERICAN SOCIO-RELIGIOUS STUDIES PROGRAM PROLADES TOWARD A CLASSIFICATION SYSTEM OF RELIGIOUS GROUPS IN THE AMERICAS BY MAJOR TRADITIONS AND FAMILY TYPES by Clifton L. Holland First Edition: October 30, 1993 Revised edition: April 23, 2001 PROLADES Apartado 1524-2050, San Pedro, Costa Rica Telephone: (506) 283-8300; Fax (506) 234-7682 E-Mail: [email protected] Internet: www.prolades.com 1 2 CONTENTS 1. Document #1: TOWARD A CLASSIFICATION SYSTEM OF RELIGIOUS GROUPS IN THE AMERICAS BY MAJOR TRADITIONS AND FAMILY TYPES 5 2. Document #2: AN ANNOTATED OUTLINE OF THE CLASSIFICATION SYSTEM OF RELIGIOUS GROUPS BY MAJOR TRADITIONS, FAMILIES AND SUBFAMILIES WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO THE AMERICAS 13 3. Document #3: AN APPLICATION OF THE CLASSIFICATION SYSTEM TO THE STUDY OF RELIGIOUS GROUPS IN THE CONTEXT OF THE GREATER LOS ANGELES METROPOLITAN AREA (GLAMA) 55 3 4 Document #1: TOWARD A CLASSIFICATION SYSTEM OF RELIGIOUS GROUPS IN THE AMERICAS BY MAJOR TRADITIONS AND FAMILY TYPES by Clifton L. Holland INTRODUCTION During the past 30 years, the author has sought to gain a clearer understanding of the origin, growth and development of religious movements around the world. We have approached this study from the perspective of an evangelical missiologist ("missiology" is the study of the Christian Mission), who has attempted to understand the phenomenology of religion aided by the social sciences. Much of our research has been in the area of the sociology of religion, and we have focused largely on the Latin American and Caribbean cultural regions. One of the early results of our research was The Religious Dimension in Hispanic Los Angeles: A Protestant Case Study (Pasadena, CA: William Carey Press, 1974). This study was done while the author was a student in the School of World Mission at Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, California (1968-1972; M.A. in Missiology, 1974). In 1972, he moved to Costa Rica and began his missionary career with the Latin America Mission, where he served with the International Institute for In-Depth Evangelization (INDEPTH), and later as Executive Director of the Missiological Institute of the Americas (1981-1989). Between 1974 and 1981, the author coordinated a regional study of the Protestant Movement in Central America, under the auspices of PROLADES (Programa Latinoamericano de Estudios Sociorreligiosos/Latin American Socio-Religious Studies Program). At that time, PROLADES was the research department of INDEPTH but this function was incorporated into IMDELA when it was founded in 1981. Part of the information from this regional study was published in 1982 by the MARC Division of World Vision International, edited by Clifton L. Holland, World Christianity: Central America and the Caribbean (Monrovia, CA). The larger body of information from this study remains unpublished: "A History of the Protestant Movement in Central America: 1780- 1980" (Doctor of Missiology dissertation, School of World Mission, Fuller Theological Seminary, 1985). The original text was written in English, but we have also produced a Spanish version and updated the graphics to 1990 for both versions. Since 1980 the author has done similar research in at least 15 countries of Latin America and the Caribbean, as well as helping with research projects sponsored by other organizations. One such project was developed as a joint venture between IDEA/PROLADES and VELA (Visión Evangelizadora Latinoamericana/Latin American Evangelistic Vision) in Mexico City, under the leadership of Professor Galo Vázquez (Executive Director of VELA) and Dr. Peter Larson (Director of Research for VELA and Professor of Missiology at the Lomas Verdes Baptist Seminary). VELA has published a six volume series on "Protestant Church Growth in the Mexico City Metro Area" (1987-1997). 5 TOWARD A TYPOLOGY OF RELIGIOUS GROUPS BY FAMILY TYPES One of the tools that we developed to aid our research has been a classification system (or typology) of religious groups. Many of the basic elements of the current version of the typology were adapted from J. Gordon Melton's innovative study, Encyclopedia of American Religions (Detroit, MI: Gale Publishing Company, 1978, 2nd Edition, 2 volumes; an edition by Truimph Books, Terrytown, NY, 1991, 3 volumes; and the latest edition by Gale Research, Detroit, MI, 1996, 5 edition, 1 volume). Rather than using the traditional terminology and concepts defined by Troeltsch and his disciples derived from the "church-sect" dichotomy (see Troeltsch, The Social Teaching of Christian Churches, and the writings of Weber, Wach, Becker, Yinger, Friedman and others of the same tradition), we have opted to follow Melton and a new tradition in the sociology of religion that focuses on the nature and growth of "primary religious groups." The fathers of this new tradition are McComas, Clark, Wilson, Kopytoff, Piepkorn and Melton, with special reference to the North American religious context. The innovation made by Melton was that of identifying and defining major "families of religious groups" within each religious "tradition," according to the sociological characteristics of each "primary religious group" and its corresponding subculture or group culture. Melton defines three categories of factors that have to do with the classification of "primary religious groups" by family types: worldview (belief system), common heritage (historical background), and lifestyle (interaction with the larger society). This implies that primary religious groups within a "family" have more in common among themselves than with religious groups that are not of the same family. However, within each "family of primary religious groups," a few notable differences may exist that divide the members of the same family into subgroups, each with its corresponding religious subculture. This is the case, for example, with the "Baptist Family" which can be subdivided into Calvinists, Arminians, and Restorationists. Although Melton places the Adventists within the Baptist Family, we have made the Adventist Movement a separate category due to its problematic historical relationship with other Protestant groups. Although we have depended upon Melton quite heavily for the principal features of our typology, our fieldwork experience in Latin America and the Caribbean regions since 1970 has led us to make modifications in Melton's typology to contextualize it for these cultural areas. Some of Melton's categories proved to be inadequate to describe the complex phenomena that we discovered. This was true especially regarding religious groups within the "Pentecostal Tradition." We found it necessary to define new "sub-families" of denominations or independent churches, thus adding new categories to Melton's basic typology. In other cases, we decided to change the names of some of the "families" listed by Melton for the sake of clarity: for example, the "European Free Church Family" was changed to the "Anabaptist/Mennonite Family." It should be noted that our revised typology includes Christian Churches of different traditions as well as other churches and/or primary religious groups that are non-Christian. Our typology is intended to be all inclusive (global/universal) in scope, so there is room for all religious groups to be described and included, whether or not they are "Christian." Presented below is an overview of our classification system: 6 A OLDER LITURGICAL CHRISTIAN CHURCHES A1 EASTERN ORTHODOX TRADITION A2 WESTERN ROMAN TRADITION B PROTESTANT MOVEMENT C MARGINAL CHRISTIAN GROUPS D NON-CHRISTIAN RELIGIONS E MULTI-RELIGIOUS GROUPS F NON-RELIGIOUS GROUPS/POPULATION SEGMENTS G UNCLASSIFIED GROUPS TOWARD A CLEARER UNDERSTANDING OF THE PROTESTANT MOVEMENT Our primary purpose, however, has been to concentrate on the "Protestant Movement" as a socio-religious phenomenon within the Latin American and Caribbean context; to demonstrate its diversity as well as its unity within a complex stream of consciousness that sets it apart from other religious movements in human history; and to define the origin and development (historical heritage) of each family and subfamily within each religious tradition, as well as the belief system (worldview) and relationship to the larger society (lifestyle) of each group. The final version of our typology will include a description of each denomination (primary group), family of denominations (family type), and general tradition (clusters of families of denominations) within the Protestant Movement. Hence, it will be an encyclopedia of the Protestant Movement with information on each country of Latin America and the Caribbean, including Hispanics in the USA and Canada. This project started with a country-by-country study of the Central American region in 1977-1981, and the preparation a series of reports on each Central American country where we have classified each denomination, church association, and/or independent church based on the families defined in this typology. These reports include a statistical analysis of the growth of each "tradition" and "family" within the Protestant Movement of each country (national analysis) as well as for the entire Central America region (regional analysis). The chart shown below gives a general overview of our working definition of the Protestant Movement, and includes the approximate initiation (or birth) dates of each "tradition" and "family." 7 A CLASSIFICATION SYSTEM OF THE PROTESTANT MOVEMENT BY MAJOR TRADITIONS AND DENOMINATIONAL FAMILIES B1.0 OLDER LITURGICAL (CLASSICAL) TRADITION, 1517-1530 B1.1

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