Ok I did what you said and in my area there are 9 to 11 different "denominations” all together, this includes Catholic, Lutheran, the JW's, mormons and all that together and really only 5 “protestant” denominations. Now if there name alone counts as "different denominations", then there are 55 total in my area of Fort Walton Beach, FL, still a far cry from 30,000. Now I’m sure if I multiplied it by how many cities there are in the US then we may get to or beyond the 30,000 number, but that’s logically ridiculous because that’s assuming each church is a different denomination by the churches name alone. Your argument is that each person that holds a bible study in their home is a different denomination, that is just ridiculous. If that’s how you defend the 30 thousand number then your argument is bankrupt. It’s completely illogical, while even though you may not like my source it hold much more merit then your “ChurchFinder.com + assumed math” argument that I actually looked into. If that’s your source this debate is over. Unless you can provide a valid and verifiable source for the 30,000 number, as I showed where these numbers originally came from and why they were flawed being used the way they are by Catholics. If this number didn’t come from “David A. Barrett’s World Christian Encyclopedia: A Comparative Survey of Churches and Religions in the Modern World A.D. 1900—2000 (ed. David A. Barrett; New York: Oxford University Press, 1982)”, then please list your source for the information.
Just on my way out.
Gentleman. The number is less important than the principle of many many fractures..
Two things are also important.
First - that there is a lot of latitude in some of these denominations. In many the pastor himself becomes the arbiter of doctrine, and two of the same denomination can have opposite doctrine on many issues. One such pair a mile apart fractured because one believed the child that "did not get to choose baptism before dying" was saved , the other did not.
So there are many more doctrinal beliefs than denominations. Or the churches where their "creed" is only five lines long, and the congregation can choose what they believe beyond the five principles and so on.
Second - the non denominationals swell that number enormously, Where they take their core creeds from one place, then tweak some pieces they do not like!
So there are a great many, all born of fractures, and Luther himself despaired of the monster he created, when abandoning the magisterium of RCC, seemingly all then felt empowered to have there own view.
You can argue how many there are. Does it matter if there are 10000 or 30000 or 50000?
What you cannot argue is all this division is bad.
Also that "discerning the spirit" has not been sufficient to resolve the problems because all claim they have done so, and Luther is scathing of that!
The divisions are not trivial. On real presence there are at least 4 camps amongst protestants.
1/ Real presence - The bread becomes the body of Christ
2/ Real presence - The bread is joined with the body of Christ
3/ The holy spirit is imparted with the eucharist, so still a sacrament but not Christ.
4/ An ordinance. We celebrate it because we are ordered, but neither Christ nor the spirit are there.
Then endless variants on those! Such as the Eastern Rite who are either 1/ or 2/ but consider it a mystery which!
Actually even "real presence" is a deliberately woooly form of words - invented I think by Cranmer, trying to fudge the differences between belief sets between trans and con substantiation!
And so on.
Yet if you go back to the earliest fathers, the didache, and so on, and all the church fathers to reformation -they never dispute the real presence! It is only the reformationists, chopping away history and tradition, to leave unsupportable sola scriptura that even left the possibly of saying Christ was not there! 3/ 4/ and other variants (there are many!)
So the loss of authority and tradition at the reformation, opened the doors to a mass of arguments by losing the compass, they drift apart. Sometimes jump. Sometimes drift.
All the moral relativism! Bowing of pressure to popular demand. Abortion. Homosexuality and so on. This is creating doctrines in the image of the congregation! not in the image of God!
RCC has stood alone in keeping the beliefs that others ditched due to popular pressure on conraception, abortion, homosexuality and so on. Its course has been steady as others drift away.