What % of the population of the US is evangelical, fundamentalist Christians? Stats, not opinion.?

Question

I find the numbers here in Yahoo!Answers surprising. Does this represent the general population of the country, or are the ratios skewed here for some reason? If so, any guesses why?

Thanks! I used the figures you gave and eliminated some groups (Presbeterians, for example, and Lutherans), then added 10 million for Bible churches and such. Still I figure the groups I'm thinking of only make up about 14% of the population.

A VERY vocal minority, I'd say.

Answer 1

The following are the 10 biggest religious bodies in the US. For your purposes, I suspect you can pretty much exclude the Catholics, and I suspect the Methodists aren't what you're looking for either:

The 2005 Yearbook of American and Canadian Churches reported the following figures, based primarily on 2003 denominational reporting data:
1. Roman Catholic Church: 67.2 million.
2. Southern Baptist Convention: 16.4 million.
3. United Methodist Church: 8.2 million.
4. Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints: 5.5 million.
5. Church of God in Christ: 5.4 million.
6. National Baptist Convention USA: 5 million.
7. Evangelical Lutheran Church in America: 4.9 million.
8. National Baptist Convention of America: 3.5 million.
9. Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.): 3.2 million.
10. Assemblies of God: 2.7 million.

I guess the reason why there seem to be so many born-agains on Answers is that it makes a great forum for spouting your believes - proselytizing is a big thing for many born agains. Tell off the sinners.

Answer 2

Of course the ratio is skewed. And here are a number of factors.

Christians in the USA is what we can call a frustrated majority. They don't feel their values are reflected in most aspects of public life, and feel that Yahoo! Answers provides a safe and convenient method to express themselves.

The heathens are watching TV, the motivated active Christians want & have some type of interaction with others.

Pop culture itself is by no means represenative of the 'real' ratios of Christians to non-christians. TV will throw a dufus in the mix and call him a jesus-freak token.

I've also seen the motivated aethiest / evolutionists here a lot too. Any comments about their percentages??