The sad truth of a literal Christianity is that so many Christians have an allegorical faith. The list is long: Eastern and Oriental Orthodox Churches, the Roman Catholic Church, plus Protestants Lutheran, Reformed, Anglican (Episcopal), Methodist, and many Messianic Jews.  Historically, the Amish, Old Order Mennonite, and Conservative Mennonites. It’s common among groups the Churches of Christ,^[32]: 125 Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) and Christian Churches and Churches of Christ.

We can quibble about the specifics of this, but what I wanted was the number of people involved in allegorical interpretations of the Bible. The total number of Christians stands somewhere around 210,000,000 people in the United States. This touches me because I was raised in a Lutheran state, Minnesota (over 50%), as an Episcopalian, and I met the Lord in a Roman Catholic Prayer group. None of these denominations believes in a literal Bible , or in the walk of faith that follows.

In the United States, Christians are still in the majority, well over 50%, divided up into Evangelical (≅87 M), Catholic (≅70 M), and Mainline (≅53 M). My best guess is that there are about 110 million people with this allegorical level of faith. That is just quick research and best guesses added up to a number that is in the ballpark. That’s a lot of people—and it can easily be 130 million or more. It’s more than a third of Americans, for sure.

So what do I mean by allegorical faith?

The sad truth for me (who believes the Bible is almost always literal) is that these allegorical beliefs have very dangerous and nasty results. The best example, and maybe the worst case for the believer, is the beliefs I based my figures on—the belief that the Millennium is allegorical and that Jesus will never have a literal reign on the Earth from a throne in Jerusalem. Most of them, if they ever think about it, believe that we are in an allegorical millennium now, with Jesus ruling, and Satan bound.
Just the belief that Satan is presently bound explains the powerlessness in the mainline church. 

The second belief that runs parallel to this is the idea that being born again is just an allegory of the radical change one experiences when he or she becomes a member of the Kingdom of God in their baptisms. That is a real problem when you were baptized as a baby.

Why is a non-literal, but allegorical Christianity so sad?

Because Jesus clearly said that “unless one is born anew, he cannot see the kingdom of God.” Right, that ends in a period. There are no qualifiers. A few verses later, He reiterates, “You must be born again.” Peter, John, and Paul agreed and taught about it clearly.

If you are not born again, Jesus probably does not know you. You are quite probably going to hell.

Whoa!NO, I’m not kidding.

This is really serious. It’s very sad that many people, who think they have all of this covered by their membership in a solid, mainline church, have never been told the truth about these things.

As far as prophecy, and the coming Tribulation, this means these people are going to be going through the tribulation. It takes faith to avoid that. It’s easy to prove in the Bible. But that is for another page.

In the interim, just assume the Bible is literal (and it almost always is), and ask Jesus to show you the truth. He is Truth, so He’ll be happy to do that.