Word.ws English Dictionary

fringe church

fringe church noun: a Christian denomination espousing doctrines or worship customs rejected by the majority of Christians.

Noun

fringe church (plural fringe churches)

  1. (colloquial, derogatory) A Christian denomination espousing doctrines or worship customs rejected by the majority of Christians.
    • Millions of people attend fringe church affiliated worship services each day.
    • More important, Westrom argues, the fringe church should turn its reins of leadership over to the newcomers, who would bring "fresh ideas" and "add to the vitality of the program of the church."2003, Etan Diamond, Souls of the City: Religion and the Search for Community in Postwar America, Indiana University Press, page 83
  2. (colloquial, derogatory) A place of worship affiliated with this type of religious denomination.
    • Congregants drove to attend services at a fringe church on Sunday morning.
    • Although one might have thought that the prospect of new suburbanites offered "nothing but pure and golden opportunity," the typical rural-fringe church "simply fails to notice what is happening."2003, Etan Diamond, Souls of the City: Religion and the Search for Community in Postwar America, Indiana University Press, page 81

Examples of fringe church in a sentence

  • Never before in the history of Christianity has there been such a complete move to orthodox Christianity by an unorthodox fringe church.2003, J. Michael Feazell, The Liberation of the Worldwide Church of God: The Remarkable Story of a Cult's Journey from Deception to Truth...
  • Experts estimate there are 2 million South Koreans who are followers of fringe churches, but the exact figures are unknown.2021, VICE Asia, “Why It's So Hard to Leave a South Korean Fringe Church”, in Vice News:
  • The man was pastor of some lunatic-fringe church.2004, Jack W. Payne, Six Hours Past Thursday, Impact Books, page 312:
  • Ponsonby Baptist is a small-city fringe church, with sixty to seventy people in attendance each Sunday.2017, John Tucker, Text Messages: Preaching God's Word in a Smartphone World, Wipf & Stock Publishers, page 149:

Forms of fringe church

pluralfringe churches

Origin of fringe church

From fringe + church. First use appears c. the 1940s.

Questions about fringe church

What does fringe church mean?
Fringe church means a Christian denomination espousing doctrines or worship customs rejected by the majority of Christians.
How do you use fringe church in a sentence?
Never before in the history of Christianity has there been such a complete move to orthodox Christianity by an unorthodox fringe church.
What part of speech is fringe church?
Fringe church is a noun.
What is the plural of fringe church?
The plural of fringe church is fringe churches.

Words near fringe church in the dictionary

  1. frined
  2. frines
  3. fringe
  4. fringe benefit
  5. fringe benefits
  6. fringe church
  7. fringe churches
  8. fringe dweller
  9. fringe dwellers
  10. fringe meeting
  11. fringe meetings

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: fringe church (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “fringe church.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/fringe_church. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.