Church growth continues for Catholic and Pentecostals; six mainline denominations decline

LOUISVILLE, Ky.-The newest edition of the Yearbook of American and Canadian Churches, a publication of the National Council of Churches, ranks the three largest U.S. churches as the Roman Catholic Church (66.4 million members), the Southern Baptist Convention (16.2 million) and the United Methodist Church (8.3 million), according to PCUSA News.

Four of the top 25 denominations now are Pentecostal. The yearbook editor, Rev. Eileen Lindner, the National Council deputy general secretary for research and planning, says that "reflects the continuing increase in numbers of adherents to Pentecostal traditions.

The four top Pentecostal denominations are the Church of God in Christ, the Assemblies of God, the Pentecostal Assemblies of the World and the Church of God. Seven of the largest 25 denominations are predominantly African-American churches.

The major U.S. churches that recorded growth between 2001 and 2002 included the Catholic Church (No. 1), the Southern Baptist Convention (2), the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (5), the Assemblies of God (10), the American Baptist Churches in the USA (19), Christian Churches and Churches of Christ (23) the Jehovah’s Witnesses (24) and the Church of God, new on the list at No. 25.

Six of the top 25 churches reported membership losses: the PC (USA), the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, the United Methodist Church, the Lutheran Church (Missouri Synod), the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church, and the United Church of Christ.

The fastest-growing Protestant church was the American Baptist Church, whose membership increased by 2.87 percent.

Also reported in the 2004 yearbook, despite a well-documented clergy shortage, the number of students enrolled in theological institutions continues to grow.

Also increasing, is per capita giving, by an average of 5.6 percent, within churches.

I'm not judging anybody, just wondering what good it is to pack a Catholic church with CINO pagans.

LOL. You say you aren’t judging anyone, and then you make a rather unsupportable claim that the new Catholics are CINO pagans. That is textbook judging, and its made on people you don't know.

In my limited experience, they aren’t. Most of those converting to the Church are pretty serious about it, and anything but CINOs or pagans. I’ve met several who have had families disown them when they become Catholic. But of course, they must be CINOs, as you said so.

Does it bother you that no president in this country can be elected without the Catholic vote, and we voted Clinton in twice? Does it bother you that the majority of Catholics vote pro-abortion candidates into office?

BS.

OK, my now standard and saved response:

So how do the Catholics who attend Church vote? A survey during the presidential election for a group called “catholics for a free choice” (or as Catholics like to call them, “heretics are us”) found that Gore was winning among “Catholics who attend church [sic] infrequently (45%-39%) or hardly at all (53%-31%).” On the other hand Bush was winning among “frequent churchgoers (52%-33%), who represent Bush’s strongest voting block among Catholics.

That, of course was a pre-election poll. Post election polls indicate the gap was even larger:

"Among religiously active Catholics, who have a discernible political identity in contrast to the nonreligiously active, Bush won by 55 percent to Gore's 24 percent," Wagner wrote, citing private polling by his firm, QEV Analytics, and Penn Schoen & Berland Associates Inc. "This was the best Catholic showing for a Republican presidential candidate since 1972, equal to Ronald Reagan's 1984 showing and better than his 1980 showing."
Wagner's findings are supported by broader trends: The more religious a voter is (based on church attendance), the more likely the voter is to be a Republican. At the two extremes, voters who attend services more than once a week voted for Bush by 63 percent to 36 percent, said VNS, while those who never attend services voted for Gore, 61 percent to 32 percent.

According to the polling active Catholics voted MORE THAN TWO to ONE (thats 2-1) for Bush over Gore. MORE THAN! Not to mention the 21% not mentioned in this Poll, most of whom found Bush entirely too liberal. When you assume that Catholics vote for Democrats you are falling into a standard media trap. The media hypes up this “Catholic vote” in an effort to convince both Catholics and Protestants that there is a difference between them, and that they can’t trust each other. They try to drive a wedge, and you help by repeating the stereotype. The media finesses this by never telling you that they are polling both apostate Catholics and Church going Catholics, and lumping the two together. Gee, what effect do you suppose that will have on the results? But the fact is that both Churchgoing Protestants and Catholics vote conservative. By a nearly 2-1 margin, and even better than that for active Catholics.

it bother you that the Blessed Sacrament is routinely treated with totall irreverence and the Pope is defied by the Amchurch clergy?

Well, in my diocese we have what must be a dozen or more parishes with perpetual adoration. I don’t see the Blessed Sacrament treated with total irreverence. I know it happens somewhere, but your rather bleak picture doesn’t seem to match reality everywhere. And I wouldn’t consider my diocese to be conservative.

patent +AMDG

You're increasing your membership by 10% a year, which is unbelieveable.

Sorry to nitpick, but that isn’t necessarily what she said. Baptizing 120 each year does not imply that the numbers are growing by the same each year. You can baptize 120, but if only half attend, and you lose 2% of your congregation to normal attrition, you only gain 3%. Same for us, we can baptize, but that is only the start of the fight. The only way to know for sure is to look through the records from year to year, if those records record who actually still attends or considers themselves a member. Its probably rare for a parish to actually compile and publize that statistic.

All that said though, I don't mean to cast doubt on 10% growth, its entirely believeable. My parish did that for a couple years, but has now stabilized at a bit slower growth rate.

Speaking of which, sounds like great news for your parish, congratulations.

patent

...you make a rather unsupportable claim that the new Catholics are CINO pagans.
I did not make that claim. I wondered what use it would be to do that.

LOL. In response to a thread about new Catholics entering the Church, and the Church growing, you state:

What good are granaries filled with chaff?

And

I'm not judging anybody, just wondering what good it is to pack a Catholic church with CINO pagans.

But of course, those rather nasty “questions” aren’t really attacks now at all!!! You just “wondered.”

If you wish to backpeddle from your mere suggestions, “questions”, and “wonder”, or whatever else you want to call your innuendo, that’s fine. I’ll consider it withdrawn, though I have no doubt you will continue to post such "questions" in the future, and I’m sure you will continue to deny that you are attacking these or any other Catholics. Those who care to go back and read your posts know full well what you were doing.

So how do the Catholics who attend Church vote? A survey during the presidential election for a group called “catholics for a free choice” (or as Catholics like to call them, “heretics are us”) found that Gore was winning among “Catholics who attend church [sic] infrequently (45%-39%) or hardly at all (53%-31%).” On the other hand Bush was winning among “frequent churchgoers (52%-33%), who represent Bush’s strongest voting block among Catholics.
Good point. you make this distinction to argue your point about "Catholics" being better than statistics show them to be. But you are really talking about a select portion of "Catholics" in this country. I was talking about the statistical bent of the group as a whole and you present the statistical bent of this select minority as a refutation of the whole.

You can look at any group and see the same. Church going Protestants vote more Republican than do non-churchgoing Protestants. Same with the Orthodox, I would assume, and same with schismatics. You started talking about how “we” elected Clinton, but the fact is that non Church goers, Protestant, Jewish, and Catholic, elected Clinton. Church-goers did not. Trying to analyze all catholics, whether they are still catholic or not, as one group is unfair and inaccurate when you then ignore that other groups, e.g., protestants, have the same voting pattern. Those who go to Church elected Bush, those who didn't, elected Clinton.

I'm glad for your wonderful situation in your diocese. And I see you. You are now on my list of "Catholic, but has difficulty understanding English or discerning the difference between general and select trends - throws own internal anger on other people without reason - must be taken with a grain box of salt in the future."

Ad hominem. Glad I made it to a full box of salt though.

patent +AMDG

One factor in the decline in LCMS membership may be its heavily rural base. In this respect, the LCMS is not unlike the Churches of Christ, although the latter is predominantly made up of Southerners of British descent while the former consists to a large extent of Midwesterners of German extraction. (Of course, there are many differences between Lutheran and Campbellite theology.) Rural populations have been declining in many areas of the country since the 1920s, where LCMS and Churches of Christ have considerable strength. Neither the LCMS nor the Churches of Christ have pursued the megachurch concept that dominates the religious landscape in many suburban areas in red country America. The Southern Baptists, Pentecostals, and independent evangelicals have been the winners in the competition for the allegiance of white suburbanites away from the coasts and the Great Lakes. Go to these churches and you will find people from a wide variety of Protestant backgrounds, as well as former Catholics.

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