Posted on 03/30/2006 9:45:17 PM PST by dangus
The National Council of Churches' have just reported church membership for the 2006 yearbook. It's quite an interesting picture:
The Catholic Church is the largest and numerically fastest growing church in America, with 67.8 million members, a growth of about 563,000 members.
Many non-denominational churches, not listed in the report, have been growing rapidly in the recent past.
Proportionally, the fastest growing church in America is the Assemblies of God, (10th largest) growing at a 1.81% rate, by adding 50,000 members. That's over twice the growth rate of the Catholic church, but 1/10th of the increase in members of the Catholic Church, because the Assemblies of God is only 4% of the size of the Catholic Church, having 2.78 million members
The Church of Jesus Christ and Latter Day Saints, (4th largest) with nearly twice (6.0 million) members of the Assemblies of God had nearly the same growth rate, 1.74%.
Looking quickly, one might mistakenly think the Orthodox Church in America (24th largest) is growing amazingly quickly. The Council reports 6.4% more members than it reported last year, but this is the first update in many years. Previously, the Orthodox Church in America had reported simply the same rough estimate year after year: 1 million.
Meanwhile, the Council reported the Greek Orthodox Church (17th largest) as having 1.5 million members; the church doesn't report annually, but just a few years ago, it had nearly 2 million members. Of course, that report itself was quite old, so the decline isn't that amazingly fast. Still, unless there is rapid, unforeseen growth in the smaller Orthodox congregations, it means that overall, the Orthodox Church is likely declining, and what few Orthodox are remaining are switching to the more generic Orthodox church.
Many of the Protestant churches in decline are probably no surprise: United Methodist, 3rd largest, down 0.79% to 8.186 million; Evangelical Lutheran, 7th largest, down 1.09% to 4.93 million; Presbyterian Church (USA), 9th largest, down 1.6% to 3.19 million; Lutheran Church Missouri Synod, 14th, down 1.01% to 2.464 million; Episcopal, 15th, down 1.55% to 2.28 million*; American Baptist, down 0.57% to 1.433 million; and, with the fastest collapse of them all, the United Church of Christ, which has made a strong push to present itself as gay-friendly, dropped 2.48% to only 1.266 million.
What may be surprisin are some of the other denominations in decline. Southern Baptists (2nd) are down again, 1.05% to 16.3 million; and Jehovah's Witnesses, (25th) which were growing just last year, dropped a significant 1.07% to 1.03 million.
Five Baptist conventions, mostly black, (ranked 6th, 12th, 13th, 20th, and 22nd) report very old, and very suspect numbers. Totalled, they would be well over 16 million, but they are believed to actually have far, far fewer members, clinging for political purposes to very old, very rough estimates.
Amazingly, not one of the 25 largest denominations in America was a growing Protestant denomination, except for the Assemblies of God which are not always counted as Protestant.
Combined, the 13 reporting churches had a total membership of 118.7 million. The memberships claimed most recently by the 12 churches that did not issue new reports a combined membership of about 30 million, but is probably closer to 20 million. Even with the very possibly significantly exaggerated estimates of these churches included, however, there are now more members in America of the Catholic Church than in all of the 19 Protestant denominations in the top 25 denominations combined!
[*The National Council of Churches reports 2,463,747 members of the Episcopal Church. This is, however, exactly the same number of members reported by the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod, the next largest church, and it creates a data conflict with last years' numbers. The number used last years' numbers as a baseline, and subtracted this years' reported decline. Also, the Episcopal church is not counted among the 17 Protestant denominations, following the practice of the National Council of Churches, the Encyclopedia Britannica, the World Almanac, and many other references.]
>> The fastest growing group I'm told. <<
I'm not so sure of that at all... Other than being infinitely more effective at reaching out to non-religious immigrants, I can't think of why "nondoms" would do particularly well.
I mean, the thought of rejecting a church hierarchy is hardly anything new. But the Baptist churches seem to have really, really, really taken a bad hit. SBC isn't doing so bad, but some of the other Baptist conventions are rapidly disappearing.
More conservative branches of long-standing groups haven't done particularly well (Missouri Synod, Southern Baptist, Southern Methodist). And while "megachurches" continues to be a growing format for worship, it's not so much that existing megachurches are growing, as that new ones are popping up. Is that growth? Or just consolidation? What really may give some insight into the success of non-doms are smaller churches that aren't non-doms, but have rejected their denomination's hierarchy, like the Presbyterian Church of America. (And groups currently experiencing a crisis in the parent church, like the Anglicans' AIC, probably aren't too reliable of a measure either, although I would be thrilled to hear that the total membership of the AIC is throuugh the roof!)
That you for this enlightening history lesson.
"We're not talking about people finding a system for maintaining and fulfilling a non-religion-dependent system of ethics. Mostly, we're talking about people who couldn't be bothered to think about right and wrong, and resent the people who do. I'd think for a non-religious conservative to cheer that would be like the religious right being happy about an explosion of goddess-worshiping, gay-friendly, Democrat-fundraising churches.
"
You make two mistakes here, I think. First, I'm not particularly cheering the growth of the non-religious population. It doesn't really matter all that much to me, since I'm not part of any non-religious groups.
Second, it's really impossible to characterize the non-religious, since they don't fit any particular model. As you can see here on FR, there are non-religious conservatives. In fact, in my lifetime, I've met non-religious folks of pretty much every political stance.
Non-religious merely means that the persons doesn't profess any particular religious beliefs. Even people who are simple deists might self-identify as non-religious.
It's a mistake to assume that non-religious people do not have a highly-developed ethical and moral foundation. You'd probably not be able to detect any difference in the ethics and morals of non-religious people in general from the population which espouses some religious belief.
>> I don't think membership numbers are an accurate portrayal of actual Catholics. In my experience with people I am not related to, most people are baptized Catholics for cultural or practical reasons, not religious ones. <<
Yes, but while Gallup might consider such people Catholics, the dioceses do not.
>> the self proclaimed Catholic people I've worked with, or live among in my neighborhood, will have their children baptized so they can get into the parish school, or because their parents are Catholic and it is just something one does when one has a baby. <<
The good news, supposedly from the 1980s, was that such Catholics do come back to truly living the faith. But I've seen data that sharply refutes the notion that that is currently happening.
>> I think Jewish people also have a cultural component to their self proclaimed religious affiliation, but you rarely hear that one is a Methodist or Lutheran for cultural reasons. <<
You picked at least one poor group for an example. Lutherans and Anglicans are even more culturally-affiliated than Catholicism.
>> I think Jewish people also have a cultural component to their self proclaimed religious affiliation <<
I've often tried to use the Jews (when the context allowed me to without risking promoting anti-semitism, or the appearance that I may be anti-semitic) as an example of merely cultural religious affiliation, to explain that these so-called Catholics like Pelosi and Kennedy are anything but. (Nothing helps them Saturdays pass like a good ol' pork roast*, huh, Sen. Schumer!)
(* No, that's a purposely ouotrageous example. For Schumer to do that would be like for Kennedy to pee in the communion wine: it would come off as purposely offensive to his constituents whom he is trying to snowjob. Then again, Kennedy does get drunk alot...)
The ones I'm talking about are those you refer to as mega churches. They merely offer a brand of Christianity that is harder to find elsewhere. Some are good, some are not. But clearly, people want something different that still stands for something.
Thanks. ;-)
This is particularly true for Souther Baptists. About a quarter of all nondoms are affiliated with the Southern Baptist Convention, yet claim no denomination so are not counted as SB.
Recently there has been a rush to remove Baptist from the names of churches in an effort to attract more people. Especially in areas outside of the South where the words Baptist or Southern Baptist carries negative connotations. About half of these churches not only remove the name but change the affiliation to nondenominational while in essence remaining SB.
Notice that the Churches that are disappearing are the ones which have bowed to secular culture and done everything to be seen as a part of it. Those Churches Catholic and Protestant that do not compromise the Gospel and are willing to stand against secular culture are growing.
According to Barna, 4% of the US pop is nondenominational or independent. Or about 12 million people.
because they are transients, and many are not even practicing Catholics.
I can only speak from personal experience, here in the Midwest (Kansas) the people whom I met in the NonDoms were of various backgrounds that came out of the traditional denominations because of the attitude of the leadership towards being spirit filled. I remember going to a precious church all black called Mount Zion Baptist Church, the first lament out of the pastors mouth was that they were Baptist and they were spirit filled and that they were staying spirit filled no matter what the head office had to say. I knew Catholics, Methodist, Nazarenes, and many more who had left the denominations because of their stance on the in filling of the Holy Spirit. I do not know what the attitude is today with the denominations concerning the infilling so I can not speak for or against that fact.
Most are either former mainline Christians that gave up on them (like myself) because of liberalism. A few may also be Evangelical Catholics that swung over, and immigration also plays a role.
The UCC is not just "gay-friendly", but puts on obnoxious TV ads criticizing other religions for having different beliefs on the morality of homosexual activity.
Thanks... but Barna has some bizarre definitional issues. For instance, no Catholic believes in the bible according to him (/it?). For international figures, especially the third world, there's not much better than Barna, but I stay away from him on domestic stuff... waaaaayyy to strong of an agenda (that being that we're all going to hell in a hadnbasket).
In the town where I live, there are roughly 6,000 people. There are 55 churches.
The churches in Boston (loads of scandals) are so empty that a fly buzzing across the church can be distracting.
The churches in Virginia (biggest scandal was with an adult woman), the churches have over 1000 seats, six masses per weekend, and people piled up out the door.
It all depends where you are.
" Yeah, but the non-religious don't make up any sort of voting bloc. They're all over the map, politically, so there's no way to manipulate them as a bloc. "
No they're not. They are overwhelmingly Democratic, and form the heart and soul of the Democratic party and funding in many regions of America.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.