Posted on 02/14/2011 5:54:53 PM PST by SmithL
CORE is not a denomination, but it’s more like a support group for Confessional Lutherans. LCMC and NALC both practice open communion and have women pastors. Both welcome all sinners without blessing homosexual actions. Most LCMC and NALC (but not all) congregations realize the issue is about Biblical relevance and not just homosexuality.
LCMC has been around for several years and has a pretty sizable base. It is a collection of individual congregations, accountable to each other, but without much institutional structure.
NALC was created by CORE, last Summer. A lot of congregations seemed to be waiting for NALC to be created before they took their votes to leave the ELCA. It is still smaller than LCMC, but has shown a lot of growth in a very short period of time. Its beliefs are similar to LCMC, but will have Bishops and is much more structured.
Thank you! God bless you all!
You too!
“20. Jehovah’s Witnesses, 1,162,686 members, up 4.37 percent.”
It looks like they posted the largest increase. It should be noted that only active members are counted.
The next largest increase was in the Seventh Day Adventist.
Very interesting.
Hey, how come they only mentioned 23 different “Protestant” denominations? Aren’t there supposed to be like 30 THOUSAND or something??? ;o)
The methodology of a survey like this is tricky in every case; it's not a "Catholic thing."
It's not a case of "not taking you off the roles [I think you mean "rolls"] even after you left," it's a case of "how do you know when they've left, and what is 'left,' anyway?".
(They've left if they go to the Assemblies of God fulltime, but have they left if they come to Mass on Christmas and Easter? What if they never come to Mass but still call themselves "Catholic"?)
Some Catholic parishes & dioceses take "parish censuses" regularly, specifically polling people in the pews on Sunday. They would have an accurate idea of how many people are regularly attending members. But others don't do that. A parish could also count contributing members (those who use envelopes or checks), but that wouldn't count the noncontributors who still attend.
One number that is accurate is the number of new members added in a year, because that's just the number of infant baptisms plus the number of adult conversions. So it's safe to say that the percentage increase described in this article is correct or on the low side. What's harder to know is what the baseline number is against which that percentage increase is computed.
It is true that a loss of members who simply left the Catholic Church would not immediately show up in statistics that just measure deaths and new members (both infant baptisms and adult conversion). But it would be reflected in those statistics eventually, because people who leave will not have their children baptized.
Another point is that polls show that the percentage of Americans who identify themselves as “Catholic” has held very steady at about 25% for several decades. That would imply that the number who think of themselves as Catholic is increasing at roughly the same rate as the US population.
As far as people leaving the catholic Church at four times the rate taht they enter, that is somewhat misleading. Most of the exodus from the catholic Church in the US happened in the late 60s and 70s, when the Church was going through rapid changes and turmoil. There were also very few converts to the Catholic Church in that period. Things have stabilized a great deal since then. More people are coming in and fewer going out.
Right now it seems that the Catholic population in the US is growing slowly.
“Rolls” is correct. I got it wrong.
We have to remember that membership is different than attendance in protestant churches..
I would guess that there may be a decline in people seeking membership but that actually attending services and bible studies etc..
Unlike Catholics that count every baptized baby as a "member" most protestant churches have membership classes and requirements for membership .
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