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.]
Dear dangus,
After a significant fall-off in Boston after the scandals of recent years, and then the closings of a number of parishes, attendance at Mass in Boston is on a (small) upswing. Which means that per parish attendance is actually even greater.
sitetest
Actually, Hispanics account for the bulk of the Roman Catholic Church's growth in the U.S. Among white ethnics, I have read numbers are actually declining.
That's an inaccurate statement...it would be called hearsay in court.
The bulk of the growth in some parts of the nation (blue states) may be immigrant-based...but here in the Bible Belt (Texas), the majority of parish growth is coming from Protestant converts.
Take the gun AND the cannolis and come on back!
No I don't beleive that it was that way, I beleive it was the free form of worship that drew many in.
Except that many spirit filled evangelicals aren't easy believers, and doctrinaire legalism isn't hard truth. Other than that, is your point appropos of anything?
That may be true where you are, but in Atlanta there is a sizeable Hispanic immigrant population in the churches. Most parishes offer one or two Spanish masses each week. I don't know whether they are officially registered or not, but they are certainly attending mass in large numbers. When we moved here 12 years ago, our real estate agent told us that "there are lots of religions here, even some of those Catholic people have moved in". Now there are 8 parishes within 15 miles of here, seating 1000+ at 6 or 8 masses per week.
see 52
I never said that easy believism was the reason for the non doms I stated the fact that many left dead denominational churches where the Spirit led worship and teaching had been replaced with tradition and legalism.
I know. The post was directed at "Conservative til I die."
Uh, no, that's not true. The Catholic Church teaches you can only be baptised once. In fact, if they suspect you may have been validly baptised before, they will only conditionally baptise you, if you convert.
No problem then.
I was addressing your attempt at caricature, which fell flat. Many (most, in my experience) evangelicals are NOT "easy believers," and DO oppose homosexuality, contraception (at least the abortefacient variety, if not all), abortion, promiscuity and immorality. They also believe in fasting, prayer and Church attendance. What they may not necessarily believe in is Church-mandated fasting periods, for example. That doesn't make it "Christianity-lite," as some have attempted, incorrectly, to aver (some notable exceptions granted).
The churches are indeed beautiful. I am so glad the Church survived the Soviet domination. Those ugly soviet style poured concrete buildings are a scar on the beautiful city of Bratislava.
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