Evangelicals, Catholic Church report growths

The Mormon church and evangelical faiths grew during the past decade while more liberal Protestant denominations shrank, according to a new census of U.S. religions conducted by a Roman Catholic research group.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints grew at the fastest rate, with the Pentecostal denomination Assemblies of God following closely behind, the 2000 Religious Congregations & Membership study found.

Here is a list of the 15 largest religious denominations in the United States, according to the 2000 Religious Congregations & Membership study by the Glenmary Research Center:

1. Roman Catholic, 62,035,042 adherents2. Southern Baptist Convention, 19,881,4673. United Methodist Church, 10,350,6294. Jewish (estimate), 6,141,3255. Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, 5,113,4186. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 4,224,0267. Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), 3,141,5668. Assemblies of God, 2,561,9989. Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod, 2,521,06210. Episcopal Church, 2,314,75611. American Baptist Churches in the USA, 1,767,46212. United Church of Christ, 1,698,91813. Churches of Christ, 1,645,58414. Muslim (estimate), 1,559,29415. Christian Churches and Churches of Christ, 1,439,253

The Roman Catholic Church also posted strong growth while its population shifted. More Catholics now live in the West than the traditionally Catholic Midwest, and the Catholic population in the South grew faster than it did in the Northeast.

“That has a lot to do with the growth of the Hispanic population in the United States,” said researcher Clifford Grammich, who collected Catholic figures for the study. “How well the church has been holding onto Hispanic Catholics, a study like this can’t determine.”

The survey is conducted once a decade and was released Tuesday.

The latest version includes Muslims for the first time, finding 1.6 million in the United States. The count was lower by millions than some other surveys, but researchers said the figure was only a tally of those active in mosques, not the total American Muslim population. Estimates of all Muslims vary dramatically from 2 million to 6 million.

The study was conducted by the Glenmary Research Center in Nashville, Tenn., a Catholic research and social service organization that coordinates the study with analysts from several faiths. It’s one of just a few religious surveys across denominations.

The 149 participating faiths sent membership estimates to Glenmary, which adjusted the figures to make them comparable. The U.S. Census Bureau does not collect information on religion.

The numbers for each denomination may not be exact, but are close enough to help uncover important trends, said the Rev. Dale Jones, a Church of the Nazarene minister who oversaw the survey.

Jones said one of the most troubling trends was that, in most areas, religious groups failed to increase the percentage of members compared with the total population. This was especially pronounced in the West, where denominations claim the smallest percentage of members.