http://www.startribune.com/stories/484/3238618.html Mormons, Evangelicals led '90s church growth Published 9/18/2002
The Mormon church and evangelical faiths grew during the past decade while more liberal Protestant denominations shrank, according to a census of U.S. religions conducted by a Roman Catholic research group.
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormon) grew at the fastest rate, with the Pentecostal denomination Assemblies of God following closely behind.
The study, Religious Congregations & Membership in the United States: 2000, was conducted by Glenmary Research Center of Nashville.
The Roman Catholic Church also posted strong growth, although its geographic areas shifted. It remained the largest denomination in the country, growing 16 percent to 62 million. A larger proportion of Catholics now live in the West than in the Midwest; the Catholic population grew faster in the South than it did in the Northeast.
In Minnesota, the rises and declines from 1990 to 2000 in certain faiths generally tracked the trends in the nation, with evangelical religions and the Mormon Church showing percentage gains that far outstripped the state's overall population growth.
And, when grouped, the evangelical faiths have caught up with mainline Protestant religions in Minnesota. That was not the case in 1990.
Among the Minnesota evangelical faiths: Assemblies of God was up 40.5 percent (56,028 adherents in 2000); Baptist General Conference, up 45.8 percent (46,577), and Evangelical Free Church, up 40 percent (28,873).
Among mainline Protestant faiths: Methodist, down 17.4 percent (117,990); United Church of Christ, down 20.4 percent (44,175); Presbyterian, down 15.2 percent (56,579), and Episcopal, down 4.5 percent (30,547).
Even so, both of those groups remain dwarfed in Minnesota compared with the two faith giants: Catholics and Lutherans.
Catholics again reported the greatest number of followers in the state (1.26 million). That is 13.6 percent above the 1990 count, closely shadowing the state's population growth overall.
And as in 1990, Lutherans accounted for the second-largest number of adherents in Minnesota (about 1.1 million in 2000, up slightly vs. 1990). The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America still owns the overwhelming share among all Lutheran denominations, rising 3.7 percent in the past 10 years to 853,448.
Mormons are up 38 percent (20,122) in Minnesota.
The count for Jews in Minnesota is an estimate (42,000) and is 24.3 percent above the 1990 figure. The study put the Jewish population nationwide at 6 million, but the Rev. Dale Jones, a Church of the Nazarene minister who oversaw the survey, said the figure researchers gave Glenmary included Jews who were not members of congregations and therefore was difficult to compare with other denominations.
For Muslims, the state number is estimated at 12,305. Glenmary has not reported a number for Muslims in previous decades. The study found 1.6 million Muslims nationwide. 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 Muslim population.
The evangelical Southern Baptist Convention grew by 4.9 percent during the past decade but remained the nation's largest Protestant group, with nearly 20 million members, according to Glenmary. Other surveys put the Southern Baptist figure closer to 16 million.
The survey, conducted every 10 years, was released Tuesday. It is based on information provided by 149 participating religious bodies. It found 140 million religious adherents in 2000, which means that at least half of all Americans are associated with a religious group.
Since the U.S. Census does not ask about religion, some scholars regard this study, first done in 1971, as the most comprehensive assessment available of U.S. religious affiliation.