I was at a conference at the Minneapolis campus of the University of St. Thomas, and one of the speakers was Bruce Forbes, professor of American religion at Morningside College in Sioux City, Iowa. Forbes had statistics I had never seen and I want to pass them along.

The greatest erosion of membership in mainline denominations occurred between 1965 and 1990. During that time, all mainline denominations lost a good many members. The greatest loss came to the Disciples of Christ, also known as the Christian Church, during that period. The Disciples lost 45.8 percent of its membership -- almost half of their total membership died, stopped attending or went to another church.

But other denominations didn't do much better. The Presbyterian Church (USA) lost 33.1 percent; the Episcopal Church dropped 28.7 percent; the United Church of Christ lost 22.8 percent; the United Methodists had 19.5 percent drop out.

Others did a little better. The American Baptists, a liberal Baptist denomination, lost only 1.5 percent; the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America dropped 7.8 percent; The Reformed Church in America had 15 percent walk away or die.

Forbes said some of those statistics are not terribly reliable because different denominations clean up their rolls more often than others. For instance, the United Methodists delete inactive members from their rolls every two years because they have to pay dues to the denomination for every member.

In other words, those losses could be much greater. There really is no reliable way to find out how many people are members of churches. All we know for sure is there are fewer and fewer people in church on Sunday morning.

Now, where have all those people gone? Forbes says many people lost confidence in church during the 1960s. My theory is, either they disagreed with the church and felt it should not get into politics and protests, or they saw the church as wimpy, an organization that could not back up words with actions. Either way, the church was the loser.

During that same period, some conservative Christian churches grew at phenomenal rates. The Church of God in Christ, a predominantly African-American denomination, claims it grew by 1,231 percent. Forbes says those figures could be suspect because record-keeping in the denomination is a bit shaky.

The Assemblies of God, a Pentecostal denomination, says it grew 281 percent from 1965 to 1990; the Church of God in Cleveland and Tennessee added 202 percent to its rolls; the Jehovah Witnesses grew by 150 percent.

The Roman Catholic Church claims to have grown by 26 percent in this time frame and a whopping 140 percent since 1947.

But most church observers say the Catholic rolls are not reliable and believe that of the 61 million Catholics in the United States, at least 15 million are inactive or have moved on to other churches. Even the Seventh Day Adventist denomination says it grew by 97 percent.

Here in the Twin Cities and nationwide, Islam is about to claim more adherents than the Jewish faith, a fact that has been predicted for at least a decade. In Minnesota, where Lutherans and Catholics still dominate with a combined membership of 2,149,000 still, there are now 43,000 Muslims, 18,500 Buddhists, and 15,500 Hindus, according to John Mayer, director of the Religious Information Service in Bloomington, Minn.

At least two observations can be made about these figures. First, with greater growth in conservative denominations, people want their church experience to be Bible-centered and to meet their needs. Mainline churches for 25 years ignored the pleas of the people -- requests for better preaching, for Bible-centered programs, for help raising children and for a meaningful social ministry.

The second thing we can learn from the demographic shifts is that we now live in a religiously pluralistic world, one being created right in our midst. And, sometimes, we find that we have trouble dealing with all the foreign elements in our midst.

Listen, we have 47,000 people who belong to tribal religions -- some in the Hmong and African communities, for instance -- in the United States. One could be living next door to you.

Therefore, the best way to live together is not through hatred but through love, tolerance and understanding. In fact, we can't just tolerate these new citizens, we have to respect them for the sacrifices they've made and the contributions they are making in our society.

Clark D. Morphew