While mainline denominations lose members,
conservative churches see boom
I saw some demographic numbers last week about the Christian
church that shocked me. 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
Posted For October 31, 1998