Fastest declining faith in America?
The National Council of Churches has published its 2008 Yearbook of Canadian and American Churches. It reports that the fastest growing denomination in the United States and Canada is Jehovah's Witnesses. The denomination with the sharpest decline was the Episcopal Church. The Religion News Services offered this report:
Jehovah's Witnesses are the fastest-growing church body in the U.S. and Canada, now with more than 1 million members, according to new figures that track church membership in the U.S. and Canada.Although Jehovah's Witnesses ranked 24th on the list of 25 largest churches, they reported the largest growth rate -- 2.25 percent -- of all churches. The badly divided Episcopal Church, meanwhile, reported the largest drop, at 4.15 percent.
The 2008 Yearbook of Canadian and American Churches, produced by the New York-based National Council of Churches, recorded growth trends in 224 national church bodies, with a combined membership of 147 million Americans.
The 2008 Yearbook is based on self-reported membership figures for 2006, the most recent year available.
The Roman Catholic Church, with 67.5 million members, remains the largest U.S. church body, with a 2006 increase of 0.87 percent. The second largest church, the Southern Baptist Convention (16.3 million) has more than twice the number of members as the United Methodist Church, the third largest, which documented 7.9 million U.S. members.
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, at 5.7 million U.S. members (1.56 percent increase) and the Church of God in Christ, with a steady 5.5 million, round out the top five.
Only the Jehovah's Witnesses, the Catholic Church, Southern Baptists, Mormons, the Assemblies of God (2.8 million) and the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church (1.4 million) reported increases; all others either posted declines or flat membership from 2005.
Read it all here.
("The 2008 Yearbook is based on self-reported membership figures for 2006, the most recent year available")
This is the key,'self reported'.
The Watchtower has recently inflated their membership count to include inactive members (members who don't go door to door).
There actually are now twice as many former Jehovah's Witnesses as there are active ones with thousands leaving every month.Baptisms at assemblies is often mostly family member children who have grown up JW.
Jehovah's Witnesses are LOSING members and are on the decline.Japan has lost over 600 congregations.Witnesses are shrinking in number in many Western countries as of the last few years, as the Internet facilitates the spread of information (much of it critical of the Witnesses).
Jehovah's Witnesses members are cautioned against creating JW-related websites, largely to prevent their members from discovering the history and dirty laundry of this organization on other websites. There are literally hundreds of former members pages in many languages
Posted by DannyHaszard![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.episcopalcafe.com/lead/nav-commenters.gif)
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February 17, 2008 9:59 AM
Well, this is not something we're happy to hear, but neither is it a surprise. It is, in all probability, an anomaly. For the past decade our numbers have been almost flat. In the past year we have really seen the effect of those Episcopalians who have chosen to leave for other bodies, sometimes in groups that represent significant percentages of individual parishes. However, that will, I believe, turn out to be an individual event, as it were, and not a trend. That won't stop the critics, of course, from proclaiming the demise of the Episcopal Church. And once this anomaly is past we can't be satisfied with a trend that is basically flat: there are too many out there not part of a Christian community that we can reach out to. But, this is a single sad note, and not the theme of a dirge.
Marshall Scott
Posted by mscottsail![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.episcopalcafe.com/lead/nav-commenters.gif)
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February 18, 2008 10:14 AM