NCC Report: church members outnumber JW's 140 to one

by moshe 10 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

• 

  moshe

  Based on a recent 2009 report of church membership in North America by the National Council of Churches, NCC, JW's are near the bottom of the list with about 1 million members and mainline churches have over 140 million. JW's have not had any success in growing any faster than mainline Christianity and they are definitely behind the Mormons in growth. Well, this is one statistic you won't see in the WT Yearbook.

  Top 25 churches ranked by membership:

  1. The Roman Catholic Church; 67,117,06 members; down 0.59 percent
  2. The Southern Baptist Convention; 16,266,920 members; down 0.24 percent
  3. The United Methodist Church; 7,931,733 members; down 0.80 percent.
  4. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints; 5,873,408 members; up 1.63 percent
  5. The Church of God in Christ; 5,499,875 members; no change reported
  6. National Baptist Convention, U.S.A., Inc.; 5,000,000 members; no change reported
  7. Evangelical Lutheran Church in America; 4,709,956 members; down 1.35 percent
  8. National Baptist Convention of America, Inc.; 3,500,000 members; no change reported
  9. Presbyterian Church (USA); 2,941,412 members; down 2.79 percent
  10. Assemblies of God; 2,863,265 members; up 0.96 percent
  11. African Methodist Episcopal Church; 2,500,000 members; no change reported
  12. National Missionary Baptist Convention of America; 2,500,000 members; no change reported
  13. Progressive National Baptist Convention, Inc.; 2,500,000 members; no change reported
  14. The Lutheran Church – Missouri Synod (LCMS); 2,383,084 members; down 1.44 percent
  15. The Episcopal Church; 2,116,749 members; down 1.76 percent
  16. Churches of Christ; 1,639,495 members; no change reported
  17. Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America; 1,500,000 members; no change reported
  18. Pentecostal Assemblies of the World, Inc.; 1,500,000 members; no change reported
  19. The African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church; 1,400,000 members; down 3.01 percent
  20. American Baptist Churches in the USA, 1,358,351, down 0.94 percent
  21. Baptist Bible Fellowship International; 1,200,000; no change reported
  22. United Church of Christ; 1,145,281 members; down 6.01 percent
  23. Jehovah's Witnesses; 1,092,169 members; up 2.12 percent
  24. Christian Churches and Churches of Christ; 1,071,616 members; no change reported
  25. Church of God (Cleveland, Tenn.); 1,053,642 members; up 2.04 percent
• 

  dgp

  We have to note that the JW's aren't growing much more than the Church of God, but more than the Mormons in percent terms. Of course, in absolute numbers the Mormons grew more. Almost three times as much as the JW's. Only four religious groups grew.
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  yadda yadda 2

  Yes, and Jesus is soon going to massacre all of those evil "false Christians" who claim to love him. Lovely isn't he, this JW-style Jesus, soon about to slaughter billions of persons because they went to church every week and prayed to Jesus and wanted to please him and obey him. Terrible people, so deserving of death. Vile and debauched.
• 

  slimboyfat

  JW's have not had any success in growing any faster than mainline Christianity and they are definitely behind the Mormons in growth.

  The difference between JWs and Mormons is that Mormons claim to have 5 million members, but only 3 million identify themselves as Mormons when polled. JWs on the other hand claim 1 million members, but closer to 2 million call themselves JWs. I would not put much faith in official Mormon numbers.

  Besides, out of the top 25 churches, your figures show JWs had the best growth this year, is that right?
• 

  moshe

  Even at a whopping 2% growth rate it would take more than entire generation to double their numbers to 2 million in North America- they have many generations to go to move up to the middle and they will never overtake the Mormons. Maybe in 25 years they will be up to one in 100 or maybe they will drop down to 1 in 200 during that time period.
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  paul from cleveland

  Only eight people got on the ark.
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  moshe

  -8 people got on the Ark? This is the non-fiction side of the forum.
• 

  skeeter1

  Moshe,

  You know good and well that the Ark story is absolutely true. LOL.

  God made animals. God made man. Man sins. God swamps the entire Earth with a flood. All Earth's animals and 8 men survive in an Ark. Afterwards, many animals (think, kangaroo and wallabee) got from the Mid-East to Australia afterwards...they hopped all the way...never making any babies along the way. No fossil records or living specimins confirm a great migration. A true miracle from God. And, the different cultures and people all descended from Noah. Haven't you noticed how similar the Aborigines are to the Jewish?

  People who take this Bible story literally....IT'S A LEGEND FOLKS...AND HISTORY SHOWS THAT, IF THERE WAS A FLOOD...IT WAS A local ONE.
• 

  dgp

  I wondered what the figure for atheists would be. And I came upon this interesting thing:

  http://forum.richarddawkins.net/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=89233&start=0

  According to this webpage, there are 1,160,293 atheists in the United States, and 148,028,092 worldwide. I'm deliberately leaving out the "non-religious", because I'm not clear what that term means. If I add "atheists" and "nonreligious" for the United States, the figure is 34,902,508. I'm not sure how they collect these statistics, but, if that were the case, then only the Roman Catholics are more numerous than the atheists/non-religious.

  I'm sorry that they don't have the figure for the disfellowshipped / disassociated, or their rate of growth. THAT would be very interesting to check.
• 

  moshe

  I think there are a lot of non-religious people by choice in the world- they have thought it out and made a conscious decision to reject religion. I also think they have become more vocal on the Internet. For as long as I can remember there has been a certain shame factor in admitting publicly that one is an atheist or agnostic. In addition, Madeline Murray O'hare was not exactly a positive spokesperson for atheism.