CHURCH MEMBERSHIP IN AMERICA SHOWS BIG INCREASE

Manawatu Times, Volume LIV, Issue 6808, 11 January 1929, Page 12

CHURCH MEMBERSHIP IN AMERICA SHOWS BIG INCREASE

BUT BUILDERS AND MINISTERS DECREASE. “The Tccord of the membership in 1927 of the Churches in the United States would be immensely encouraging if it could be accepted at its face value,” writes Sir Henry Lunn in “The Review of the Churches.” In the early days of the Republic at the end of the eightheenth and the beginning of the nineteenth century Church membership averaged approximately 10 per cent, of the total population. To-day the latest report has just been published by that eminent statistician, Dr. H. F. Carroll, and gives the amazing number of communicants of 48,594,103, being a net gain of 573,723 members in 1927. “This means that there is approximately 40 per cent, of the total population whoso names are to be found on the rolls of the churches. That is four times as large a proportion as that wffiich the fathers of the nation found in their church records. No one would argue that religion is four times as powerful to-day as it was in the days either of J6hn Adams, the second president, or of his grandson, John Qilincey Adams, the sixth president. “A study of the comparative growth of the different communions indicates that the Roman Catholics have had the largest single gain for the year, viz., 153,000. The Methodist group have a gain of 150,000. The Lutheran rank next with a gain of 67,000, whilst the 14 Baptist bodies show an actual gain of 44,000. On the other hand, the Presbyterian Churches have lost in 1927 many thousands more than they have gained. The Presbyterian Church of the South alone has a net loss of 22,000. “An interest'll feature in the total return of this annual religious census i 3 the steady decrease in the number of ministers, which now stands at 217,204 —a net loss of 1387 on the year, and the number of churches has decreased to 235,991 —a decrease of 1470 on th* year. This indicates a process of consolidation which no friend of Christian Unity can regret.”