Church Membership: Who Counts? Who Cares?
May 20, 2007
The Washington Post reports on how “soft” numbers are for church membership in the United States–an old story among us sociologists and historians, but an important story nonetheless. The numbers are generally inflated, as many denominations and congregations don’t drop people from the rolls unless they are explicitly asked to do so–and who bothers to do that once they have drifted away from church? They’re also inflated because in at least some regions of the United States it is still “expected” that you belong to a church, so you say so when a pollster asks.
Ironies and paradoxes abound. Here’s one. The Roman Catholic Church, known for making one or two demands on its members, nonetheless keeps on its rolls anyone baptized in its churches unless they ask to be removed. But so do the Mormons and the Southern Baptists, who also are known for expecting members to toe a certain line of doctrine and practice. And even if they were the only three denominations to practice this weird kind of inclusivity (and they’re not), they’re so big that they alone would account for a huge statistical problem.
