Fraternity-Testvériség, 1963 (40. évfolyam, 1-12. szám)

1963-03-01 / 3. szám

FRATERNITY

OFFICIAL ORGAN OF THE HUNGARIAN REFORMED FEDERATION OF AMERICA Edited by the Officers of the Federation

Published monthly. — Subscription for non-members in the U. S. A. and Canada $2.00, elsewhere $3.00 a year.

Office of Publication: Expert Printing Co., 4627 Irvine St., Pittsburgh 7, Pa.

Editorial Office:

Suite 1201, Dupont Circle Bldg., 1346 Connecticut Ave., Washington 6, D. C. Volume XLI MARCH 1963 Number 3

Losses Dot Latest Church Membership Tally

The percentage of the American population that belongs to churches and synagogues has declined for the first time in almost a century, according to statistics in the 1963 Yearbook of American Churches published by the National Council of Churches.

The decline, only two-tenths of one per cent, came as no surprise, however, inasmuch as the post-war church membership boom has been leveling off in recent years.

Total church and synagogue membership for 1961 was reported as 116,109,929, or 63.4 per cent of the total population, as compared to the 1960 percentage of 63.6.

Two of the top ten U. S. Protestant denominations showed net losses for 1961. United Presbyterians reported 3,242,479 members compared with 3,259,011 the previous year, and the Protestant Episcopal Church was down from 3,444,265 to 3,269,325.

Records of church membership since 1850 show that a percentage decrease occurred only once before, in 1870, when the drop (in a 10- year-period) was from 23 to 18 per cent.

Another factor which indicates a leveling off is that for the first time since World War II percentage gains in membership have fallen below the estimated population increase. The 1961 membership increase of 1,660,712 amounted to a 1.4 per cent rise as compared to an estimated population gain of 1.6 per cent.

Although both Protestants and Roman Catholics reported an increase in membership, their percentages of the total population showed a decline. Both were reduced by two-tenths of one percent.

Of the 258 religious bodies supplying membership figures, 228 were Protestant with a total membership of 64,434,966. This was a gain of 766,131 or 1.2 per cent over 1960.

Compilers of the yearbook (members of the NCC’s Bureau of Research and Survey) stress that church statistics must be examined with the foreknowledge that not all churches reporting employ the same recording system. Some include infants and all family members while others record only those received into membership by baptism. The new yearbook carries statistics furnished by 258 religious bodies of all faith, one less than reported in 1960 and three more than in 1959.