WHICH IS THE FASTEST GROWING RELIGION?

(Investigator 191, 2020 March)

This image: From IMSI's MasterClips/MasterPhotos 202,000 © 1997 Collection,

1895 Francisco Blvd. East, San Rafael, CA 94901-5506 , USA

We're going to compare the worldwide increase rates of five large, long-established religions.

We'll consider the Assemblies of God (AoG), Jehovah's Witnesses (JWs), Mormons, Seventh Day Adventists (SDAs), and Roman Catholics.

The AoG, founded in 1914, is the world's largest Pentecostal group. It believes in the supernatural inspiration of the Bible; Christ's crucifixion making atonement for sins; baptism by immersion; the return of Christ to reign on Earth; "speaking in tongues"; and divine healing.

JWs began as the "Russellites" founded in 1879 by Charles Taze Russell (1852-1916) after he separated from an Adventist group known as the Advent Christian Church. Russell's successor Joseph F. Rutherford (1869-1942), a former Baptist, came up with the name "Jehovah's witnesses" in 1931.

The Mormon Church officially began in 1830, founded by Joseph Smith (1805-1844), and later adopted the name "Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints".

The SDA's developed out of the "great disappointment" of 1844 when predictions of Christ's return failed and various cults developed out of the failure. Ellen. G. White (1827-1915) became the prophet of one group which in 1860 adopted the name "Seventh Day Adventists". 




Different religions define membership differently:

•    The AoG distinguish "Members" from "Adherents". The latter outnumber the members and are "all persons who consider an AG church to be their home." Table 1 excludes adherents in countries "not considered mission fields".

•    JWs take monthly counts of people who preach (usually door to door) and submit a report-slip of their activity. These they call "publishers". An Annual Report on the JW website lists the "peak publishers" for each year and the "average publishers" for the 12 months. JWs also take a count of the attendance at their annual "Memorial" of Christ's death which everyone interested tries to attend.

•    SDAs and Catholics count "Baptized members" and Mormons "Baptized and confirmed".

The accompanying statistical tables rely on official reports published by each denomination. These differ from government censuses, the Pew Research Centre and World Christian Database. The AoG have a website on statistics by "The General Council of the Assemblies of God." JWs formerly produced yearbooks but now place an annual chart on their official website. Mormon statistics appear in Wikipedia. SDAs upload a very detailed Annual Statistical Report to the Internet. The Roman Catholic Church has the Pontifical Yearbook compiled by the Vatican's Central Office of Church Statistics.

Table 1
Worldwide Statistics 1900 to 2019 (To nearest 1,000)

	AoG Adherents	JWs Peak	JWs Memorial	Mormons	SDAs
1900		c.2,000	3,000	284,000	75,000
1910		c.4,000	11,000	398.000	105,000
1920		8,000	22.000	526.000	185,000
1930		48,000	30,000	670,000	314,000
1940		95,000	97,000	863,000	505,000
1950		373,000	511,000	1,111,000	757,000
1960		916,000	1,520,000	1,693,000	1,245,000
1970		1,483,000	3,226,000	2,931,000	2,052,000
1980		2,272,000	5,727,000	4,640,000	3,481,000
1990	23,771,000	4,017,000	9,950,000	7,761,000	6,694,000
2000	38,229,000	6,636,000	14,872,000	11,069,000	11,687,000
2010	58,730,000	7,508,000	18,707,000	14,131,000	16,923,000
2011	60,231,000	7,659,000	19,375,000	14,441,000	17,480,000
2012	61,316,000	7,782,000	19,013,000	14,782,000	17,881,000
2013	62,161,000	7,966,000	19,241,000	15,082,000	18,144,000
2014	61,958,000	8,202,000	19,950,000	15,372,000	18,479,000
2015	63,524,000	8,220,000	19,863,000	15,634,000	19,126,000
2016	64,027,000	8,341,000	20,085,000	15,882,000	20,009,000
2017	64,601,000	8,457,000	20,175,000	16,118,000	20,727,000
2018		8,580,000	20,329,000	16,314,000	21,415,000
2019		8,683,000	20,919,000

Catholics Worldwide (in Millions)

1900	266	1990	928.5	2013	1,254
1910	291	2000	1,045	2014	1,272
1950	437	2010	1,195	2015	1,285
1970	654	2011	c.1,210	2016	1,299
1980	784	2012	1,229	2017	1,313

	1990 to 2000	2000 to 2010	2010 to 2017
AoG	60.8%	53.6%	10.0%
JWs Peak	65.2%	13.2%	12.5%
JWs Memorial	49.5%	25.8%	7.8%
Mormons	42.6%	27.7%	14.1%
SDAs	74.6%	44.8%	22.5%
Catholics	12.5%	12.6%	9.9%

Table 4
Increase 1990-2017

	1990	2017	% Increase
AoG	23,771,000	64,601,000	171.8%
JWs Peak	4,017,000	8,457,000	110.5%
JWs Memorial	9,950,000	20,175,000	107.6%
Mormons	7,761,000	16,118,000	107.7%
SDAs	6,694,000	20,727,000	209.6%
Catholics	928.5 million	1,313 million	41.4%
World Population	5,300 million	7,550 million	42.5%

DISCUSSION

In absolute numbers Roman Catholicism excels as the fastest increasing religion (Table 2); but its percentage growth is slightly below world-population growth. (Table 4).

Percentage-wise the other four religions consistently outpaced world population growth between 1990 and 2017.

JWs show signs of leveling out. Their "peak publishers" increased 2½ milllion 1990-2000 but only 2 million in the next 19 years. JWs, however, have the most stringent membership requirement — people need to actively promote the faith. If we compare other religions by this criterion JWs would probably stand out as the world's biggest religion. Many inactive JWs also reactivate whenever a prophesied date is near or traumatic world events remind them of their doctrine of Armageddon.

Table 3 shows the percentage growth of the five religions during two 10-year periods and a 7-year period. The AoG came first in 2000-2010; the SDA's came first in 1990-2000 and in 2010-2017.

Calculating a single percentage for each religion covering the entire period 1990 to 2017 (Table 4) reveals the SDAs as clear winner.

BS

https://ed5015.tripod.com/

https://investigatormagazine.net

Dictionary of Jehovah's Witnesses at:
https://ed5015.tripod.com/jwdictionary/