No. 67. Self-Described Religious Identification of Adult Population:
1990 and 2001
[In thousands (175,440 represents 175,440,000). The American Religious Identification Survey (ARIS) 2001 was based on a
random digit-dialed telephone survey of 50,281 American residential households in the continental U.S.A (48 states). Respondents
were asked to describe themselves in terms of religion with an open-ended question. Interviewers did not prompt or offer a
suggested list of potential answers. Moreover, the self-description of respondents was not based on whether established religious
bodies, institutions, churches, mosques or synagogues considered them to be members. Quite the contrary, the survey sought to
determine whether the respondents themselves regarded themselves as adherents of a religious community. Subjective rather
than objective standards of religious identification were tapped by the surveys]
Religious group 1990 2001
Adult population, total 1 . . . . . . . . 175,440 207,980
Total Christian . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 151,496 159,506
Catholic . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46,004 50,873
Baptist. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33,964 33,830
Protestant - no denomination supplied . . 17,214 4,647
Methodist/Wesleyan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14,174 14,150
Lutheran . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9,110 9,580
Christian - no denomination supplied. . . 8,073 14,150
Presbyterian . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4,985 5,596
Pentecostal/Charismatic . . . . . . . . . . . 3,191 4,407
Episcopalian/Anglican. . . . . . . . . . . . . 3,042 3,451
Mormon/Latter-Day Saints. . . . . . . . . . 2,487 2,787
Churches of Christ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1,769 2,593
Jehovah’s Witness. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1,381 1,331
Seventh-Day Adventist . . . . . . . . . . . . 668 724
Assemblies of God. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 660 1,106
Holiness/Holy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 610 569
Congregational/United Church of Christ . 599 1,378
Church of the Nazarene . . . . . . . . . . . 549 544
Church of God . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 531 944
Orthodox (Eastern) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 502 645
Evangelical 2. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 242 1,032
Mennonite . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 235 346
Christian Science. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 214 194
Church of the Brethren . . . . . . . . . . . . 206 358
Born Again 2 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 204 56
Nondenominational 2 . . . . . . . . . . . . . 195 2,489
Disciples of Christ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 144 492
Reformed/Dutch Reform . . . . . . . . . . . 161 289
Apostolic/New Apostolic . . . . . . . . . . . 117 254
Quaker . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67 217
Full Gospel. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51 168
Christian Reform . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40 79
Foursquare Gospel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28 70
Religious group 1990 2001
Fundamentalist . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27 61
Salvation Army . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27 25
Independent Christian Church . . . . . . . 25 71
Total other religions. . . . . . . . . . . . . 5,853 7,740
Jewish . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3,137 2,831
Muslim/Islamic. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 527 1,104
Buddhist . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 401 1,082
Unitarian/Universalist . . . . . . . . . . . . . 502 629
Hindu . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 227 766
Native American . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47 103
Scientologist . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45 55
Baha’I . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28 84
Taoist . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23 40
New Age . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20 68
Eckankar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18 26
Rastafarian. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14 11
Sikh . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 57
Wiccan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 134
Deity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 49
Druid. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . (NA) 33
Santeria. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . (NA) 22
Pagan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . (NA) 140
Spiritualist . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . (NA) 116
Ethical Culture. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . (NA) 4
Other unclassified . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 837 386
No religion specified, total . . . . . . . . 14,331 29,481
Atheist. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . (NA) 902
Agnostic. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1,186 991
Humanist . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29 49
Secular . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . (NA) 53
No religion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13,116 27,486
Refused to reply to question. . . . . . . 4,031 11,246
NA Not available. 1 Refers to the total number of adults in all fifty states. All other figures are based on projections from
surveys conducted in the continental United States (48 states). 2 Because of the subjective nature of replies to open-ended
question, these categories are the most unstable as they do not refer to clearly identifiable denominations as much as underlying
feelings about religion. Thus they may be the most subject to fluctuation over time.
Source: 1990 data, Barry A. Kosmin and Seymour P. Lachman, ‘‘One Nation Under God: Religion in Contemporary American
Society’’, 1993; 2001 data, The Graduate Center of the City University of New York, New York, NY, Barry A. Kosmin, Egon Mayer
and Ariela Keysar, American Religious Identification Survey, 2001 (copyright).
Population 55


Sorry if this is hard to read. Sometimes copying from a PDF looks funky. Bear in mind that where the numbers are...it's actually two sets of numbers. The first number is for the year 1990 and the second is for 2001. These numbers are also in thousands...so if you see, say 140...it's 140,000.

-- Edited by Rev Dragons Blade at 03:08, 2005-06-24