Muslims have become the third-largest religious group in the state after Roman Catholics and independent evangelicals. Not to mention, the fastest-growing one.
That’s according to a census of American religious congregations unveiled Tuesday in Chicago.
This year, for the first time, the nationwide aggregation of religious traditions, dubbed the “Religion Census,” counted nondenominational evangelical congregations, ranging from storefront sanctuaries to megachurches with multiple sites such as Willow Creek Community Church.
That calculation revealed that evangelicals affiliated with independent churches make up the second-largest religious group in Illinois. In fact, in 48 of the 50 states, independent evangelicals occupy a top-five spot. In the Chicago area, Illinois and nationwide, Roman Catholics rank as the largest religious group.
With 176 religious traditions, Illinois slipped from its top spot as the most religiously diverse state in 2000, falling to Pennsylvania with 184.
Religious leaders and sociologists welcomed the bird’s-eye view of America’s religious landscape as a helpful tool for determining where to evangelize and understanding where certain religious traditions thrive. But some caution that the numbers and rankings shouldn’t be taken as gospel because religious groups apply different standards for counting adherents.
“We’re always saying how much we contribute to the state of Illinois, but it’s more anecdotal,” said Ahlam Jbara, interim executive director of the Council of Islamic Organizations of Greater Chicago. “As somebody dealing with government officials, it’s about numbers as well. Here’s information, here’s real data in our community which we really haven’t been able to show.”
The religion census is the latest in a series of reports released each decade to coincide with figures from the U.S. census. It is compiled by the Association of Statisticians of American Religious Bodies. The 2010 edition is the sixth since the U.S. Census Bureaufirst excluded religious affiliation after World War II.
Overall, the study shows a profoundly Christian nation with a lot of variety beneath the surface, including about 150 million Americans — half the population — who aren’t engaged with a religious community.
In most cases, the numbers are supplied by the headquarters of each denomination, though organizations count membership differently. In a few instances, such as the nondenominational and Muslim categories, scholars’ surveys were used. The geographical spread reflects where people worship, not where they live.
The Rev. Christian Coon, pastor of Urban Village, a contemporary church in the state’s fourth-largest denomination, United Methodist, said the information could be useful for evangelization. But he questioned how firm some figures might be when the tools for measuring vary.
“It keeps on changing. How do you measure?” Coon said. “I’m much more interested in worship attendance because it’s a more accurate picture of who is involved. Churches vary widely on how they ask someone to become a member. Some churches will have people go through a fairly rigorous multiweek study. At other churches, it’s essentially a warm handshake and you’re in.”
But Coon said the information is better than none and helps provide some clues about what drives and inspires Americans, something the U.S. census does not do.
“Obviously, clergy are biased because we like to know how people are viewing the world,” he said.
Stephen Warner, a sociologist of religion at the University of Illinois at Chicago, said the decennial study is the best attempt at mapping religion in America.
“What we get is a geographic distribution about where the heartlands and hinterlands of the religious bodies are. They’re not evenly distributed,” he said. Warner added, however, that Methodists seem to be the exception. “My God, they’re everywhere.”
But he questioned the credibility of numbers that come from institutions rather than individuals. Researchers say collecting data from religious groups produces a more meaningful picture than letting people self-identify. Those who affiliate with institutions tend to hew more closely to religious teachings, they said.
“It’s not enough to say to an individual, ‘Do you identify with a particular tradition?’ That doesn’t have much substance and, therefore, may not have much meaning rather than an idea just floating around in their head,” said Scott Thumma, a sociologist of religion from the Hartford Institute for Religion Research. “The real difference comes when someone says that and is connected to a community and is active in the local context.”
Thumma, who collected data on independent evangelicals, estimates another 30 percent of Americans identify with a religious tradition but aren’t active participants; probably another 10 percent or 20 percent claim no religious affiliation, he said.
Nationwide, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, or Mormons, reported the most growth of all religious traditions in the U.S., adding more than 1.9 million adherents. In Illinois and Cook and DuPage counties, that distinction belonged to Muslims, a piece of information that intrigued researcher Clifford Grammich, of Downers Grove, who collected Catholic data for the study.
“For better or worse, it gave me some insight to some of the local politics in the county,” he said, referring to tensions about new mosques being built in the area.
The Assemblies of God, a Pentecostal denomination, added 22,854 adherents — more growth than any other Christian tradition in the state, including Mormons.
The study shows that Catholics, though still the largest denomination in the state and the nation, declined about 5 percent nationwide as well as in Illinois and the Chicago area. Researchers warned, however, that numbers from previous studies were not wholly comparable.
Though Illinois is one of the five states where half of the nation’s Orthodox Christians are concentrated, the Bulgarian Eastern Orthodox Diocese of the USA, Canada and Australia saw the greatest percentage decline in both the U.S. and Illinois.
The 2010 religious census also expanded on past years by mapping Buddhists, Hindus, four branches of the Jewish community, and practitioners of the primarily Japanese Shinto tradition.
Habib Abbasi, 65, of Skokie, said he hopes the high ranking of Muslims in Illinois will help counter negative perceptions about Islam that aren’t based in fact and enable Muslims to accomplish their religious mission. He said the numbers don’t instill pride per se, but greater confidence.
“Not that we’re proud of it, but we’re trying to spread the word of God,” said Abbasi, a longtime member of the Muslim Community Center on Chicago’s Northwest Side. “Nowadays, there’s too much in the media about the so-called fanatics. A fact is a fact.”
Kamilah Jones, 34, a member of Willow Creek Community Church, said the high ranking of nondenominational churches did not surprise her.
“I do really think there’s a surge in the movement of nondenominational evangelical churches largely based on churches that are doing more to be active in the community, active in social justice and also more multicultural in nature,” said Jones, who grew up Catholic. “Action speaks louder than words.”
Actions speak louder than numbers too, she added.
“To say we’re the second-largest organizational group is huge,” she said. “But the hugeness of our impact is judged by our actions.”