Did you ever imagine that the fastest growing religious groups in America are Hindu, Quaker, Buddhist, and Muslim? Here are the numbers from a survey sponsored by the City University of New York comparing religious self-identification in 1990 with 2001: Hindu up 237%, Quaker up 224%, Buddhist up 170%, and Muslim up 109%.¹

It is likely that the increase in three of these four top growing groups is largely the result of immigration from India, China, and the Middle East. But a similar influx of Quakers is hard to imagine.  More likely the increase is from Americans like ourselves who have discovered they like the silence, the testimonies and the community offered by the Society of Friends.

Unfortunately, high percentages do not necessarily translate into large numbers. Quaker Meetings almost certainly do not have more new members than any other Christian denomination. It is the nature of numbers that when the base is small, new additions loom proportionally bigger. Still it is encouraging to think we may be growing faster than we realize. Our own meeting's membership seems to remain pretty constant, but new worship groups and new monthly meetings are springing up nearly every year in our Yearly Meeting.

When the same survey looked at the most common religious identification by state, Roman Catholics outnumbered other denominations in most of the US, while most southern states were Baptist; Delaware was Methodist; Utah, of course, was Mormon, and North and South Dakota were Lutheran. What is most surprising, however, is that the most common religious identification in Washington, Oregon, Idaho, and Wyoming is simply "no religion."

¹These numbers were reported in the August 29/September 5 edition of Newsweek magazine in a special issue devoted to Spirituality in America.