Leisure Time in Our Community - Top Growing Religions, 1990-2000

The chart shows the top 15 religions that showed the biggest percentage increase in membership from 1990 to 2000 in the United States. This list reflects the growing diversity of the American population. In some ways it also reflects a growing openness to new ideas, as reflected by the growth in New Age religions. It also reflects a growing secularism in our society: those identifying themselves as having no religion grew by 110% (14.4 million people) in this time period¹⁰. Although not seen on the graph, two religions that saw declines in their population were Judaism (a decrease of 306,000 people) and Agnosticism (a decrease of 195,000).

Keep in mind that the graphic shows percent growth — not actual numbers of people. Groups with the highest rates of growth, in the graph, have relatively low numbers. The table on the next page provides actual counts for the belief systems shown on the graph. The first column shows changes in the number of people identifying with the belief. The second column provides the actual count of people who hold these beliefs. The system with the greatest numerical growth has been Secularism, followed by Christianity. Deity, leading on the chart, is a small group of only 49,000 people — most of whom have embraced Deity since 1990.

Population Change, 1990-2000 and Adult Population Per Religion, 2001

	Population change (1990-2000)	Adult population (2001 est.)
Nonreligious/secular	14,423,000	27,539,000
Christianity	7,805,000	159,030,000
Buddhism	681,000	1,082,000
Islam	577,000	1,104,00011
Hinduism	539,000	766,000
Unitarian Universalism	127,000	629,000
Baha'i	56,000	84,000
Native American religion	56,000	103,000
New Age	48,000	68,000
Sikhism	44,000	57,000
Deity (Deism)	43,000	49,000
Humanist	20,000	49,000
Taoism	17,000	40,000
Scientology	10,000	55,000
Eckankar	8,000	26,000

Source: "Largest Religious Groups in the United States of America." Retrieved February 7, 2002 from http://adherents.com/rel_USA.html. "Deism Defined." Retrieved February 22, 2002 from http://www.deism.com/deism_defined.htm.