March 4, 2002

Mormon church breaks into U.S. top five in size
___NEW YORK (RNS)--The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints for the first time has been listed among the top five largest churches in the United States, according to figures released Feb. 13.
___The Salt Lake City-based church, popularly known as the Mormons, ranked fifth among the 25 largest U.S. churches, according to the 2002 Yearbook of Canadian and American Churches compiled by the National Council of Churches.
___The Roman Catholic Church maintained its No. 1 spot, with 63.6 million reported members. The largest Protestant church, in the No. 2 spot, remains the Southern Baptist Convention, with 15.9 million reported members. The United Methodist Church placed third, with 8.3 million members in the United States. In the No. 4 spot is the Church of God in Christ, a predominantly black Pentecostal church with 5.4 million members. Latter-day Saints, with 5.2 million members, placed fifth.
___The Mormons bumped the nation's largest Lutheran body, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, to sixth place, with 5.1 million members. That move leaves the Methodists as the only mainline Protestant church among the top five. In 1970, three of the top five churches were mainline churches.
___Rounding out the top 10 were the National Baptist Convention of America Inc., 3.5 million members; Presbyterian Church (USA), 3.4 million members; Assemblies of God, 2.5 million members; and the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod, 2.5 million members.
___Total U.S. church membership, according to the almanac, stands at an estimated 152 million.
___

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