A NY Times report by Neela Banerjee refers to a new survey of religious affiliation by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life.
The report shows, for example, that every religion is losing and gaining members, but that the Roman Catholic Church “has experienced the greatest net losses as a result of affiliation changes.” The survey also indicates that the group that had the greatest net gain was the unaffiliated. More than 16 percent of American adults say they are not part of any organized faith, which makes the unaffiliated the country’s fourth largest “religious group.”
The money quote for me is:
Muslims rival Mormons for having the largest families. And Hindus are the best-educated and among the richest religious groups, the survey found. [emphasis added.]
Now that is what I call globalization: India importing the Indian rate of growth from the US. Notice that the socialistic Nehru rate of growth of 2 percent per year was prevalent for nearly forty years after India’s independence. Only in the mid 1990’s did the pace pick up — around the same time that Indians started making it big in the US.