U.S. Religious Census of 1957

U.S. Religious Census of 1957
Name	U.S. Religious Census of 1957
Country	United States
Year	1957
Conducted by	National Council of Churches
Type	Religious census
Previous	1916 Religious Census
Next	1990s religious surveys

Contents

U.S. Religious Census of 1957 The 1957 religious census was a nationwide enumeration of religious bodies in the United States conducted to update denominational statistics after earlier efforts such as the 1916 Religious Census of the United States and contemporary surveys by institutions like the Pew Research Center and the Gallup Organization. Initiated amid shifts involving organizations such as the National Council of Churches, the Catholic Church in the United States, the Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod, the Southern Baptist Convention, and the United Methodist Church, the census aimed to document membership, congregations, and institutional assets across urban centers like New York City, Chicago, and Los Angeles. Data from the census informed leaders including Earl C. Kelley, academics at Harvard University, and planners at the Federal Council of Churches of Christ in America as well as influencing reports circulated to figures in the Senate Committee on Labor and Public Welfare and the House Committee on Un-American Activities.

Background and Purpose

The project emerged from collaboration among ecumenical bodies including the National Council of Churches in the USA, the Federal Council of Churches, the Roman Catholic Church (United States), the American Jewish Committee, and the National Association of Evangelicals to reconcile disparate counts previously produced by scholars like Walter Rauschenbusch, H. Richard Niebuhr, and demographers associated with Columbia University. Motivations reflected postwar concerns voiced by leaders such as Reinhold Niebuhr, policymakers at the Truman Administration, and civil society actors tied to organizations like the YMCA and the Salvation Army. The census sought to provide a statistical basis for studies by scholars at the University of Chicago, planners at the Brookings Institution, and clerical administrators in dioceses overseen by bishops such as James Francis McIntyre.

Enumerators coordinated with denominational headquarters like the United Presbyterian Church in the United States of America, the Episcopal Church (United States), the Presbyterian Church in the United States, the American Baptists, and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to collect counts of communicants, adherents, congregations, clergy, and church buildings. Techniques adapted frameworks used by scholars at Yale University, surveyors from the U.S. Census Bureau (non-official collaboration), and statisticians at the Social Science Research Council. Data were gathered via mailed questionnaires, episcopal returns, synodical reports, and parish registers from dioceses in regions such as New England, the Rust Belt, and the Sun Belt. Analysis employed tabulation methods akin to those used by demographers at the University of Michigan and by staff associated with the American Statistical Association.

The census documented substantial growth in denominations such as the Roman Catholic Church, the Southern Baptist Convention, the Methodist Church (USA), and the Church of Christ, Scientist, and revealed regional concentrations in states like California, Texas, New York (state), and Illinois. It reported increases in clergy numbers linked to seminaries including Princeton Theological Seminary and Union Theological Seminary (New York), as well as expansion of institutions like Vanderbilt University chaplaincies, hospital ministries run by the Sisters of Mercy, and mission boards such as the Foreign Mission Board (SBC). Statistical tables highlighted shifts in membership patterns compared with earlier counts by scholars at Stanford University and the University of Pennsylvania, and underscored demographic intersections studied by researchers affiliated with the National Opinion Research Center.

Major bodies including the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New York, the Southern Baptist Convention, the United Methodist Church, the Hebrew Union College, and the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America used the results for strategic planning, clergy deployment, seminary enrollment forecasting, and ecumenical negotiations involving the World Council of Churches. The census influenced policy decisions at institutions such as the Federal Housing Administration (through community planning), philanthropic strategies at the Carnegie Corporation, and program development at relief agencies including Catholic Charities USA and the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee. Denominational publishing houses like Abingdon Press and Houghton Mifflin incorporated findings into reference works and directories.

Scholars from Princeton University, critics affiliated with the American Civil Liberties Union, and statisticians at the Brookings Institution noted methodological constraints: reliance on denominational self-reporting, inconsistent definitions across bodies such as the Mennonite Church USA and the Quaker Meeting, undercounting of minority faiths like adherents of Buddhism in the United States, the Sikh American community, and newer movements documented by ethnographers at the Smithsonian Institution. Observers including C. Wright Mills and demographers at the University of Chicago highlighted biases introduced by urban-rural classification, response rates in regions like the Bible Belt, and limited socioeconomic cross-tabulation.

The 1957 enumeration shaped later projects by the National Council of Churches, researchers at the Association of Statisticians of American Religious Bodies, and later national efforts such as surveys conducted by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life and the ARIS (American Religious Identification Survey). Its data informed historiography by scholars like Martin Marty and Robert Bellah, guided denominational mergers such as the formation of the United Church of Christ, and contributed to governmental and academic databases maintained at institutions like the Library of Congress and the National Archives and Records Administration.

Category:History of religion in the United States