Chuck (G), you raised the issue of the mullahs' victory in Iran. My own memory of it, is that after the Shah had (with the help of the CIA and the same mullahs) wiped out the socialist opposition in Iran, the only organized body to step in after the Shah was overthrown...were the mullahs.
We're not in a much different situation in the U.S. As all state social supports fall away and we are all left dangling in the free-market hurricane, the only organized body of social support are the churches. Not surprisingly, they are growing, especially the most conservative ones: the following is from today's SF Chronicle.
As for the left, hell they don't have to worry about the left. We're all busily shoring up our radical identities somewhere, well out of harm's way.
Joanna
"Socially conservative churches that demand high commitment from their members grew faster than other religious denominations in the past decade, according to a study released Tuesday by statisticians who take a count of American religious affiliation every 10 years."
For more, see
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2002/09/18/MN236322.DTL
The study, "Religious Congregations & Membership:
2000," found that the fastest-growing religious
denomination in the past 10 years was the Church of
Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which enlists
thousands of young Mormon missionaries to recruit
door-to-door and boosted its U.S. membership by
19.3 percent to a total of 4.2 million.
The church bodies that recorded the next-highest
growth rates were the conservative Christian
Churches and Churches of Christ, with 18.6 percent,
the Assemblies of God, a major Pentecostal
denomination, with 18.5 percent, and the Roman
Catholic Church, with 16.2 percent.
Since the U.S. census does not ask about religion,
some scholars regard this study, first done in 1971,
as the most comprehensive assessment available of
the changes in American religious affiliation. The
study is based on self- reporting by religious groups,
a method that the study's authors acknowledge is
imprecise because religious groups could inflate their
numbers. The study was conducted by Glenmary
Research Center and sponsored by the Association
of Statisticians of American Religious Bodies.
"I was astounded to see that by and large, the
growing churches are those that we ordinarily call
conservative," said Ken Sanchagrin, director of the
Glenmary Research Center, and a professor and
chairman of the department of sociology at Mars Hill
College, in Mars Hill, North Carolina. "And when I
looked at those that were declining, most were
moderate or liberal churches. And the more liberal
the denomination, by most people's definition, the
more they were losing."
The churches that lost the highest percentage of
members were the Presbyterian Church USA (11.6
percent) and the United Church of Christ (14.8
percent).
The Catholic Church is still the nation's largest, with
more than 62 million adherents, about a quarter of
the population. Large numbers of Roman Catholics
have moved in the past decade from the Northeast
and the Midwest to the South and Southwest, the
survey found. The next largest denomination is the
Southern Baptists, with nearly 20 million members.
Taken together, Protestant churches report 66 million
members.
About half of Americans belong to one of the 149
religious groups included in the study. Utah, North
Dakota and Washington, D.C., have the highest
percentages of religious adherents. Oregon and
Washington state have the least,
the researchers found.
The 2000 study is the first to include information on
religious groups other than Christians and Jews. But
Sanchagrin acknowledged Tuesday that the numbers
of Muslims and Jews reported in the survey could be
misleading. The estimate of Jews was 6.1 million, but
the count included Jews who are unaffiliated with
synagogues -- the only group in the survey to use
identity and not membership as its criteria in the
count.
The estimate of Muslims was 1.5 million, derived by
counting the members reported by a third of the
nation's 1,200 mosques, which often do not maintain
membership rolls. Since some Muslims are new
immigrants and others are new converts, reliable
estimates are difficult. But this study's conclusion is
far lower than the 7 million claimed by most
American Muslim organizations. v
The Catholic church is the largest in the United States. Denominations
within the Protestant churches collectively have 66 million adherents with
Southern Baptists being the largest group.
-- Top 15 faiths in United States by number of adherents
Faith Adherents
1. Catholic 62,035,045
2. Southern Baptist Convention 19,881,467
3. United Methodist 10,350,629
4. Jewish 6,141,325
5. Evangelical Lutheran Church in America 5,113,418
6. The Church of Jesus-Christ of Latter-day Saints 4,224,026
7. Presbyterian 3,141,566
8. Assemblies of God 2,561,998
9. Lutheran Missouri Synod 2,521,062
10. Episcopal 2,314,756
11. American Baptist 1,767,462
12. United Church of Christ 1,698,918
13. Churches of Christ 1,645,584
14. Muslim (estimate) 1,559,294
15. Christian Churches 1,439,253
Source: Glenmary Research Center
.
KEY STATISTICS
-- Fastest-growing church: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
-- County with the most people in a congregation: Los Angeles County
reported 5.5 million people in 4,044 congregations.
-- . . . with the least: Loving County, Texas, reported none in any
congregation
-- State with the highest percent-age of Catholics: Rhode Island, 52%
-- Most widespread religious group: United Methodist congregations are
present in 96% of counties
Associated Press Graphic