California

Denominational Groups, 2000

2,450,003	1,118,209	142,752	10,079,310	1,823,359	18,258,015
Evangelical Protestant	Mainline Protestant	Orthodox	Catholic	Other	Unclaimed

Congregational "adherents" include all full members, their children, and others who regularly attend services. The historically African American denominations are not included in the 2000 congregation and membership totals. Many are also missing in 1990 and most historically African American denominations are missing in the 1980 reports.
[More information on the data sources]

Reports

Religious Bodies	Theology	Congregations	Adherents	% Change
Catholic Church	Catholic	+35	+2,937,243	41.1%
Allegheny Wesleyan Methodist Connection	Evangelical Protestant	0	+1	3.7%
Apostolic Christian Church of America, Inc.	Evangelical Protestant	-1	+7	5.6%
Apostolic Christian Churches (Nazarene)	Evangelical Protestant	+2	+66	13.3%
Assemblies of God	Evangelical Protestant	+99	+47,463	18.0%
Association of Free Lutheran Congregations, The	Evangelical Protestant	+1	-70	-11.1%
Baptist General Conference	Evangelical Protestant	+30	+25,988	59.5%
Baptist Missionary Association of America	Evangelical Protestant	-3	+113	7.1%
Brethren Church, The (Ashland, Ohio)	Evangelical Protestant	-1	-263	-68.1%
Brethren In Christ Church	Evangelical Protestant	+4	-232	-11.2%
Christian and Missionary Alliance, The	Evangelical Protestant	+12	+5,543	14.4%
Christian Churches and Churches of Christ	Evangelical Protestant	-4	+20,239	31.7%
Christian Reformed Church in North America	Evangelical Protestant	+23	+1,187	5.4%
Church of God (Anderson, Indiana)	Evangelical Protestant	+11	+1,629	9.8%
Church of God (Cleveland, Tennessee)	Evangelical Protestant	+33	+6,101	34.9%
Church of God General Conference	Evangelical Protestant	0	-20	-23.0%
Church of God in Christ, Mennonite	Evangelical Protestant	0	-140	-11.5%
Church of God of Prophecy	Evangelical Protestant	+11	+1,553	30.3%
Church of the Brethren	Evangelical Protestant	-7	-1,452	-26.7%
Church of the Nazarene	Evangelical Protestant	+14	-2,751	-3.0%
Churches of Christ	Evangelical Protestant	+13	-8,762	-9.5%
Churches of God, General Conference	Evangelical Protestant	-2	+218	64.7%
Conservative Baptist Association of America	Evangelical Protestant	+39	n.a.	n.a.
Conservative Congregational Christian Conference	Evangelical Protestant	-1	-698	-7.5%
Cumberland Presbyterian Church	Evangelical Protestant	-2	-5	-0.4%
Evangelical Free Church of America, The	Evangelical Protestant	+17	+14,353	36.0%
Evangelical Presbyterian Church	Evangelical Protestant	+1	+1,242	394.3%
Free Methodist Church of North America	Evangelical Protestant	+6	+3,773	47.3%
Independent, Charismatic Churches	Evangelical Protestant	-73	+47,310	31.9%
Independent, Non-Charismatic Churches	Evangelical Protestant	-11	-7,820	-5.5%
International Church of the Foursquare Gospel	Evangelical Protestant	+81	+4,189	3.7%
International Pentecostal Holiness Church	Evangelical Protestant	+21	+2,487	24.8%
Lutheran Church--Missouri Synod	Evangelical Protestant	+6	-13,651	-9.5%
Mennonite Brethren Churches, U.S. Conference of	Evangelical Protestant	+16	+2,512	27.3%
Mennonite Church USA	Evangelical Protestant	+5	+99	3.9%
Missionary Church, The	Evangelical Protestant	-10	+2,338	33.5%
National Association of Free Will Baptists	Evangelical Protestant	-8	-3,385	-46.5%
Netherlands Reformed Congregations	Evangelical Protestant	0	-12	-44.4%
North American Baptist Conference	Evangelical Protestant	+20	+6,719	66.8%
Pentecostal Church of God	Evangelical Protestant	+6	+4,349	20.5%
Presbyterian Church in America	Evangelical Protestant	+25	+5,421	119.6%
Reformed Church in the United States	Evangelical Protestant	+3	+266	40.0%
Salvation Army, The	Evangelical Protestant	+39	+38,283	346.5%
Seventh-day Adventist Church	Evangelical Protestant	+16	-19,456	-9.4%
Southern Baptist Convention	Evangelical Protestant	+278	-33,397	-6.6%
Wesleyan Church, The	Evangelical Protestant	+23	+9,316	64.1%
Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod	Evangelical Protestant	+2	-862	-8.8%
American Baptist Churches in the USA	Mainline Protestant	+1	-13,791	-7.5%
Christian Church (Disciples of Christ)	Mainline Protestant	-11	-4,904	-12.4%
Congregational Christian Churches, Additional (not part of any national CCC body)	Mainline Protestant	-3	-1,372	-89.1%
Episcopal Church	Mainline Protestant	-1	-9,368	-5.3%
Evangelical Lutheran Church in America	Mainline Protestant	-13	-22,279	-11.5%
Friends (Quakers)	Mainline Protestant	-13	-1,855	-17.0%
Moravian Church in America--Northern Province	Mainline Protestant	-2	-302	-46.7%
National Association of Congregational Christian Churches	Mainline Protestant	-6	-777	-8.0%
Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)	Mainline Protestant	+8	-28,936	-11.2%
Reformed Church in America	Mainline Protestant	-4	-734	-2.0%
United Church of Christ	Mainline Protestant	-10	-14,362	-22.1%
United Methodist Church, The	Mainline Protestant	-25	-37,462	-14.1%
Apostolic Catholic Assyrian Church of the East, North American Dioceses	Orthodox	+1	+2,676	51.4%
Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America	Orthodox	+1	n.a.	n.a.
Orthodox Church in America: Romanian Orthodox Episcopate of America	Orthodox	0	n.a.	n.a.
Orthodox Church in America: Territorial Dioceses	Orthodox	-3	n.a.	n.a.
Syrian Orthodox Church of Antioch	Orthodox	+2	-1,900	-20.2%
Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, The	Other Theology	-7	-4,166	-0.8%
Jewish Estimate	Other Theology	+132	+75,065	8.2%
Unitarian Universalist Association of Congregations	Other Theology	-1	+433	2.9%
	Totals:	+815	+3,032,998	+25.4%

The population of these 58 counties (or equivalents) in 1990 was 29,760,021; in 2000 it was 33,871,648. The total population changed 13.8%. The adherent totals for 1990 (12,585,339) represent 42.3% of the 1990 population. The adherent totals for 2000 (15,613,633) include 46.1% of the 2000 population. There is sufficient data for 63 groups to calculate 1990-2000 change. These 63 groups had 11,961,024 adherents in 1990 and 14,994,022 adherents in 2000, for a change of 25.4%

Sources

The 2000 data were collected by the Association of Statisticians of American Religious Bodies (ASARB) and includes statistics for 149 religious groups, including number of churches and adherents. Dale E. Jones, Sherri Doty, Clifford Grammich, James E. Horsch, Richard Houseal, Mac Lynn, John P. Marcum, Kenneth M. Sanchagrin and Richard H. Taylor supervised the collection. These data originally appeared in Religious Congregations & Membership in the United States, 2000, published by the Glenmary Research Center.

The 1990 data were collected by the Association of Statisticians of American Religious Bodies (ASARB) and include statistics for 132 religious groups, including number of churches and adherents. Martin B. Bradley, Norman M. Green, Jr., Dale E. Jones, Mac Lynn, and Lou McNeil supervised the collection. These data originally appeared in Churches and Church Membership in the United States, 1990, published by the Glenmary Research Center.

[More information on these data sources]