This article compares the growth of three religious groups, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Seventh-day Adventists, and Jehovah’s Witnesses. All originated in America during the nineteenth century and have since globalized. It begins by using their official membership data to contrast their aggregate growth over time. It then questions the reliability of…… Continue reading Reassessing the Size of Mormons, Adventists and Witnesses: Using Census Data to Test the Reliability of Membership Data and Accounting for the Disparate Patterns Found
Category: History
Examining Trends (Especially Decline) in Religious Groups
On August 8, the Pew Research Center hosted a round-table on “Religion Trends in the US,” featuring sociologists Claude Fischer of the University of California at Berkeley and Michael Hout of New York University; Gallup’s Editor-in-Chief Frank Newport; and the Pew Research Center’s Greg Smith, the Director of US Religion Surveys for the Religion &…… Continue reading Examining Trends (Especially Decline) in Religious Groups
The Metro New York Adventist Forum: Celebrating its First 50 years, 1968-2018
Adventists, led by Ellen White, early turned their attention to education, and began to found primary schools, academies, and “colleges”. Their main purposes were to indoctrinate and evangelize the students, to protect the children of church members from threatening ideas and information, to provide spiritual and practical education as well as academic skills, and to…… Continue reading The Metro New York Adventist Forum: Celebrating its First 50 years, 1968-2018
The Fragmenting of Apocalypticism within a Denominationalizing Sect: The Case of Seventh-day Adventism
Research has shown that over time many religious sects reduce the tensions between themselves and surrounding society, and thus move from sect towards denomination. For a millenarian sect to follow this process, its apocalyptic must become less urgent: it must become less rejecting of the present society and put down roots there. However, the dynamics…… Continue reading The Fragmenting of Apocalypticism within a Denominationalizing Sect: The Case of Seventh-day Adventism
Adventist Relations with Other Churches
Adventists viewed themselves as “God’s Remnant People,” who, as the bearers of “present truth,” were charged with delivering God’s final warning message in the last days. Other Protestant groups were “apostate” and had become “the whore of Babylon”; the Roman Catholic Church was identified with the persecuting “beast” of the book of Revelation. Adventist evangelists…… Continue reading Adventist Relations with Other Churches
Ronald L. Lawson Ph.D., Professor Emeritus, Queens College, CUNY 