Excerpt from Faiths for the Few: A Study of Minority Religions

Popular writers often divide the American people into three neat religious categories: Protestants, Catholics, and Jews. Pollsters confirm this categorization because most Gentile non-Catholics identify themselves as "Protestants" when asked their religious preference.

Nevertheless a tri-faith United States does not correspond with reality. Secular Humanism certainly constitutes a commitment, a faith, a way of life for many millions of Americans. Its values and assumptions and moral attitudes do not coincide with those of any of the three major theistic religions. Eastern Orthodoxy, likewise, claims the spiritual allegiance of 2, 500, 000 Americans and the two main Latter-day Saints bodies report nearly 2, 000, 000 members.

Beyond these obvious exceptions to the familiar tri-faith description of American religious life are many other minority religions. Some of these such as Baha'i and the Nation of Islam (Black Muslims) are related to another world faith: Islam. Some, such as Theosophy, Rosicrucianism, and the I Am cult, are generally classified as occult religions. Others, popularly identified as Protestant denominations, such as Christian Science and Jehovah's Witnesses, actually bear only a superficial resemblance to historic Protestantism and, in fact, negate the basic principles of the Reformation.

These minority faiths range in size from the moribund Sweden-borgian Church of the New Jerusalem with fewer than 7, 000 adherents in this country to the prosperous, mushrooming Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormons). Many of these bodies originated and developed in nineteenth-century America even though they now count a majority of their followers outside the United States. For example, Jehovah's Witnesses, a cult founded in Pittsburgh and now headquartered in Brooklyn, reports three members outside the United States to every American Witness. The Baha'is have attracted only 12, 000 American converts but number millions of members in Iran and India.

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