State high in religious diversity

INDIANAPOLIS -- A survey of the nation's religious leanings ranks Indiana seventh among the 50 states in terms of religious diversity, with 109 denominations active within its borders.\nIn the report by the Glenmary Research Center, only much more populous states -- Illinois, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, California and New York -- beat Indiana in terms of their religious diversity.\nThe finding by the Nashville, Tenn.-based Catholic research and social service group might surprise Hoosiers who think of their state as homogeneous, said Jan Shipps, a retired IU historian.\n"But it shouldn't be surprising because we are truly the crossroads of America," said Shipps, who studies religious life in America.\nThe report, which is being released Friday, collected data from 149 denominations nationwide. It found that 140 million Americans -- or 50.2 percent -- are associated with one of those groups.\nIndiana showed lower-than-average participation, with 42.9 percent -- or 2.61 million residents -- affiliated.\nBut the absence from the 2000 survey of several black sects that were in the group's 1990 report merits caution when trying to interpret the ebb and flow of religious participation, experts said.\n"Some big groups were not counted this time, and some new ones were added," said Arthur Farnsley, senior research associate at the Polis Center at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis.\nLike Shipps, Farnsley remains intrigued by the religious diversity of Indiana revealed in the latest research.\n"Most places in America have a dominant religious culture -- Latter-day Saints in the mountain West, Baptist across the South, Catholic along both coasts," he said. "But Indiana truly does not. The interplay of many religions here is what is most interesting."\nGlenmary is the only group that tracks religious affiliation nationwide by state and by county. Since 1971, it has collected data every 10 years, filling a void left by the U.S. census, which stopped tracking religious affiliation in 1936.\nThe group's report found that:\n• Catholics make up the largest religious denomination in the state, with 836,009 members belonging to 462 congregations.\n• United Methodists make up the second-largest denomination in the Indianapolis metropolitan area, with 67,557 members in 177 congregations.\n• Greater Indianapolis reflects a national trend: Evangelical and nondenominational Christian communities are growing.\nFor the first time, Glenmary has included Muslims in its research, estimating that 1.6 million are members of mosques nationwide.\nMuslim groups have claimed as many as 6 million Muslims nationwide, but Glenmary researchers said their figure was only a tally of those active in mosques, not the total American Muslim population.\nSeveral groups are not reflected in the data, including black Baptists -- a network of several denominations -- who had a large presence in Indianapolis in the 1990 data.\nGlenmary researchers did not include black Baptists for 2000 because estimates in previous years were not solid enough to be compared with firm data reported by some religious groups, said Richard Houseal, liaison for data collection with the Glenmary project.