Demographics of Jehovah's Witnesses
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Part of a series on Jehovah's Witnesses |
|
| About Jehovah's Witnesses | |
|---|---|
| Demographics | |
| History | |
| Organizational Structure | |
| Governing Body Faithful and Discreet Slave Legal Instruments |
|
| Government Interactions | |
| Beliefs | |
| Doctrines · Practices | |
| Eschatology Blood · Disfellowshipping |
|
| Persecution | |
| Controversy | |
| Related People | |
| Formative Influences | |
| William Miller · N.H. Barbour Jonas Wendell |
|
| Presidents & Members | |
| List of Jehovah's Witnesses C.T. Russell · M.G. Henschel J.F. Rutherford · F.W. Franz D.A. Adams · N.H. Knorr |
|
| Ex-Members & Critics | |
| R. Franz · E.C. Gruss | |
As of August 2005, Jehovah's Witnesses have a reported membership of more than 6.6 million actively involved in preaching.[1] To be counted, an individual must be a 'publisher', and report some amount of time in the ministry, normally at least an hour per month, or as little as 15 minutes under certain circumstances, such as chronic and debilitating illness. In 2005, these reports indicated a total of nearly 1.3 billion hours.[2] Jehovah's Witnesses' preaching activity is self-reported, each member submitting a 'Field Service Report' monthly. Jehovah's Witnesses report activity in 235 lands. They have the custom of counting their membership by 'lands' which are not necessarily countries. For example, Alaska and Hawaii are considered as separate 'lands' from the rest of the United States.
A comparison of Jehovah's Witnesses' 2004 and 2005 statistics indicates a decline in the number of Bible studies, baptisms, Memorial attendance and time spent in the preaching work. Recent decades indicate a gradual decline of membership growth, [3]particularly in the Western world. The decline in growth has become significantly more rapid since 1995. In the United States, an academic study at CUNY based on a telephone survey (American Religious Identification Survey) was conducted in 2001 and estimated there to be 1.331 million adults in the U.S. who self-identify as Jehovah's Witnesses.[4] Jehovah's Witnesses report over 1 million active publishers in the United States, but because this includes only actively preaching members (including minors), it is not directly comparable to the ARIS numbers. In 1990, a larger but less detailed telephone survey based study (NSRI) at CUNY reported 1.38 million adults in the U.S. who self-identified as Jehovah's Witnesses. While this might indicate a slow decline in U.S. identification with the group, there was an increase in active U.S. publishers over this period. ARIS notes the survey did not cover non-English speakers and small groups with a high proportion of recent immigrant members were likely undercounted. Announced U.S. Witness convention schedules for 2005 included 75 non-English conventions (most of these in Spanish) of 227 total.
The Witnesses are noted for their racial and ethnic integration.[citation needed] In the United States, an academic study found that the proportion of blacks among adults who self-identified as Witnesses at 37% (the highest proportion among any of the 22 largest religious identifications which make up 90% of the U.S. population).[5] Congregations are generally organized geographically, and members are encouraged to attend the Kingdom Hall in whose territory they reside, resulting in an ethnic mix generally representative of local population.
Jehovah's Witnesses have an active presence in most countries. In no country are they a large part of the population, however. Brazil and Mexico are the only countries other than the U.S. where the number of active Witness publishers exceed 500,000 thousand. The highest proportion of Witnesses in a country of substantial size is in Zambia, where 1% are active Witness publishers. Growth in most developed countries is slow or negative in recent years but is offset by rapid growth in less developed lands, particularly the former Communist bloc and Latin America. It appears that membership distribution is gradually shifting from the Western world to Non-Western regions.
Jehovah's Witnesses commemorate the Memorial of Christ's death (also known as the Lord's Evening Meal) annually. According to the February 1, 2006 Watchtower, worldwide attendance at the 2005 celebration of the Memorial was 16,383,333, slightly lower than the 2004 attendance of 16,760,607. This figure includes not only publishers, but inactive members, relatives, visitors and interested persons. In the U.S., 2.3 million people were present. In Zambia 570,000 attended, or 1 person for every 20 in the population. Of over 16 million in attendance worldwide, only 8,524 persons partook of the memorial emblems of unleavened bread and wine. These are those who profess to be anointed ones based on their interpretation of Revelation 14:1. [6]
[edit] References
- ^ "While other religious groups count their membership by occasional or annual attendance, this figure reflects only those who are actively involved in the public Bible educational work." - Annual Worldwide Statistics at the Authorized Site of the Office of Public Information of Jehovah's Witnesses.
- ^ Statistics by country. Jehovah's witnesses official site.
- ^ Growth statistic[1][2] Other statistics are also available[3].
- ^ U.S. Census Bureau (2003). "Section 1: Population," Statistical Abstract of the United States: 2003. (Table 79, page 67). Web version available at http://www.census.gov/prod/2004pubs/03statab/pop.pdf accessed December 4, 2005.
- ^ American Religious Identification Survey, 2001, City University of New York
- ^ Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society (2004a). Statistics: 2004 Report of Jehovah's Witnesses Worldwide. Retrieved on December 4, 2005. Note the "memorial partakers" at the bottom of the spreadsheet.
