Few doubt that the graying of members, low birth rates and various controversies have contributed to the diminishing numbers of mainline Protestants found in the United Methodist Church, the Evan gelical Luth eran Church in America, the Pres byterian Church (U.S.A.), the Epis copal Church, the American Baptist Churches and the United Church of Christ.<\/p>\n
But has the slippage become precipitous, threatening to reduce mainline Protestants ever closer to remnant status? “A generic form of evangelicalism is emerging as the normative form of non-Catholic Christianity in the United States,” said Mark Silk, who helped design the 2008 American Religious Identification Survey (ARIS).<\/p>\n
That survey, which polled more than 54,000 adults, reported in March that the number of mainline Christians had slipped to 12.9 percent of adult Americans\u201d\u201ddown from 17.2 percent in 2001 and 18.7 percent in 1990\u201d\u201das evangelical numbers grew.<\/p>\n
By contrast, the Pew Forum’s U.S. Religious Landscape Study, after polling 35,000 adults in 2007, reported last year that 18.1 percent of adults said they were affiliated with “mainline Protestant” churches.<\/p>\n