Religion: Revival’s Crest

New statistical evidence that the nation’s postwar religious revival has crested appeared last week in the 1963 Yearbook of American Churches, published by the National Council of Churches. For the first time in a century, the Yearbook reports, the percentage of church members among the general population of the U.S. has decreased. Yearbook figures show that 116,109,929 Americans belong to 258 religious bodies. They represent 63.4% of the population, which is two-tenths of 1% less than the totals recorded a year ago. Both Roman Catholicism, with 42,876,665 members, and Protestantism, with 64,434,966, showed small numerical growths, but the overall population growth was proportionately greater.