Mormon and Muslim population in the US.

In a recent article, the Daily Mail claims that Mormonism and Islam are two “of the most” fastest growing religious groups in the U.S. I don’t know if they mean they are the two fastest growing, or the two fastest growing major religions, or if they are insinuating that Obama is a Muslim by comparing it to Romney’s Mormonism.

I don’t know if I should be worried that the Muslim population in the US increased 66 percent (from 1.5 million to 2.6 million) in the ten years since September 11, 2001. Though I am a bit concerned, and would wish to research that number, and break it down, sort of like how LDS do member statistics: how many of the increase in Muslims are converts, how many are “children of record”, and how many are new immigrants. It’s the virtually uncontrolled immigration aspect that concerns me, not the religion itself.

Also of interest are two maps, by county, of the United States showing Mormon population density by county, and change in density (though the shading on that one is hard to discern making the map hard to read).

Very interesting is the map, by county, of all church affiliation, showing the Southern and Midwestern “Bible Belt” is still strong; and that Maine, Vermont, and the Left Coast are the least religiously affiliated.

However, two “holes” in the latter map show low church affiliation in Michigan, and in a region of Southern Ohio, Eastern Kentucky, and Western West Virgina. That latter lesser-churched area intigues me as it is counter-intuitive.

It’s also interesting to see in some Western states such as Wyoming, that while overall church affiliation is low, Mormon penetration is high; showing that while Mormonism is not dominant as it is in Utah, it’s still a ‘big dog’ among the churches that are there.

Also of note, comparing 2010 to 2000, “Among the other largest U.S. faiths, the United Methodist Church lost 4 per cent to 9.9 million adherents, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America lost 18 per cent to 4.2 million and the Episcopal Church lost 15 per cent of its adherents to 1.95 million.

Another quote:
AMERICA’S TOP TEN RELIGIONS, (Classed by religious family)
1. Catholic 58,936,006
2. Baptist 27,247,230
3. Methodist 12,231,451
4. Non-denominational Evangelical Protestant 12,241,329
5. Lutheran 7,191,194
6. Latter-day Saints 6,356,188
7. Pentecostal 5,776,260
8. Presbyterian Reformed 5,038,406
9. Islam 2,600,082
10. Judaism 2,256,584

(For the purposes of political analysis, I would suggest combining Evangelicals and Pentecostals.)