The United Methodist Church in the U.S. lost 1.2 million members in 2023, or about 22 percent, the most that any denomination has ever lost in one year in American religious history. It perhaps is a world record, matched in modern times only by the Russian Orthodox Church’s near collapse after the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917.
In 1968 United Methodism had 11 million members. In 2023 it fell to 4,238,097, from 5,424,175 million in 2022. Attendance, including online viewers, declined from 3,141,24 2 to 2,184,245.
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