The US Religious Census was released earlier this month. I teach American religious history at Samford University. The census lists the number of congregations in Samford’s metropolitan area for 98 religious groups. Nationally, the census includes 372 groups. Muslims are all put into one category. Buddhists in three, Christian denominations are often tracked with great precision, but huge growth of nondenominational churches has led this to be the largest category in many places. In Birmingham they come in second with 323, behind the Southern Baptist Convention with 563 and ahead of the United Methodist Church with 143.

One important local denomination is not listed: the Apostolic Overcoming Holy Church of God. A Google search lists at least 10 AOH congregations in Birmingham. Also, the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship is not listed since its congregations are also aligned either with the Southern Baptist Convention or the Alliance of Baptists. Birmingham’s largest church is Church of the Highlands which is one of the founding communities of the Association of Related Churches, but this like the Harbor Network (which claims four Birmingham churches and used to claim a fifth) is perhaps best regarded as something other than a denomination. Like denominations, though, their websites features tools to find local congregations. Still, as the number of nondenominational churches grows the usefulness of counting denominations to get a picture of American Religion declines.