The social organization of religion in the United States is diverse and complex. Most religious organizations are local churches (congregations, parishes, synagogues) tied to national religious bodies (usually referred to as denominations). The Yearbook of American and Canadian Churches lists 189 denominations in the United States with a total of almost 360,000 churches. The membership reported by these churches equals almost 58 percent of the U.S. population (Lindner 1999). The largest denominations are the Roman Catholic Church (61,207,914 members in 1996), the Southern Baptist Convention (15,891,514 members in 1997), and The United Methodist Church (8,496,047 members in 1996). Most denominations are quite small. In all, the twenty-one denominations with membership in excess of one million members account for more than 140,000,000 members—about 91 percent of all church members in the United States. In contrast, the seventy-seven denominations with fewer than 25,000 members account for about 586,000 members, fewer than one-half of 1 percent of church members (figures calculated from...