South Carolina

Religions

Evangelical Protestants account for a majority of the religiously active residents in the state. The largest single Christian denomination in 2000 was the Southern Baptist Convention with 928,341 adherents. The next largest of the Evangelical denominations were the Church of God (Cleveland, Tennessee) with 56,612 adherents and the Pentecostal Holiness Church with 33,820 adherents. The largest Mainline Protestant denominations were the United Methodist Church, 302,528; the Presbyterian Church USA, 103,883; and the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, 61,380. The Episcopal Church had great influence during colonial times, but in 2000 it had only 52,486 members. There were 136,719 Roman Catholics, an estimated 11,000 Jews, 17,586 adherents to the Baha'i faith, and 5,761 Muslims. About 2.1 million people (52.4% of the population) were not counted as members of any religious organization.