The numerical growth that occurred in early American Methodism can be found in many different sources. However, in Roger Finke and Rodney Stark’s The Churching of America, 1776-2005: Winners and Losers in Our Religious Economy, they tell the story in a slightly different way. Finke and Stark have a chart (on p. 56) that shows the religious adherents as a percentage of total adherents by denominations in 1776 and again in 1850. In other words, they show the market share of six denominations during this time.
In 1776 Methodists made up 2.5 % of religious adherent in the colonies. In 1850 Methodists made up 34.2 % of religious adherents! In seventy years they had increased from a tiny sect to the largest denomination in the United States. (In other words, in 1776 1 in 40 religious people in America were Methodist. In 1859 1 in 3 were.) And no other denomination was even close to the Methodists at this time. The second largest denomination was the Baptists with 20.5%.
This is significant because in a growing population it is possible to experience numerical growth while declining in relation to the overall population. Finke and Stark point to the Congregationalists as illustrative of this. In 1776 Congregationalists made up 20.4% of religious adherents (the largest denomination in the colonies). In 1850 they made up 4%. During this time they had been passed by the Methodists, Baptists, Catholics, and Presbyterians. Yet, “despite this extraordinary shift in their fortunes, Congregationalist leaders during this era expressed surprisingly little concern” (56).
I have just begun reading Finke and Stark’s book. However, one thing that reading the book has made me think about is that most people don’t go back far enough when discussing the decline of American Methodism. Most people point to, ironically, somewhere around the time of the formation of the United Methodist Church in 1968. But the indicators of decline were in place long before that. Unfortunately, if in 1776 the Congregationalists were the largest denomination and they experienced an unexpected decrease in growth relative to other denominations, the Methodists would experience a similar decrease in growth relative to other denominations in the decades after 1850. The highwater mark, then, of American Methodism was not 1968, but somewhere around 1850.
Kevin M. Watson 
By Baptists are you referring to Southern Baptist or Northern (Triennel Convention)? The SBC pulled out of the Triennel convention in 1845.
The book simply says “Baptists” so I am guessing that Finke and Stark are lumping both groups into one.
Interesting, they were two distinct groups at the time. The SBC started in 1845 so it wasn’t very big. The Northern Baptists had the larger numbers but didn’t have the finances to support many ministries.
Kevin…thanks for that knowledge. I just finished reading Methodism at 40 and it does indicate the 1968 merger as one of the reasons for decline.
This is insightful stuff… Makes me yearn for a graph of the market share of various denominations over the past 50-100 years leading up to today.
Jeanette – You are welcome. Thanks for stopping by!
Jeff – I agree… that is the exact question I had as I was reading this book. I am hoping that maybe one is coming in later chapters.
Of course the degree of “market share” relative to other religious bodies is an indicator of something. I’m not entirely sure what that “something” is.
For Methodism, the metrics used early on were not primarily about the number of societies or the number of people in them, but the spiritual progress the people in them were making toward “holiness in heart and life” which could be described in terms of living more fully into the General Rules.
So if one wants to look at the best “objective” measures for Methodist outcomes, perhaps participation in class meetings might be a better indicator through this period. What we know about that is that despite the explosive growth in the number of adherents, the percentage of people participating in the class meetings continued to decline until it was nearly nil in “white” Methodism by about 1850.
Stark and Finke’s metrics do not account for what Methodists were “supposed” to be caring about. They may well account for what they came to care about. And if the things we continue to measure as signs of progress (worship attendance, numbers of persons received on profession of faith, new churches started) are any indicator, then, apparently, those same “market share” metrics are still what United Methodists still “really” care about most.
Peace in Christ,
Taylor Burton-Edwards
Much about Methodism’s rise and fall can be learned from the 2019 book Marks of a Movement by Winfield Bevins and George Hunter III.