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Witches are one of America’s fastest-growing religious groups. In fact, some observers think that witches could now outnumber Presbyterians in America.
Notably, there could be as many as 1.316 million witches or practitioners of Wicca and similar faiths in America. Pew Research also estimates that around 0.4% of Americans practice witchcraft or Wicca.
Meanwhile, the Census Bureau currently estimates the U.S. population at 329.025 million people. So, our figure of 1.316 million American witches simply comes from taking 0.4% of this 329.025 million.
Witches Are One Of America’s Fastest-Growing Faiths
Given these circumstances, witches are one of America’s fastest-growing faiths.
Trinity College researchers estimate that there were 8,000 American witches in 1990 and 340,000 witches in 2008, Quartz reports. To clarify, both Trinity and Pew categorize Wiccans as witches.
However, it is impossible to determine precisely how many witches there are in the United States. The Census Bureau does not collect data on religion because of the First Amendment.
Do Witches Really Outnumber Presbyterians?
On the other hand, witches could outnumber members of the Presbyterian Church USA (PCUSA), radio host Carmen LaBerge asserts.
“There may now be more Americans who identify as practicing witches, 1.5 million, than there are members of mainline Presbyterianism (PCUSA) 1.4 million,” LaBerge tweets. Significantly, LaBerge’s estimate is even larger than Pew’s calculation.
In detail, the PCUSA reports having 1.415 million members in 2017. Moreover, the PCUSA admits its membership is declining rapidly. The PCUSA admits losing 43% of its members between 1996 and 2016. Specifically, the PCUSA still had 2.63 million members in 1996.
Witches Do Not Outnumber Presbyterians… Yet
Notwithstanding, witches do not quite outnumber Presbyterians even if LaBerge’s estimate of their numbers is correct.
In particular, the PCUSA is one of 29 Presbyterian denominations in North America. Furthermore, some of those Presbyterian denominations are still growing.
In reality, there are probably several million Presbyterians in the United States at the very least. Again, though, it is impossible to know exactly how many Presbyterians there are because the Census Bureau does not track people by religion. Meanwhile, the surveys and estimates provided can’t even possibly take into account whether people truly believe in the faith they publically ascribe to anyways.
Nonetheless, even though the number of witches will not exceed the number of Presbyterians just yet, the statistical trends continue to move in an alarming direction for the Christian church in America.
Who Are America’s Witches?
The people popularly called witches are members of several pagan religions.
The best known of those faiths is Wicca, which started in the United Kingdom in the mid-20th Century. However, not all witches consider themselves Wiccans. Instead, pagans actually have many denominations and subgroups, much like Christians do.
Tracking witches is hard because anybody can call themselves a witch. Even so, most modern witches are supposedly young liberal women, Quartz’s Alden Wicker claims.
The average witch casts spells, uses crystals, and attends services known as “new moon gatherings,” Wicker notes. Additionally, some witches worship pagan gods while others do not.
Overall, witches are one of America’s fastest-growing religions even though they do not yet outnumber Presbyterians. Nevertheless, if current trends continue, it could only be a matter of time before the Christian church in America finds itself completely outnumbered by pagan religions of all kinds.
