People remain active at Heritage Baptist Church because they are committed to the mission of reaching not only Columbia, but also the country and the world, Pastor John Martin said.
Heritage, which belongs to the Southern Baptist Convention, is 3 1/2 years old, and Martin said members want this new conservative Bible-teaching church to be successful.
Southern Baptists are the largest Protestant denomination in Boone County and Missouri. It makes up about 42 percent of the total Protestant population, according to an Association of Religion Data Archives 2000 report.
About one-third of the members at Heritage are people who come from a religious background but dropped out of church and now are coming back, Martin said.
The other members transferred their membership from another church because they like Heritage’s faithfulness to the Bible. Most members come from a Protestant background.
Protestants make up the biggest religious group in America, said Richard Callahan, MU assistant professor of religious studies. They make up 51.3 percent of the U.S. adult population, according to the 2008 U.S. Religious Landscape Survey done by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life.
Christians — including Protestants, Catholics, Mormons, Jehovah’s Witnesses and Orthodox Christians — make up 78.4 percent of the adult population.
Jews make up 1.7 percent; Buddhists, 0.7 percent; Muslims, 0.6 percent; and Hindus, 0.4 percent.
About 16 percent of American adults are not affiliated with any religion.
Nationally, the evangelical Protestant population is moving away from the Republican Party and conservative Christianity. More people are beginning to identify themselves as evangelical in religion but liberal in politics, Callahan said.
The latest information for Boone County religious demographics comes from the association’s 2000 report.
Of the Boone County population, 40 percent is Christian, 0.3 percent is Jewish and 0.63 percent is Muslim. Information for the Hindu and Buddhist populations was not available.
“With today’s diversity, one religion is as American as any other,” Callahan said.