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and others in Asia and Africa primarily) accounting for most of the remaining 265 million. But as the editors note, such overall numbers tell us little. There are, in fact, 10,000 distinct religions of ten general varieties (in decreasing size and inclusiveness of cosmoreligion, macroreligion, megareligion, and so forth), each one of which can be further subdivided and classified. For example, Christians (classified as members of a cosmoreligion because it is open to all) may be found among 33,820 different denominations.

The variety of non-Christian religions is also stunning, with worldwide distribution outstripping Christian religions despite the tireless efforts of evangelists to convert as many souls to Christ as possible. (One irritation with this encyclopedia is its Christian bias—its senior editor is Reverend David B. Barrett, who heads the Global Evangelization Movement, making one wonder if all this data is being collected to calibrate how long it will take to reduce this rich diversity to one cosmo-macro-mega Christian religion.) One table, for example, tracks the number of Christians (69,000) and non-Christians (147,000) by which the world will increase over the next 24 hours. A diagram reveals the global convert/defector ratio, adjusted for births and deaths, indicating that the sphere of evangelism continues to expand into non-Christian belief space.

A visual companion to the encyclopedia is Oxford’s New Historical Atlas of Religion in America, which is packed with 260 color maps and charts printed on thick glossy paper to enhance the fine detail and shades of geographical differences between and among the various religious sects that inhabit the landscape. This new edition of religious historian Edwin Gaustad’s 1962 classic includes the arrival of religious colonialists to the New World over the past four decades, including Hindus, Jains, Sikhs, Buddhists, and especially Muslims, who have enjoyed a fourfold increase in America. Likewise, the number of Baha’is has risen nearly proportional to the membership drop in many mainstream religions, such as Episcopalians, Methodists, and Presbyterians. By contrast, “Southern Baptists” might better be labeled “All Over America Baptists,” as their ranks have swollen well into the northern territories. Likewise, the “Bible Belt” is now wider than a weightlifter’s leather girdle. Their ranks have even penetrated the formerly impenetrable Mormon-dominated Utah; but, in turn, in three-quarters of the counties west of the Rockies, the Mormon church ranks in the top three religious denominations. Most revealing are the historical maps and charts that track the changing demographics of American religion. Conservative pundits who proclaim that we need to return to the good old days when America was a Christian nation better look closely at Figure 4.16, showing that church membership as a percentage of the U.S. population over the past century and a half has increased from 25 percent to 65 percent. If America is going to hell in an immoral handbasket, it is happening when church membership is at an all-time high, and a greater percentage of Americans (90–95 percent) proclaim belief in a God than ever before.

Why do so many people believe and belong? One answer is that it is good for us. Studies show that religious people live longer and healthier lives, recover from illness and disease faster, and report higher levels of happiness. While most of these effects are probably due to lifestyle, diet, and exercise (e.g., religious people drink and smoke less), there is something about having family, friends, and a community that enhances life and longevity. An interesting book entitled Aging with Grace explores this thesis through a remarkable study of 678 nuns ranging in age from 75 to 104, lovingly told by Dr. David Snowdon, once a Catholic altar boy and now a distinguished epidemiologist and the director of the Nun Study at the Sanders-Brown Center on Aging at the University of Kentucky. As the book of Proverbs proclaims, “A merry heart doeth good like a medicine, but a broken