Santa Cruz County History - Religion & Spirituality

Santa Cruz Spirituality: Tables
by Paul Tutwiler

There are eleven groups in the list of associations I know to have been legally incorporated, but I have not found evidence that they existed in reality. They are not counted in these tables.

Table 1: All associations listed, analyzed by type of activity

Family	Worship	Conf. Center	School	Service Org.	Community	TOTAL
Western Liturgical	27	6	13	9	4	59
Eastern Liturgical	5	0	1	1	1	8
Lutheran	8	1	0	1	0	10
Reformed-Presbyterian	23	1	0	0	0	24
Pietist-Methodist	15	4	0	0	0	19
Holiness	12	3	1	11	0	27
Pentecostal	67	2	4	1	0	74
European Free-Church	2	1	0	0	0	3
Baptist	43	2	2	1	0	48
Independent Fundamentalist	6	0	0	1	0	7
Adventist	14	2	3	0	0	19
Liberal	4	1	0	2	1	8
Latter-day Saints	5	2	0	2	0	9
Communal	1	1	0	0	16	18
Christian Sci. - Metaphys.	9	0	0	0	0	9
Spiritualist, Psy., New Age	17	0	1	3	0	21
Ancient Wisdom	4	0	3	2	1	10
Magick	2	3	1	4	0	10
Middle Eastern	11	3	0	3	1	18
Eastern	37	4	3	12	3	59
Other	23	0	0	19	0	42
TOTAL	335	36	32	72	27	502

Table 2: Persistence in existence: percentage of associations established still existing in 2008

Family	Number est.	Currently	Percent
Western Liturgical	59	41	69%
Eastern Liturgical	8	6	75%
Lutheran	10	7	70%
Reformed-Presbyterian	24	14	58%
Pietist-Methodist	19	11	58%
Holiness	27	13	48%
Pentecostal	74	35	47%
European Free-Church	3	3	100%
Baptist	48	28	58%
Independent Fundamentalist	7	7	100%
Adventist	19	17	89%
Liberal	8	2	25%
Latter-day Saints	9	7	78%
Communal	18	4	22%
Christian Sci. - Metaphys.	9	6	67%
Spiritualist, Psy., New Age	21	3	14%
Ancient Wisdom	10	8	80%
Magick	10	6	60%
Middle Eastern	18	13	72%
Eastern	59	33	56%
Other	42	11	26%
TOTAL	502	275	55%

Table 3: Associations existing in 2008, analyzed by type of activity

Family	Worship	Conf. Center	School	Service Org.	Community	TOTAL
Western Liturgical	21	4	5	9	2	41
Eastern Liturgical	3	0	1	1	1	6
Lutheran	6	1	0	0	0	7
Reformed-Presbyterian	13	1	0	0	0	14
Pietist-Methodist	8	3	0	0	0	11
Holiness	5	2	1	5	0	13
Pentecostal	29	1	4	1	0	35
European Free-Church	2	1	0	0	0	3
Baptist	24	1	2	1	0	28
Independent Fundamentalist	6	0	0	1	0	7
Adventist	13	2	2	0	0	17
Liberal	1	1	0	0	0	2
Latter-day Saints	3	2	0	2	0	7
Communal	1	1	0	0	2	4
Christian Sci. - Metaphys.	6	0	0	0	0	6
Spiritualist, Psy., New Age	2	0	0	1	0	3
Ancient Wisdom	2	0	3	2	1	8
Magick	1	2	1	2	0	6
Middle Eastern	7	3	0	3	0	13
Eastern	21	2	3	5	2	33
Other	3	0	0	8	0	11
TOTAL	177	27	22	41	8	275

Table 4: Numbers of associations in existence at various points in time

Family	1850	1900	1950	2008
Western Liturgical	2	19	27	41
Eastern Liturgical	0	0	0	6
Lutheran	0	1	4	7
Reformed-Presbyterian	0	11	10	14
Pietist-Methodist	1	7	13	11
Holiness	0	1	6	13
Pentecostal	0	0	18	35
European Free-Church	0	0	1	3
Baptist	0	8	11	28
Independent Fundamentalist	0	0	0	7
Adventist	0	3	9	17
Liberal	1	1	2	2
Latter-day Saints	0	0	2	7
Communal	1	2	2	4
Christian Sci. - Metaphys.	0	2	6	6
Spiritualist, Psy., New Age	0	1	0	3
Ancient Wisdom	0	1	1	8
Magick	0	0	0	6
Middle Eastern	0	2	2	13
Eastern	1	5	4	33
Other	0	4	8	11
TOTAL	6	68	126	275

For comparison: U. S. Census counts of Santa Cruz County population that year, rounded to nearest 1,000:

1850	1900	1950	2008
<1,000	21,000	67,000	250,000

Table 5: Tabulations from various religious surveys

In the general census of 1890 and in special religious censuses of 1906, 1916, 1926, and 1936 the United States Bureau of the Census obtained church data, including the counts of members. Many other organizations have also collected church membership data before 1890, after 1936, and between the two dates. Unfortunately the methodology, even that of the U.S. Census Bureau, has not been uniform. Kevin J. Christiano, Religious Diversity and Social Change: American Cities, 1890-1906, Cambridge University Press, 1987, pp. 29-41 discusses the accuracy of the U. S. Census counts, concluding that the counts from 1890 to 1926 are reasonably trustworthy. It is significant, however, that they were reported not by someone going door-to-door and asking the religious affiliation of the members of the household, but by tabulating questionnaires sent to and filled out by the pastors or heads of the individual congregations.

The sources of Table 5 are:

1890: U.S. Census, reported in Henry K. Carroll, Report on Statistics of Churches in the United States at the Eleventh Census: 1890. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1894.

1914: Summary of the data gathered by the Santa Cruz Federated Men's Club and reported in the SC Surf on June 12, 1914. Sixty to eighty workers went door to door, collecting data.

1926: Bureau of the Census. Census of Religious Bodies, 1926, Part I: Summary and Detailed Tables. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1930.

2000: Summary of the data gathered by the American Religious Data Archive and reported on its website, www.thearda.com/mapsReports 2004. The data were obtained by statistical sampling.

5a. The numbers reported in the surveys

Family	1890 U.S. Census	1914 SC Surf Religious Census	1926 U.S. Religious Census	2000 ARDA Counts
	# members SC County	# households SC City	# members SC County	# persons SC County
Western Liturgical (1)	2,045	626	8,205	56,925
Eastern Liturgical	— (2)	1	—	701
Lutheran	—	32	—	1,701
Reformed-Presbyterian	680	421	1,424	2.399
Pietist-Methodist	639	388	905	1,893
Holiness	9	33	—	1,360
Pentecostal	—	9	244	3,933
European Free-Church	—	3	—	95
Baptist	241	244	1,011	6,077
Independent Fundamentalist	—	—	—	—
Adventist	140	70	234	1.551
Liberal	100	62	—	179
Latter-day Saints	35	3	—	2,687
Christian Sci. - Metaphys.	—	93	97	—
Spiritualist, Psy., New Age (3)	60	23	—	—
Ancient Wisdom (4)	9	1	0	—
Magick	—	—	—	—
Middle Eastern (5)	—	10	90	8,616
Eastern (6)	—	—	—	—
Other	185	—	503	—
Total stating preference	4,143	2,019	12,693	88,117
Total population	19,270	3,165	32,000 (approx.)	255,602

5b. Groups' share of Santa Cruzans expressing preferences in percentages

Family	1890	1914	1926	2000
Western Liturgical (1)	49%	31%	65%	65%
Eastern Liturgical	— (2)	<1%	—	1%
Lutheran	—	2%	—	2%
Reformed-Presbyterian	16%	21%	11%	3%
Pietist-Methodist	15%	19%	7%	2%
Holiness	<1%	2%	—	2%
Pentecostal	—	<1%	2%	4%
European Free-Church	—	<1%	—	<1%
Baptist	6%	12%	8%	7%
Independent Fundamentalist	—	7%	—	—
Adventist	3%	3%	2%	2%
Liberal	2%	3%	—	<1%
Latter-day Saints	1%	<1%	—	3%
Christian Sci. - Metaphys.	—	5%	1%	—
Spiritualist, Psy., New Age (3)	1%	1%	—	—
Ancient Wisdom (4)	<1%	<1%	—	—
Magick	—	—	—	—
Middle Eastern (5)	—	<1%	1%	10%
Eastern (6)	—	—	—	—
Non-denominational	—	1%	—	—
Other	4%	—	4%	—
Total stating preference	100%	100%	100%	100%
% of total pop	21%	71%	40%	34%

Notes to Tables 5a and 5b:

1. Western liturgical: all these were Catholic except for Episcopalians: 149 in 1890, 200 (households) in 1914, 674 in 1926, and 1,575 in 2000.
2. The symbol "—" signifies that no data are given for this group in this year.
3. All Spiritualists.
4. All Theosophists.
5. The Middle Eastern group consisted entirely of Jews in 1914 and 1926. Of the 8,616 in the group in 2000 6,000 were Jews, 1,891 were Muslim, and the other 725 were Baha'i.
6. Although ARDA states that in 2000 there were two Hindu and 12 Buddhist congregations, it presents no count of their members.

Table 6: Santa Cruz spirituality compared with that of two similar California places, with one "liberal" university town, and with one typical Midwestern city.

The data are from the www.smartpages.com listings online as of May 13, 2004. The writer cannot guarantee the accuracy or completeness of the data, but the general Yellow Pages (Smartpages) methodology can be seen by inspection to be quite uniform at least in these instances. This includes the headings, which have evolved over the years and which now readily lend themselves to comparison. If, then the interpretation of the data is distorted in the following table, the distortion can be taken to be uniform throughout, and thus the comparisons themselves stand valid.

Churches(1)

	Santa Cruz	San Luis Obispo	Santa Barbara	Boulder, CO	Racine, WI
Christian	241	315	164	230	207
Other	14	10	12	19	1
Total	255	325	14176	249	208

Religious conference centers & retreat facilities(2)

	Santa Cruz	San Luis Obispo	Santa Barbara	Boulder, CO	Racine, WI
Christian	8	1	4	4	3
Other religious	5	0	2	0	0
Total	13	1	6	4	3
Non-religious	10	2	6	5	1
Grand total	23	3	12	9	4

Population figures for these cities from the year 2000:

	City Population	County Population
Santa Cruz, CA	54,000	255,000
San Luis Obispo, CA	44,000	246,000
Santa Barbara, CA	92,000	399,000
Boulder, CO	94,000	291,000
Racine, WI	81,000	188,000

Notes for Table 6:

1. Includes the Smartpages headings, "churches," "synagogues," and "mosques," whereas there is no heading, "temples." The heading "churches" includes various kinds of worship congregations, so the count "other" is derived from inspecting and interpreting the names of the "churches" and adding "synagogues" and "mosques."
2. As in note 1, the counts other than the total are derived from inspection and interpretation of the names of the "conference centers" and "retreat facilities."

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