Scientology outshrinks the Southern Baptist Convention

In the Scientology/Southern Baptist Convention faceoff, though loathe to admit it, Scientology is winning the race toward extinction.

Whereas the SBC is apparently doomed by demographics to be the slowly shrinking denomination, declining a faction of a percent in 2006-2007 after a long run of declining growth rates, American Religious Identification Survey (ARIS) data suggests that Scientology is imploding. If you agree that 45% shrinkage over less than a decade is implosion.

ARIS reported that in 2001 there were 55,000 adults in the United States who consider themselves Scientologists. In 2008, ARIS found there were 25,000 Americans identifying themselves as Scientologists.

Tommy Davis, the church's top spokesman, told the New York Times that the number was "impossibly low."

Or impossible to survive for long?