Church Hunter

Finding 1,187 faiths

What in heaven's name are the Church of the Four Leaf Clover, the Church of the Fuller Concept, and the Psychedelic Venus Church? Or the Infinite Way, the Faithists, Pragmatic Mysticism, and Soulcraft Inc.? Answer: just a handful of the U.S. denominations described in an unbelievable compendium called the Encyclopedia of American Religions (Consortium Books; $75).

The standard Yearbook of American and Canadian Churches lists only 296 denominations. Lutheran Theologian Arthur C. Piepkorn tracked down 735 North American groups for his Profiles in Belief (Harper & Row is up to Volume IV of this posthumous seven-volume work). Now comes J. Gordon Melton's encyclopedia listing 1,187 "primary" denominations in the U.S., which makes him America's champion church hunter.

Melton, 36, has pursued his hobby of spiritual taxonomy for 15 years. He is now a Methodist pastor in Evanston, Ill., and his rambling parsonage houses the Institute for the Study of American Religion. Melton has conducted hundreds of field interviews. During one foray to the offices of the animal-loving Church of All Worlds, his wife Dorothea went into a bathroom only to confront a live boa constrictor curled in the corner and a 4-ft. crocodile in the tub.

The Encyclopedia takes a rigorously objective approach, offering no judgments of creed. The work is a unique reference owing to Melton's new material on what he calls the nation's "hidden religions," groups which lie outside the mainstream and are barely visible to outsiders: spiritualists, religious psychics, occultists and assorted "New Age" sects. Melton is convinced that America is as spiritual as it ever was, but that more people are becoming attached to the obscure faiths. Says Melton: "We are probably the most religious people--and the most diversely religious people--on earth." qed

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