[Buddha-l] iNTERESTING US MAP GRAPHIC SHOWING %AGE OF THE VARIOUS RELIGIONS

[Jo]

Hi Frantz,
	Not to be persnickety, but as you wrote 'shoulder on', I think the
usual phrase is 'soldier on' :).
	Thanks for these notes from the AAR session. Most interesting. About
the Vietnamese residing here: many of them have left Buddhism and joined up
with various mass-pop Christian denominations; many of them have been Roman
Catholics for generations, from the French colonial era; and a small % of
them belong to the CaoDai religious enterprise and have built a temple in
Orange County to serve their needs.  It seems from what I've come across
lately that Buddhism has been on the decline in Vietnam, itself, for decades
if not for longer. (I'd need to do a lot of checking to be more specific
about the last assertion.)

Joanna
--------------------------------


On Behalf Of Franz Metcalf
Sent: Friday, March 30, 2012 11:19 AM

Dear Scott et al.,

Thanks for the persnickety post. You've prompted me to find and review my
notes from Melton's AAR session. Here's the upshot:

1) Polling suggests roughly 1.5 million Buddhists in the USA, a fraction of
the previous estimated 3.5-4 million. Census data (for reasons Scott
mentions) may supplant the polling estimates with actual data supporting the
higher figures.

2) Despite potentially higher numbers of cultural Buddhists, going through
temple/center/group data from some 200 denominations, Melton et al. estimate
970,000 officially Buddhist-affiliated Americans. Of course those with
Buddhist influences and no cards to carry (folks Scott may describe in a
later rant) may be missed in this estimate.

3) If we find the estimate low, consider that many--for some cultures even
most--Asian immigrants were not, or are no longer, Buddhist. At this point
only 20% of Chinese Americans report as Buddhist. 20%!

4) 90% of Buddhists in the USA live with 50 miles of an international
airport. Two-thirds of American counties have no Buddhists groups within
them. Buddhist groups tend to be in suburbs (cities are too expensives,
rural areas have no Buddhists). One interesting aspect of this lack of
diaspora is that Vietnamese who immigrated after the war, were forced by law
to reside in every state of the union, in numbers proportionate to the
state's population. Many have rescued themselves from those backwaters
(note: this is me talking, not Melton), but if you take the Vietnamese
Buddhists out of the equation, the already vast blank areas of the US
without Buddhists grow much larger.

I find this all quite depressing but shoulder on, recalling that Buddhism,
itself, is subject to anicca. On the other hand, if American Buddhism leads
to such products as Genpo Roshi, who needs it?

Franz
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