Greenbelt Interfaith News
    Greenbelt News

    November 1997

    Many Greenbelters Not Involved with Their Faith, Study Says
    Greenbelt Interfaith News

    A study prepared for St. George's Episcopal Church in Glenn Dale states that 37.7% of households in Greenbelt and surrounding communities are not involved with their faith – exactly the same as the U.S. average.

    The study was prepared by the Percept Group, a California organization. The study's conclusions are projections based on national and regional surveys; the group claims to have a sampling error of plus or minus one percent.

    Percept Group's study covers the zip code areas of 20769, 20770, 20720, and 20706: Glenn Dale, Greenbelt, West Bowie, and Lanham–Seabrook. The study says that the largest percentage of noninvolvement, 40-45%, is in Greenbelt.

    The study says that 28.8% of the area households are strongly involved with their faith, slightly less than the national average, while 33.1% are somewhat involved with their faith. In the study area, 19.5% of the household have increased their involvement with their faith in the last 10 years, while 31.4% have decreased their involvement; both these figures are close to the national average.

    Percept Group also projected the religious preference of households. It concludes that the study area contains larger than average numbers of Catholics, Episcopalians, Jews, Orthodox Christians, and Presbyterian/Reformed Christians. The number of Jewish households is said to be especially large, nearly 2¼ times the U.S. average.

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    Greenbelt News: Greenbelt's Religious Communities Celebrate the City's Sixtieth Anniversary. By Heather Elizabeth Peterson.

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    © 1997 Heather Elizabeth Peterson
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