Once the virtual province of old-line Protestant churches, Southern California has emerged in recent years as the most religiously diverse metropolitan area in the world.
From immigrant Pentecostal churches and suburban mega-churches overflowing with believers to the largest Buddhist temple in the Western Hemisphere, 600 distinct religious traditions have been identified in the region.
The Los Angeles area, transformed by immigrants and a generation of Americans striking out for new spiritual horizons, now surpasses London and New York in the sheer number of religious beliefs, according to J. Gordon Melton of the Institute for the Study of American Religion in Santa Barbara.
"The old L.A. image as the bastion of Midwestern Protestantism is just down the tubes," said religion professor John Orr of the USC Center for Religion and Civic Culture.
Christianity remains the region's largest religion, and the Roman Catholic Church is far and away the leading faith, with 3 million communicants in Los Angeles County alone. Evangelical and Pentecostal Christians and Mormons continue to add impressive numbers. Most of the oldest Protestant denominations, once the spiritual home of the city's powerful, have stopped losing members and some are growing modestly.
But there has been a steady rise in non-Christian presence. There are now as many Jews affiliated with synagogues in Los Angeles as there are members of old-line Protestant denominations, Orr noted. Although Muslim population estimates vary, Southern California appears to have the nation's single-largest concentration of followers of Islam.
Buddhists in Southern California account for 40% of all Buddhists in America, Melton said, adding that the region also has a smaller but "sizable" population of Hindus.
Equally striking, the metropolitan region--often seen as the epitome of a secular city and a trendsetter of worldly values--is becoming more religious overall.
Between 1980 and 1990, Los Angeles County's population grew by 18.5%, but the number of adherents of all faiths jumped by 57%, according to Glenmary Research Center, an Atlanta-based firm that tracks church growth.
The rise coincides with a surge of immigration from Asia and Latin America, and new interest in spirituality among baby boomers and younger Americans.
