An unlikely source -- the fraud trial of a prominent Baptist leader -- raises questions about the truthfulness of claims regarding church attendance.

ust how religious are the American people? For decades, pollsters have claimed that 40% of the population regularly attends services as a church, mosque, temple or other venue. Denominations boast millions of members, and often tout statistics showing that their particular religious group is thriving. The Roman Catholic Church, for instance, claims the allegiance of nearly 60 million people in the United States, although that statistic is based mostly on a record of baptisms, not regular church attendance.

   Critics say that these numbers are inflated; they cite "empty pew" syndrome which is causing parishes across the nation to close. While there is church growth in some suburban areas, the mainstream religious groups are stagnant or even declining. Evangelical, Pentecostal and new age sects are growing, but that might reflect a shift away from the more staid mainstream denominations.

   Last May, two researchers announced a study of church attendance based on a novel source -- thousands of diaries completed from the 1960s to the mid-1990s. Observed the Washington Post, "Their analysis reveals a discrepancy between the diaries and the polls, and suggests that many Americans have been misreporting how they spend their Sunday mornings, inflating estimates of church attendance by perhaps as much as a third."

   Worse yet for religious groups, sociologist Stanley Presser of the University of Maryland and his research partner, Linda Stinson found that the number of Americans who lie about churchgoing habits was on the upswing. By their measurements, church attendance -- reported at 42% in 1965 -- was now at about 26%.

   Now, information from yet another unlikely source is casting doubt on the claims of religious groups concerning the size of their respective denominations. The information comes from the racketeering trial of Rev. Henry J. Lyons, former head of the mostly-black National Baptist Convention. Lyons and his alleged mistress are charged with financing a lavish lifestyle by milking more than $4 million from various corporations involved with the Baptist group. He is also charged with pocketing $250,000 contributed by the Anti-Defamation League which was collected to help rebuild black houses of worship that had allegedly been targets of arson throughout the deep South.

   The National Baptist Convention boasted of having more than 8.5 million followers in 33,000 churches across the country. But in testimony last month in Lyon's Largo, Florida trial, a former church administrative assistance revealed that those figures were vastly inflated and concocted by Lyons or other church leaders. According to secretary Bonita Henderson, Lyons "gave out the number" of followers, although the church's mailing list never exceeded 15,000 names. In addition, the National Baptist Convention USA's own lists showed no more than 5,000 to 7,000 churches at any time.

   So where did the 8.5 million figure originate? If Henderson's charges are true, Lyons purportedly created a fraudulent list of church members by heading to a local computer software store and purchasing a $90 set of discs which were a telephone number data base. That list was then sold to a life insurance firm that was doing business with the Baptist Convention in hopes of signing up new leads.

   The Washington Post says that prosecutors in the case "estimate the convention's membership may have been fewer than 1 million people."

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