This may come as a surprise to many, but the fastest-growing religion in America is the Shakers.
Have you heard of them?
Know anything about them?
The Shakers have grown by a whopping 50% this year alone.
How?
Simple:
The Shakers have gone from two members to three.
The Shakers are a Christian sect founded in 1747. One of their central tenets is celibacy, which doesn’t do much for membership, both in terms of producing offspring and allowing for naked fun.
Until recently, there were just two remaining full members of the Christian sect:
An 87-year-old woman and a 68-year-old man.
But this week, a spry new convert — a 59-year-old woman who previously lived in an episcopal convent for four years — joined the sect, helping to ensure its legacy will continue.
It’s a good example of how numbers can be manipulated or distort an impression while still being mathematically correct.
Yes, the Shakers are the fastest-growing religious sect in the world.
Also, an ill-timed bus accident or a contaminated can of green beans could wipe out the entire religious sect in one swoop.
Let’s hope all three members of the sect don’t stand at too many bus stops together. If I were them, I would institute a “Sole Survivor” policy, wherein one member can’t be within 500 feet of the other two, thus ensuring that an accident can’t end more than 250 years of the celebration of, among other things, celibacy — the very thing that has brought their numbers to almost zero.
