The folks over at the respected Pew Forum look at the religious makeup of the incoming 111th Congress. Bottom line: Protestants are the largest religious group but the numbers continue to dwindle. Congress is more religiously diverse than ever. Read below from the Pew Forum

Collectively, Protestants account for more than half (54.7%) of the 111th Congress, about the same proportion as their share of the U.S. adult population (51.3%). But American Protestantism is very diverse and encompasses more than a dozen major denominational families, such as Baptists, Methodists and Presbyterians, all with unique beliefs, practices and histories. When these Protestant denominational families are considered as separate religious groups, Catholics are the single largest religious group in the 111th Congress. Catholics, who account for nearly one-quarter of the U.S. adult population, make up about 30% of Congress. Indeed, the number of Catholics in Congress is two-and-a-half times the size of the next largest religious group, Baptists, who make up about 12% of the members.

Although Baptists are the second-largest religious group in Congress after Catholics, the group's share of Congress (12.4%) is less than its share of the national population (17.2%). Indeed, the number of Baptists on Capitol Hill is about the same as the number of Methodists in Congress (10.7%), though Methodists make up a much smaller portion of the American population overall (6.2%). Like Methodists, other Protestant groups also are overrepresented in Congress in relation to their numbers in the general population. For instance, while only 1.5% of American adults identify themselves as Episcopalians, 7.1% of Congress claims this affiliation. In addition, 8.1% of the congressional membership is Presbyterian, far outstripping the 2.7% of American adults who say they are Presbyterians.

Among the nation's smaller religious groups, one group stands out in terms of its numbers in Congress: Jews, who account for just 1.7% of the U.S. adult population, make up 8.4% of Congress, including just over 13% of the Senate.

Another small religious group, Mormons, is about as well-represented on Capitol Hill as it is in the overall population; while members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and other Mormons make up 1.7% of the nation's adult population, they represent 2.6% of Congress.

In many ways, the changes in the religious makeup of Congress during the last half-century mirror broader changes in American society. Congress, like the nation as a whole, has become much less Protestant and more religiously diverse. Indeed, the total percentage of Protestants in Congress has dropped from 74.1% in 1961 to 54.7% today, which roughly tracks with broader religious demographic trends during this period. As recently as the early 1980s, nearly two-thirds of Americans identified themselves as Protestants. In the recent Landscape Survey, the number of self-identified Protestants dropped to 51.3%.

Read the entire Pew Forum analysis here.

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