What Is The Makeup Of Religion In United States Of America

The Christian share of the U.South. population is failing, while the number of U.S. adults who exercise not identify with any organized religion is growing, according to an extensive new survey past the Pew Research Center. Moreover, these changes are taking place across the religious landscape, affecting all regions of the country and many demographic groups. While the drop in Christian affiliation is specially pronounced amid young adults, information technology is occurring amid Americans of all ages. The same trends are seen amid whites, blacks and Latinos; among both higher graduates and adults with only a high school education; and among women too as men. (Explore the data with our interactive database tool.)

To be sure, the United States remains home to more Christians than any other country in the world, and a large majority of Americans – roughly vii-in-ten – continue to identify with some branch of the Christian faith.¹ Only the major new survey of more than 35,000 Americans past the Pew Research Center finds that the per centum of adults (ages 18 and older) who draw themselves every bit Christians has dropped by about eight percentage points in simply seven years, from 78.4% in an every bit massive Pew Research survey in 2007 to 70.6% in 2014. Over the aforementioned menstruation, the percentage of Americans who are religiously unaffiliated – describing themselves as atheist, agnostic or "nothing in particular" – has jumped more than vi points, from 16.i% to 22.viii%. And the share of Americans who identify with non-Christian faiths as well has inched up, rising 1.2 percentage points, from 4.vii% in 2007 to five.9% in 2014. Growth has been especially great among Muslims and Hindus, albeit from a very depression base.

The drop in the Christian share of the population has been driven mainly by declines among mainline Protestants and Catholics. Each of those large religious traditions has shrunk by approximately 3 pct points since 2007. The evangelical Protestant share of the U.S. population also has dipped, but at a slower charge per unit, falling past about ane percentage point since 2007.²

Even as their numbers decline, American Christians – similar the U.S. population as a whole – are becoming more racially and ethnically diverse. Non-Hispanic whites at present business relationship for smaller shares of evangelical Protestants, mainline Protestants and Catholics than they did seven years earlier, while Hispanics accept grown equally a share of all three religious groups. Racial and ethnic minorities now make up 41% of Catholics (up from 35% in 2007), 24% of evangelical Protestants (up from 19%) and 14% of mainline Protestants (up from 9%).

Religious intermarriage likewise appears to be on the ascension: Amid Americans who take gotten married since 2010, most four-in-10 (39%) report that they are in religiously mixed marriages, compared with 19% among those who got married before 1960.³ The rise in intermarriage appears to be linked with the growth of the religiously unaffiliated population. Nearly ane-in-five people surveyed who got married since 2010 are either religiously unaffiliated respondents who married a Christian spouse or Christians who married an unaffiliated spouse. By contrast, just 5% of people who got married before 1960 fit this profile.

Explore data on religious groups in the U.S. by affiliation, geographic and demographic information.

While many U.S. religious groups are aging, the unaffiliated are comparatively young – and getting younger, on average, over time. As a rising cohort of highly unaffiliated Millennials reaches adulthood, the median age of unaffiliated adults has dropped to 36, down from 38 in 2007 and far lower than the general (adult) population'south median age of 46.⁴ Past dissimilarity, the median historic period of mainline Protestant adults in the new survey is 52 (up from 50 in 2007), and the median age of Catholic adults is 49 (up from 45 seven years before).

These are amongst the key findings of the Pew Research Heart's second U.S. Religious Landscape Study, a follow-upwards to its first comprehensive study of religion in America, conducted in 2007.

Because the U.S. census does not inquire Americans about their religion, in that location are no official government statistics on the religious composition of the U.S. public.^five Some Christian denominations and other religious bodies continue their own rolls, simply they employ widely differing criteria for membership and sometimes do non remove members who accept fallen away.⁶ Surveys of the general public frequently include a few questions about religious affiliation, but they typically do not interview enough people, or ask sufficiently detailed questions, to be able to describe the country's full religious landscape.

The Religious Landscape Studies were designed to fill up the gap. Comparison two virtually identical surveys, conducted seven years apart, can bring important trends into sharp relief. In addition, the very large samples in both 2007 and 2014 included hundreds of interviews with people from small-scale religious groups that account for just ane% or 2% of the U.South. population, such as Mormons, Episcopalians and 7th-day Adventists. This makes it possible to paint demographic and religious profiles of numerous denominations that cannot be described past smaller surveys. The near contempo Religious Landscape Study also was designed to obtain a minimum of 300 interviews with respondents in each land and the Commune of Columbia also as to stand for the country'due south largest metropolitan areas, enabling an assessment of the religious limerick not just of the nation as a whole, merely too of individual states and localities. (See Appendix D.)

The latest survey was conducted in English and Spanish among a nationally representative sample of 35,071 adults interviewed by telephone, on both cellphones and landlines, from June 4-Sept. 30, 2014. Findings based on the total sample take a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 0.6 percentage points. The survey is estimated to cover 97% of the non-institutionalized U.Due south. developed population; iii% of U.S. adults are not reachable by telephone or do not speak English or Spanish well enough to participate in the survey. (See Appendix A for more information on how the survey was conducted, margins of fault for subgroups analyzed in this study and additional details.)

Even a very small margin of fault, when practical to the hundreds of millions of people living in the United States, can yield a wide range of estimates for the size of particular faiths. Notwithstanding, the results of the second Religious Landscape Study indicate that Christians probably have lost ground, non but in their relative share of the U.South. population, just likewise in absolute numbers.

In this written report, respondents' religious affiliation (likewise sometimes referred to as "religious identity") is based on self-reports. Catholics, for instance, are defined as all respondents who say they are Cosmic, regardless of their specific behavior and whether or non they attend Mass regularly.

The terms "unaffiliated" and "religious 'nones'" are used interchangeably throughout this written report. This group includes self-identified atheists and agnostics as well as those who describe their religion as "nothing in particular."

The unaffiliated are generally less religiously observant than people who identify with a religion. But not all religious "nones" are nonbelievers. In fact, many people who are unaffiliated with a religion believe in God, pray at least occasionally and think of themselves as spiritual people. Forthcoming reports will describe the Religious Mural Study'south findings about the religious beliefs and practices of "nones" and other groups.

For more details on the exact questions used to measure religious identity, see the survey topline. For more than on how Protestant respondents were grouped into item religious traditions, see Appendix B.

In 2007, there were 227 million adults in the United States, and a petty more than 78% of them – or roughly 178 1000000 – identified as Christians. Between 2007 and 2014, the overall size of the U.S. adult population grew by virtually 18 million people, to about 245 meg.⁷ But the share of adults who identify as Christians fell to just nether 71%, or approximately 173 million Americans, a net turn down of about 5 meg.

This decline is larger than the combined margins of sampling error in the twin surveys conducted seven years apart. Using the margins of mistake to summate a likely range of estimates, information technology appears that the number of Christian adults in the U.Due south. has shrunk by somewhere between 2.8 million and 7.8 million.⁸

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Of the major subgroups inside American Christianity, mainline Protestantism – a tradition that includes the United Methodist Church, the American Baptist Churches The states, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) and the Episcopal Church, amid others – appears to have experienced the greatest drop in accented numbers. In 2007, at that place were an estimated 41 million mainline Protestant adults in the U.s.a.. Every bit of 2014, there are roughly 36 million, a decline of 5 meg – although, taking into account the surveys' combined margins of error, the number of mainline Protestants may have fallen by as few as 3 million or as many as 7.3 million betwixt 2007 and 2014.⁹

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By dissimilarity, the size of the historically black Protestant tradition – which includes the National Baptist Convention, the Church of God in Christ, the African Methodist Episcopal Church building, the Progressive Baptist Convention and others – has remained relatively stable in recent years, at most 16 million adults. And evangelical Protestants, while failing slightly as a percentage of the U.S. public, probably have grown in absolute numbers as the overall U.S. population has continued to aggrandize.

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The new survey indicates that churches in the evangelical Protestant tradition – including the Southern Baptist Convention, the Assemblies of God, Churches of Christ, the Lutheran Church building-Missouri Synod, the Presbyterian Church building in America, other evangelical denominations and many nondenominational congregations – now accept a full of about 62 one thousand thousand adult adherents. That is an increment of roughly two million since 2007, though once the margins of mistake are taken into account, it is possible that the number of evangelicals may have risen past as many as 5 1000000 or remained essentially unchanged.¹⁰

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Like mainline Protestants, Catholics appear to be declining both as a percentage of the population and in absolute numbers. The new survey indicates there are well-nigh 51 million Catholic adults in the U.S. today, roughly 3 million fewer than in 2007. But taking margins of error into account, the decline in the number of Catholic adults could be as modest as one million.^xi And, unlike Protestants, who take been decreasing as a share of the U.S. public for several decades, the Cosmic share of the population has been relatively stable over the long term, according to a variety of other surveys (see Appendix C).

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Meanwhile, the number of religiously unaffiliated adults has increased by roughly 19 million since 2007. There are now approximately 56 meg religiously unaffiliated adults in the U.S., and this group – sometimes called religious "nones" – is more numerous than either Catholics or mainline Protestants, co-ordinate to the new survey. Indeed, the unaffiliated are now 2nd in size only to evangelical Protestants amidst major religious groups in the U.S.

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Factors Behind the Changes in Americans' Religious Identification

One of the most important factors in the declining share of Christians and the growth of the "nones" is generational replacement. As the Millennial generation enters machismo, its members display much lower levels of religious affiliation, including less connection with Christian churches, than older generations. Fully 36% of young Millennials (those between the ages of 18 and 24) are religiously unaffiliated, equally are 34% of older Millennials (ages 25-33). And fewer than vi-in-ten Millennials identify with whatever branch of Christianity, compared with seven-in-ten or more among older generations, including Baby Boomers and Gen-Xers. Only 16% of Millennials are Catholic, and only eleven% identify with mainline Protestantism. Roughly one-in-five are evangelical Protestants.

However, generational replacement is by no means the only reason that religious "nones" are growing and Christians are declining. In addition, people in older generations are increasingly disavowing association with organized organized religion. About a 3rd of older Millennials (adults currently in their late 20s and early 30s) now say they have no religion, up nine percentage points amongst this cohort since 2007, when the same group was between ages 18 and 26. Nearly a quarter of Generation Xers now say they accept no particular religion or describe themselves as atheists or agnostics, up iv points in seven years. Baby Boomers likewise have become slightly merely noticeably more likely to identify as religious "nones" in recent years.

Every bit the shifting religious profiles of these generational cohorts suggest, switching faith is a common occurrence in the United States. If all Protestants were treated equally a unmarried religious group, and so fully 34% of American adults currently take a religious identity dissimilar from the 1 in which they were raised. This is up six points since 2007, when 28% of adults identified with a religion different from their childhood religion. If switching amongst the three Protestant traditions (e.g., from mainline Protestantism to the evangelical tradition, or from evangelicalism to a historically black Protestant denomination) is added to the full, then the share of Americans who currently have a different organized religion than they did in childhood rises to 42%.

By a broad margin, religious "nones" have experienced larger gains through religious switching than any other group. Nearly one-in-five U.S. adults (eighteen%) were raised in a religious faith and at present identify with no religion. Some switching also has occurred in the other direction: 9% of American adults say they were raised with no religious affiliation, and almost half of them (4.3% of all U.S. adults) now identify with some religion. Only for every person who has joined a religion after having been raised unaffiliated, in that location are more four people who take become religious "nones" after having been raised in some organized religion. This 1:4 ratio is an important factor in the growth of the unaffiliated population.

By dissimilarity, Christianity – and especially Catholicism – has been losing more adherents through religious switching than information technology has been gaining. More than 85% of American adults were raised Christian, but near a quarter of those who were raised Christian no longer identify with Christianity. Former Christians represent 19.ii% of U.S. adults overall.

Both the mainline and historically blackness Protestant traditions take lost more members than they take gained through religious switching, but within Christianity the greatest cyberspace losses, by far, have been experienced by Catholics. Nearly one-third of American adults (31.7%) say they were raised Cosmic. Amongst that grouping, fully 41% no longer identify with Catholicism. This means that 12.9% of American adults are former Catholics, while just 2% of U.S. adults accept converted to Catholicism from another religious tradition. No other religious group in the survey has such a lopsided ratio of losses to gains.

The evangelical Protestant tradition is the just major Christian grouping in the survey that has gained more than members than information technology has lost through religious switching. Roughly ten% of U.Due south. adults at present place with evangelical Protestantism subsequently having been raised in some other tradition, which more than offsets the roughly viii% of adults who were raised equally evangelicals but have left for another religious tradition or who no longer identify with whatever organized organized religion.

Other highlights in this study include:

• The Christian share of the population is declining and the religiously unaffiliated share is growing in all four major geographic regions of the country. Religious "nones" now constitute xix% of the developed population in the Due south (up from thirteen% in 2007), 22% of the population in the Midwest (up from sixteen%), 25% of the population in the Northeast (up from 16%) and 28% of the population in the W (up from 21%). In the West, the religiously unaffiliated are more numerous than Catholics (23%), evangelicals (22%) and every other religious grouping.
• Whites go on to be more probable than both blacks and Hispanics to identify equally religiously unaffiliated; 24% of whites say they have no faith, compared with xx% of Hispanics and 18% of blacks. But the religiously unaffiliated have grown (and Christians have declined) as a share of the population inside all three of these racial and indigenous groups.
• The percentage of college graduates who identify with Christianity has declined by 9 pct points since 2007 (from 73% to 64%). The Christian share of the population has declined by a similar amount among those with less than a college pedagogy (from 81% to 73%). Religious "nones" now constitute 24% of all college graduates (up from 17%) and 22% of those with less than a college degree (upward from 16%).
• More than a quarter of men (27%) now describe themselves as religiously unaffiliated, upwards from xx% in 2007. Fewer women are religious "nones," but the religiously unaffiliated are growing amid women at about the same charge per unit as among men. Nearly 1-in-five women (xix%) at present draw themselves as religiously unaffiliated, up from 13% in 2007.
• Although it is depression relative to other religious groups, the memory charge per unit of the unaffiliated has increased. In the electric current survey, 53% of those raised every bit religiously unaffiliated however place equally "nones" in adulthood, up seven points since 2007. And among Millennials, "nones" really have one of the highest retention rates of all the religious categories that are big plenty to analyze in the survey.
• As the ranks of the religiously unaffiliated continue to abound, they too describe themselves in increasingly secular terms. In 2007, 25% of the "nones" called themselves atheists or agnostics; 39% identified their religion as "nothing in particular" and also said that religion is "not too" or "not at all" important in their lives; and 36% identified their faith as "nada in particular" while nevertheless saying that religion is either "very important" or "somewhat important" in their lives. The new survey finds that the atheist and agnostic share of the "nones" has grown to 31%. Those identifying as "nothing in particular" and describing religion as unimportant in their lives continue to business relationship for 39% of all "nones." Merely the share identifying as "aught in particular" while too affirming that religion is either "very" or "somewhat" of import to them has fallen to 30% of all "nones."
• While the mainline Protestant share of the population is significantly smaller today than it was in 2007, the evangelical Protestant share of the population has remained comparatively stable (ticking downward slightly from 26.iii% to 25.four% of the population). Equally a outcome, evangelicals at present constitute a articulate majority (55%) of all U.S. Protestants. In 2007, roughly half of Protestants (51%) identified with evangelical churches.
• Since 2007, the share of evangelical Protestants who place with Baptist denominations has shrunk from 41% to 36%. Meanwhile, the share of evangelicals identifying with nondenominational churches has grown from xiii% to xix%.
• The United Methodist Church building (UMC) continues to be the largest denomination within the mainline Protestant tradition. Currently, 25% of mainline Protestants identify with the UMC, down slightly from 28% in 2007.
• More than than six-in-ten people in the historically black Protestant tradition identify with Baptist denominations, including 22% who identify with the National Baptist Convention, the largest denomination within the historically black Protestant tradition.
• The share of the public identifying with religions other than Christianity has grown from 4.seven% in 2007 to 5.9% in 2014. Gains were most pronounced among Muslims (who accounted for 0.4% of respondents in the 2007 Religious Landscape Study and 0.ix% in 2014) and Hindus (0.iv% in 2007 vs. 0.7% in 2014).¹²
• Roughly one-in-seven participants in the new survey (xv%) were born exterior the U.S., and ii-thirds of those immigrants are Christians, including 39% who are Catholic. More 1-in-10 immigrants identify with a not-Christian organized religion, such every bit Islam or Hinduism.
• Hindus and Jews keep to be the most highly educated religious traditions. Fully 77% of Hindus are college graduates, as are 59% of Jews (compared with 27% of all U.S. adults). These groups too have above-average household incomes. Fully 44% of Jews and 36% of Hindus say their almanac family income exceeds $100,000, compared with 19% of the public overall.

About the 2014 U.South. Religious Landscape Report

This is the offset report on findings from the 2014 U.S. Religious Landscape Report, the centerpiece of which is a nationally representative telephone survey of 35,071 adults. This is the second time the Pew Enquiry Center has conducted a Religious Mural Study. The first was conducted in 2007, also with a telephone survey of more than 35,000 Americans.

The new written report is designed to serve three main purposes:

• To provide a detailed account of the size of the religious groups that populate the U.Due south. landscape;
• To describe the demographic characteristics, religious beliefs and practices, and social and political values of those religious groups; and
• To document how the religious profile of the U.S. has changed since the offset study was conducted in 2007. With more than than 35,000 interviews each, both the 2007 and 2014 studies have margins of error of less than one per centum point, making it possible to identify fifty-fifty relatively small changes in religious groups' share of the U.S. population.

The results of the 2014 Religious Landscape Study will be published in a series of reports over the coming year. This get-go report focuses on the changing religious composition of the U.Southward. and describes the demographic characteristics of U.South. religious groups, including their median historic period, racial and ethnic makeup, nativity data, education and income levels, gender ratios, family composition (including religious intermarriage rates) and geographic distribution. Information technology too summarizes patterns in religious switching.

In add-on, this study includes an appendix that compares the findings of the 2007 and 2014 Religious Landscape Studies with several other surveys and assesses how recent developments in American religion fit into longer-term trends. Data from a variety of national surveys, including the long-running General Social Survey and Gallup polls, confirm that Protestants have been declining as a share of the U.S. population and that the unaffiliated have been growing. But in that location is less of a consensus about trends in American Catholicism. Some surveys, including the ane featured in this report, indicate that the Cosmic share of the population is declining, while others suggest it is relatively stable or may have declined and then ticked dorsum upwards in contempo years. (Run across Appendix C.)

Other findings from the 2014 Religious Landscape Study volition be released later this twelvemonth. In addition to the written reports, the Religious Landscape Written report's findings will be available through a new interactive tool. The online presentation allows users to delve more deeply into the survey's findings, build interactive maps or charts and explore the data almost interesting to them.

Acknowledgments

Many individuals from the Pew Research Center contributed to this report. Alan Cooperman, manager of religion inquiry, oversaw the try and served as the primary editor. Gregory Smith, associate manager for organized religion research, served as the chief researcher and wrote the Overview and Methodology. Smith likewise wrote the chapter on the changing religious composition of the U.S., the appendix on the classification of Protestant denominations and the appendix on putting the findings from the Religious Landscape Study into context. The affiliate on religious switching and intermarriage was written by Research Associate Becka Alper. Inquiry Associate Jessica Martinez and Research Assistant Claire Gecewicz wrote the affiliate on the demographic profiles of religious groups, and Research Analyst Elizabeth Sciupac wrote the chapter on the shifting religious identity of demographic groups. Gecewicz prepared the detailed tables. The written report was number checked by Alper, Gecewicz, Martinez, Sciupac and Research Acquaintance Besheer Mohamed. The study was edited past Sandra Stencel, Michael Lipka, Caryle Tater and Aleksandra Sandstrom. Beak Webster created the graphics.Stacy Rosenberg, Russell Heimlich, Diana Yoo, Besheer Mohamed, Ben Wormald and Juan Carlos Esparza Ochoa developed the interactive tool.

The Pew Inquiry Center's methods squad provided advice on the sampling plan, questionnaire design, weighting strategy and data analysis. The methods team, led past Director of Survey Research Scott Keeter, includes Research Methodologists Kyley McGeeney and Andrew Mercer, Research Assistant Nicholas Hatley and graduate educatee intern H. Yanna Yan.

Others at the Pew Enquiry Middle who provided research guidance include Michael Dimock, Claudia Deane, Andy Kohut and Conrad Hackett. Communications back up was provided past Katherine Ritchey, Stefan Cornibert, Russ Oates and Robyn Tomlin.

John C. Light-green, director of the Ray C. Bliss Institute of Applied Politics at the University of Akron, served equally a senior adviser on the Religious Landscape Studies, providing valuable advice on the survey questionnaires, categorization of respondents and drafts of the reports. Additionally, nosotros received helpful comments on portions of the 2014 written report from David Eastward. Campbell, director, Rooney Center for the Written report of American Republic, University of Notre Dame; William D'Antonio, senior fellow, Establish for Policy Inquiry and Catholic Studies, The Catholic Academy of America; Mike Hout, professor of sociology, New York Academy; and Barry Kosmin, manager, Institute for the Study of Secularism in Society and Culture, Trinity Higher. We also received valuable advice from Luis Lugo, former director of the Pew Research Eye's Religion & Public Life project, and Paul Taylor, one-time executive vice president of the Pew Enquiry Eye.

Funding for the 2014 Religious Landscape Study comes from The Pew Charitable Trusts, which received generous support for the project from the Lilly Endowment Inc.

While the analysis was guided by our consultations with the advisers, the Pew Research Middle is solely responsible for the interpretation and reporting of the information.

Roadmap to the Report

The remainder of this report explores in greater depth many of the key findings summarized in this Overview. Chapter i offers a detailed look at the religious composition of the United States and how it has changed in recent years. Chapter two examines patterns in religious switching and intermarriage. Chapter 3 provides a demographic profile of the major religious traditions in the Us. Affiliate iv and so flips the lens, looking at the religious contour of Americans in diverse demographic groups. Appendix A describes the methodology used to deport the study. Appendix B provides details on how Protestants were categorized into one of three major Protestant traditions (the evangelical tradition, the mainline tradition and the historically blackness Protestant tradition) based on the specific denomination with which they place. Appendix C compares findings from the Religious Mural Studies with other major organized religion surveys and puts the current results into the context of longer-term trends.

Source: https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2015/05/12/americas-changing-religious-landscape/

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