Tuesday, May 12, 2015

Big Drop in Share of Americans Calling Themselves Christian

The Christian share of adults in the United States has declined sharply since 2007, affecting nearly all major Christian traditions and denominations, and crossing age, race and region, according to an extensive survey by the Pew Research Center.

Seventy-one percent of American adults were Christian in 2014, the lowest estimate from any sizable survey to date, and a decline of 5 million adults and 8 percentage points since a similar Pew survey in 2007.

The Christian share of the population has been declining for decades, but the pace rivals or even exceeds that of the country’s most significant demographic trends, like the growing Hispanic population. It is not confined to the coasts, the cities, the young or the other liberal and more secular groups where one might expect it, either.

More from the New York Times.

There are now approximately 56 million religiously unaffiliated adults living in America, according to the study, which is a follow-up to a similar study conducted in 2007. The "nones," as they are known, are more numerous than either Catholics or mainline Protestants, and second only to evangelical Protestants.

Millennials have played a significant role in the extraordinary growth of unaffiliated Americans, a phenomena called “generational replacement.”

But it's not only the millennial generation driving this shift in the religious landscape. Older Americans are also exiting from organized religion. Nearly 25 percent of Generation Xers identified as unaffiliated in 2014, a four-point increase from 2007.

More from the Huffington Post.

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