Born Again Is Not a Religious State

The religious landscape of the United states of america continues to change at a rapid clip. In Pew Research Eye telephone surveys conducted in 2018 and 2019, 65% of American adults describe themselves as Christians when asked well-nigh their religion, down 12 percentage points over the by decade. Meanwhile, the religiously unaffiliated share of the population, consisting of people who describe their religious identity as atheist, agnostic or "nothing in particular," now stands at 26%, up from 17% in 2009.

Both Protestantism and Catholicism are experiencing losses of population share. Currently, 43% of U.South. adults identify with Protestantism, down from 51% in 2009. And one-in-five adults (20%) are Catholic, downwardly from 23% in 2009. Meanwhile, all subsets of the religiously unaffiliated population – a group also known as religious "nones" – accept seen their numbers bang-up. Cocky-described atheists now account for 4% of U.S. adults, up modestly but significantly from 2% in 2009; agnostics make upward 5% of U.S. adults, upwardly from 3% a decade ago; and 17% of Americans now describe their religion equally "zip in particular," up from 12% in 2009. Members of non-Christian religions also have grown modestly every bit a share of the adult population.

These are amongst the key findings of a new analysis of trends in the religious composition and churchgoing habits of the American public, based on recent Pew Inquiry Center random-digit-dial (RDD) political polling on the telephone.¹ The data shows that the trend toward religious disaffiliation documented in the Center's 2007 and 2014 Religious Landscape Studies, and before that in major national studies like the General Social Survey (GSS), has continued quickly.

Pew Enquiry Eye'due south 2007 and 2014 Religious Landscape Studies were huge national RDD surveys, each of which included interviews with more than 35,000 respondents who were asked dozens of detailed questions about their religious identities, behavior and practices. The Eye has not however conducted a tertiary such written report, and when the Mural Study is repeated, it is likely to employ new methods that may prevent it from being directly comparable to the previous studies; growing challenges to conducting national surveys by telephone have led the Center to rely increasingly on self-administered surveys conducted online.^two

Merely while no new Religious Landscape Written report is available or in the immediate offing, the Centre has collected five additional years of information (since the 2014 Landscape Study) from RDD political polls (see detailed tables). The samples from these political polls are not as large as the Landscape Studies (fifty-fifty when all of the political polls conducted in a year are combined), but together, 88 surveys from 2009 to 2019 included interviews with 168,890 Americans.

These surveys do not include nearly equally many questions nigh religion as the Landscape Studies do. However, as part of the demographic battery of questions that ask respondents nearly their age, race, educational attainment and other background characteristics, each of these political polls likewise include one basic question nigh religious identity – "What is your nowadays religion, if whatsoever? Are y'all Protestant, Roman Catholic, Mormon, Orthodox such as Greek or Russian Orthodox, Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist, Hindu, atheist, agnostic, something else, or zip in particular?"

Additionally, most of these political polls include a question virtually religious attendance – "Aside from weddings and funerals, how oftentimes do yous attend religious services? More than in one case a calendar week, once a week, one time or twice a month, a few times a year, seldom, or never?" Taken together, these ii questions (one virtually religious identity, the other about religious attendance) can help shed calorie-free on religious trends in the U.Due south.

The data shows that just similar rates of religious affiliation, rates of religious attendance are declining.³ Over the last decade, the share of Americans who say they attend religious services at least once or twice a calendar month dropped by vii percentage points, while the share who say they attend religious services less often (if at all) has risen by the same degree. In 2009, regular worship attenders (those who attend religious services at least one time or twice a month) outnumbered those who nourish services only occasionally or not at all by a 52%-to-47% margin. Today those figures are reversed; more than Americans at present say they nourish religious services a few times a year or less (54%) than say they attend at least monthly (45%).

The changes underway in the American religious landscape are broad-based. The Christian share of the population is downward and religious "nones" have grown across multiple demographic groups: white people, black people and Hispanics; men and women; in all regions of the state; and amidst higher graduates and those with lower levels of educational attainment. Religious "nones" are growing faster among Democrats than Republicans, though their ranks are swelling in both partisan coalitions. And although the religiously unaffiliated are on the rise among younger people and virtually groups of older adults, their growth is virtually pronounced among young adults.

Furthermore, the information shows a broad gap betwixt older Americans (Baby Boomers and members of the Silent Generation) and Millennials in their levels of religious affiliation and attendance. More than eight-in-ten members of the Silent Generation (those built-in between 1928 and 1945) describe themselves every bit Christians (84%), as practice three-quarters of Baby Boomers (76%). In stark contrast, just half of Millennials (49%) describe themselves as Christians; 4-in-ten are religious "nones," and one-in-ten Millennials identify with non-Christian faiths.

But near 1-in-three Millennials say they attend religious services at to the lowest degree once or twice a month. Roughly 2-thirds of Millennials (64%) nourish worship services a few times a year or less oftentimes, including near iv-in-x who say they seldom or never become. Indeed, there are as many Millennials who say they "never" attend religious services (22%) as in that location are who say they go at to the lowest degree once a calendar week (22%).

While the trends are articulate – the U.S. is steadily condign less Christian and less religiously observant as the share of adults who are non religious grows – self-described Christians report that they attend religious services at about the same rate today as in 2009. Today, 62% of Christians say they attend religious services at to the lowest degree one time or twice a month, which is identical to the share who said the same in 2009. In other words, the nation'due south overall rate of religious omnipresence is failing not because Christians are attention church building less often, but rather because in that location are now fewer Christians as a share of the population.

Other key takeaways from the new analysis include:

The data suggests that Christians are failing not just every bit a share of the U.Due south. developed population, but also in absolute numbers. In 2009, there were approximately 233 million adults in the U.S., according to the Census Bureau. Pew Enquiry Center's RDD surveys conducted at the fourth dimension indicated that 77% of them were Christian, which means that by this measure, in that location were approximately 178 million Christian adults in the U.Due south. in 2009. Taking the margin of fault of the surveys into account, the number of adult Christians in the U.S. as of 2009 could have been every bit low every bit 176 million or every bit loftier equally 181 1000000.

Today, there are roughly 23 million more than adults in the U.Due south. than there were in 2009 (256 1000000 as of July 1, 2019, according to the Census Bureau). About two-thirds of them (65%) identify as Christians, according to 2018 and 2019 Pew Research Center RDD estimates. This means that there are at present roughly 167 million Christian adults in the U.S. (with a lower jump of 164 million and an upper jump of 169 million, given the survey'south margin of error).

Meanwhile, the number of religiously unaffiliated adults in the U.S. grew by almost thirty 1000000 over this flow.

The share of Americans who depict themselves as Mormons has held steady at 2% over the past decade.⁴ Meanwhile, the share of U.South. adults who place with non-Christian faiths has ticked up slightly, from 5% in 2009 to 7% today. This includes a steady 2% of Americans who are Jewish, along with 1% who are Muslim, one% who are Buddhist, 1% who are Hindu, and 3% who identify with other faiths (including, for example, people who say they abide by their own personal religious beliefs and people who describe themselves equally "spiritual")⁵
The rise share of Americans who say they nourish religious services no more a few times a year (if at all) has been driven by a substantial jump in the proportion who say they "never" go to church. Today, 17% of Americans say they never attend religious services, up from 11% a decade agone. Similarly, the decline in regular churchgoing is attributable mainly to the shrinking share of Americans who say they nourish religious services at least once a calendar week, which was 37% in 2009 and now stands at 31%.
The trends documented in Pew Inquiry Heart surveys closely resemble those found in the long-running General Social Survey (GSS), a project of the independent inquiry arrangement NORC at the University of Chicago, with principal funding from the National Science Foundation. In GSS surveys conducted in the early 2000s (2000 to 2004), 80% of U.S. adults identified as Christians, including 54% who described themselves as Protestants and 25% who were Cosmic. Past the late 2010s, 71% of GSS respondents described themselves every bit Christians (48% Protestant, 23% Catholic). Over the same period, the GSS found that religious "nones" grew from 14% of the U.South. adult population to 22%.

The point estimates from the GSS and Pew Research Center surveys (that is, the share of adults who identify as Protestant or Catholic or as religious "nones") are non directly comparable; the two studies ask dissimilar questions and employ different modes of survey administration. But the fact that the management of the trend is similar in both studies strongly suggests that both are picking up on existent and significant change underway in the U.S. religious mural.

These findings about the religious composition of Hispanics closely resemble those from Pew Research Center's National Surveys of Latinos (NSL) – a nationally representative survey of U.S. Latino adults fielded virtually every yr. (Come across the detailed tables for consummate trends in the religious composition of Hispanics based on both Pew Enquiry Center political surveys and the NSL.)

Among white adults, the share of people who say they nourish religious services a few times a year or less now exceeds the share who nourish monthly or more (57% vs. 42%); a decade ago, the white population was evenly divided betwixt those who went to church at least monthly and those who did not. Regular churchgoers still outnumber those who infrequently or never go to religious services amongst black Americans (58% vs. 41%), though the share of people who say they attend religious services a few times a year or less ofttimes has risen over the final decade among black Americans, just as it has among the population as a whole. U.South. Hispanics are now nigh evenly divided between those who say they attend religious services at least once or twice a calendar month (51%) and those who say they attend a few times a year or less (49%).
There is withal a gender gap in American religion. Women are less likely than men to draw themselves every bit religious "nones" (23% vs. 30%), and more than likely than men to say they attend religious services at least once or twice a month (50% vs. 40%). But women, similar men, take grown noticeably less religious over the final decade. The share of "nones" among women has risen by 10 per centum points since 2009 – similar to the increment amid men. And the share of women who identify every bit Christian has fallen past xi points (from 80% to 69%) over that same menses.
Christians have declined and "nones" have grown equally a share of the adult population in all 4 major U.S. regions. Catholic losses accept been most pronounced in the Northeast, where 36% identified as Catholic in 2009, compared with 27% today. Amidst Protestants, declines were larger in the Southward, where Protestants now account for 53% of the adult population, downwardly from 64% in 2009.
Religious "nones" now brand up fully one-tertiary of Democrats. And about six-in-ten people who identify with or lean toward the Democratic Party say they attend religious services no more than a few times a year. The ranks of religious "nones" and exceptional churchgoers too are growing within the Republican Party, though they make up smaller shares of Republicans than Democrats.
The religious profile of white Democrats is very different from the religious profile of racial and indigenous minorities within the Autonomous Political party. Today, fewer than half of white Democrats describe themselves as Christians, and only three-in-ten say they regularly nourish religious services. More than four-in-ten white Democrats are religious "nones," and fully seven-in-10 white Democrats say they attend religious services no more than than a few times a twelvemonth. Blackness and Hispanic Democrats are far more than likely than white Democrats to describe themselves every bit Christians and to say they attend religious services regularly, though all three groups are becoming less Christian. Although 2009 surveys did not include plenty black Republicans to analyze separately, the most contempo surveys show smaller religious differences by race and ethnicity amongst Republicans than Democrats.
Pew Research Center's phone political polls do non typically include the detailed questions that are needed to determine whether Protestants identify with denominations in the evangelical, mainline or historically blackness Protestant tradition. All the same, the political polls upon which this analysis is based do ask Protestants whether they think of themselves as "built-in-again or evangelical" Christians. The data shows that both Protestants who describe themselves as born-again or evangelical Christians and Protestants who are not built-in-again or evangelical have declined every bit a share of the overall U.S. adult population, reflecting the country'southward broader shift away from Christianity equally a whole. However, looking only at Americans who identify as Protestants – rather than at the public as a whole – the share of all Protestants who are born-again or evangelical is at to the lowest degree every bit loftier today as it was in 2009.
The share of U.Due south. adults who are white born-again or evangelical Protestants now stands at 16%, downwardly from 19% a decade ago. The shrinking white evangelical share of the population reflects both demographic changes that take occurred in the United States (where white people establish a declining share of the population) and broader religious changes in American society (where the share of all adults who place with Christianity has declined). All the same, looking but at white Protestants – rather than at the public every bit a whole – the share of white Protestants who describe themselves as born-once again or evangelical Christians is at least as high as it was a decade ago.