America’s Changing Religious Landscape
Christians Decline Sharply as Share of Population; Unaffiliated and Other Faiths Continue to Grow
The Christian share of the U.S. population is declining, while the number of U.S. adults who do not practice organized religion is growing, according to a new survey by 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 religion is particularly evident among young adults, it is happening among Americans of all ages. The same trends are seen among whites, blacks and Latinos; among both college graduates and adults with only a high school education; and among women as well as men.
To be sure, the United States is home to more Christians than any other country in the world, and a large majority of Americans – roughly seven-in-ten – continue to practice some branch of the Christian faith.1 But the major new survey of more than 35,000 Americans by the Pew Research Center finds that the percentage of adults (ages 18 and older) who describe themselves as Christians has dropped by nearly eight percentage points in just seven years, from 78.4% in an equally big Pew Research survey in 2007 to 70.6% in 2014. Over the same period, the percentage of Americans who do not practice any religion – describing themselves as atheist, agnostic or “nothing in particular” – has jumped more than six points, from 16.1% to 22.8%. And the share of Americans who identify with non-Christian faiths also has increased, rising 1.2 percentage points, from 4.7% in 2007 to 5.9% in 2014. Growth has been especially great among Muslims and Hindus, albeit from a very low base.
Religious intermarriage also appears to be on the rise: Among Americans who have gotten married since 2010, nearly four-in-ten (39%) say 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 one-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.