06-20-2009, 10:23 AM
Survey finds major shifts in religions
Mainstream Christian churches are in decline, while ranks are swelling for nondenominational and the unaffiliated.
By Michael Paulson
Boston Globe
Published on: 02/26/08
The United States, founded by dissident Protestants seeking religious freedom, is on the verge of becoming a nation in which Protestants are a minority.
An increasing fraction of Americans identify themselves as unaffiliated with any religious tradition, and a growing number, although still a tiny minority, say they are Muslim, Hindu or Orthodox Christian. And a flood of overwhelmingly Catholic immigrants is helping to offset a high dropout rate among U.S.-born Catholics.
These are among the key findings of a groundbreaking study of the American religious landscape released Monday by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life.
The study, which is the most comprehensive such examination of the country in at least a half-century, finds that the United States is in a period of unprecedented religious fluidity, in which 44 percent of American adults have left the denomination of their childhood for another denomination, another faith, or no faith at all.
"Americans are not only changing jobs, changing locations, changing spouses, but they're also changing religions on a regular basis," said Luis E. Lugo, director of the Pew Forum.
"We have nearly half the American public telling us they're something different today than they were as a child, and that's a staggering number. It's such a dynamic religious marketplace and very competitive," Lugo said.
The study is based on a survey of 35,000 Americans age 18 and older, a very large number for survey research, and the size of the pool allowed the researchers to get more detail about minority religious groups than is usually available from smaller studies.
Among other findings:
> One in four adults ages 18 to 29 claim no affiliation with a religious institution.
> The majority of the unaffiliated â- 12 percent of the overall population â- describe their religion as "nothing in particular."
> Atheists or agnostics account for 4 percent of the total population.
> The Roman Catholic Church has lost more members than any faith tradition because of affiliation swapping.
> On the Protestant side, changes in affiliation are swelling the ranks of nondenominational churches, while Baptist and Methodist traditions are showing net losses.
> More people identified themselves as Buddhist than Muslim, although both populations were small â- less than 1 percent of the total population.
The Associated Press contributed to this article.