Census reveals that for first time most Scots have no religion

Church of Scotland pledges ‘radical reform’ to win new converts as results of delayed census are published

thetimes.com

Church of Scotland leaders have pledged “radical reform” to win new converts after census data revealed for the first time that most people in the country have no religion.

The latest statistics showed 51.1 per cent did not have a religious faith, and in more bad news for the Kirk, only 20.4 per cent said they were church members, a fall of 610,100 since 2011 and of more than 1 million since 2001.

Rev David Cameron, convener of the assembly trustees of the Church of Scotland, said the statistics were “sobering” and would be “hurtful for our members and a source of anxiety for many”. He added: “Radical reform is necessary to address this alongside our falling ministry numbers and a reduction in income both nationally and locally.”

Cameron insisted the church’s “relevancy cannot be expressed simply as a set of numbers in a table” and stressed its continuing work in areas such as drug dependency services and debt support schemes.

The Humanist Society of Scotland said the figures showed that Scotland had become more humane and “progressively-minded” than ever before, in terms of religious belief. Fraser Sutherland, the society’s chief executive, said: “More people feel confident and open about expressing an atheist, secular or agnostic world view than ever before.

“We want to build on the momentum for change that these figures show, and continue to fight for changes in Holyrood and across the country that reflect our humanist values: secularism, bodily autonomy, LGBT inclusion and an end to religious privilege.”

“No religion” was the most common response in every council area except for the Western Isles, a traditional church stronghold, and Inverclyde. Despite this, secularism is increasing in the islands. The proportion of people with no religion there grew from 11.4 per cent in 2001 to 29.9 per cent in 2022.

The next largest religious groups were Roman Catholic (13.3 per cent), “other Christian” (5.1 per cent) and Muslim (2.2 per cent). Since 2011, the number of people who described themselves as Catholic has decreased by 117,700, while the number in the “other Christian” category has decreased by 12,000. Only the Muslim faith grew, increasing by 43,100 over the same period.

Young people were most likely to have no religious faith, but even in the 65-plus age group, the number with no religion has more than doubled since 2011 — an increase of 186,700 people (from 14.1 per cent to 28.6 per cent ). Men (53.8 per cent) were more likely to be religious than women (48.6 per cent).

During lockdown, the Scottish government chose to delay the census, scheduled in 2021, citing Covid restrictions. This meant it would be the first census in 150 years not to simultaneously cover all parts of Britain (Scotland always had a separate census but it was timed to align with the rest of the UK).

Data from England and Wales was collected in 2021 and has already been published. It also showed an increase in the number of people reporting no religion over recent decades, but from a lower starting point.

Jon Wroth-Smith, director of Scotland’s census statistics, said its 2022 data gave a “fascinating insight” into religion, ethnicity, national identity and language.

The percentage of people in Scotland with a minority ethnic background increased from 8.2 per cent in the previous census to 12.9 per cent in 2022. This was a larger increase than over the previous decade (from 4.5 per cent to 8.2 per cent).

“Without migration Scotland’s population would have decreased, and we would have fewer people in younger age groups,” Wroth-Smith said. Last year, 17.8 per cent of Scotland’s population aged between 20 and 39 were born outside the UK, although the overall percentage of people born outside the UK is still relatively small, at about 10 per cent.

The “other white” category rose to 56,600 people. About three quarters of people in this group had European heritage, and the number of Poles increased by 29,500.

Aberdeen had the highest percentage of people from a Polish background (4.4 per cent) and 3.2 per cent of people in Edinburgh identified as Poles. However, as a grouping, Poles are spread out across Scotland more than most other minority ethnic groups, with more than half (54.2 per cent) living outside the four major cities.

Feelings of Scottish national identity were on the rise, with those defining themselves as Scottish climbing from 62.4 to 65.5 per cent. The percentage of people who said their only national identity was British also increased, from 8.4 to 13.9 per cent. “Scottish and British” people are in retreat, decreasing from 18.3 per cent to 8.2 per cent.

The census also found that 2.5 per cent of those aged 3 and over had some skills in Gaelic in 2022. This is an increase of 43,100 since 2011, when 1.7 per cent had some skills in Gaelic.

Israel Rescues Four Hostages Kidnapped in Oct. 7 Attack

It's the largest such recovery operation since the war began in Gaza.

TIME

JERUSALEM — Israel said Saturday it rescued four hostages who were kidnapped in the Hamas-led attack on Oct. 7, the largest such recovery operation since the war began in Gaza. At least 55 Palestinians including children were killed as heavy fighting continued around the sites in central Gaza, the Health Ministry said, and more dead continued to arrive.

Israel's army said it rescued Noa Argamani, 25; Almog Meir Jan, 21; Andrey Kozlov, 27; and Shlomi Ziv, 40, in two locations in a complex daytime operation in the heart of Nuseirat on Saturday morning, raiding the two places at once and under fire.

Argamani had been one of the most widely recognized hostages after being abducted from a music festival in southern Israel. The video of her abduction was among the first to surface, with Argamani detained between two men on a motorcycle as she screamed, “Don’t kill me!”

Her mother, Liora, has stage four brain cancer and in April released a video pleading to see her daughter before she dies.

An elated Argamani spoke by phone with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. In an audio message released by the government, Netanyahu is heard asking how she’s feeling. She tells him she is “very excited,” saying she hasn’t heard Hebrew in so long.

The bodies of the dozens of Palestinians killed were taken to Al-Aqsa Hospital, where they were counted by Associated Press reporters. They later saw more dead arrive at the hospital from the Nuseirat and Deir al-Balah areas as smoke rose in the distance.

Israel's military said it attacked “threats to our forces in the area.” The military said one fighter was seriously wounded.

Hamas took some 250 hostages during the Oct. 7 attack that killed about 1,200 people. About half were released in a weeklong cease-fire in November. Israel says more than 130 hostages remain, with about a quarter of those believed dead. Divisions are deepening over the best way to bring them home.

International pressure mounts on Israel to limit civilian bloodshed in its war in Gaza, which reached its eighth month on Friday with more than 36,700 Palestinians killed, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between fighters and civilians. Palestinians face widespread hunger because fighting and Israeli restrictions have largely cut off the flow of aid.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken will return to the Middle East next week, seeking a breakthrough in the apparently stalled cease-fire negotiations.

Saturday’s hostage recovery operation brings the total of rescued captives to seven. Two men were rescued in February when troops stormed a heavily guarded apartment, and a woman was rescued in the aftermath of the October attack. Israeli troops have recovered at least 16 bodies of hostages from Gaza, according to the government.

Defense Minister Yoav Gallant called Saturday's rescue “a heroic operation” and said the army will fight until all hostages are returned.

Netanyahu faces growing pressure to end the fighting in Gaza. Many Israelis urge him to embrace a deal announced last month by U.S. President Joe Biden, but far-right allies threaten to collapse his government if he does.

Israel is intensifying operations across central Gaza, where the hostages were rescued. On Thursday, an Israeli airstrike hit a U.N.-run school compound in Nuseirat, killing over 33 people inside the school, including three women and nine children.

Israel said some 30 militants were inside at the time and on Friday released the names of 17 militants it said were killed. However, only nine of those names matched with records of the dead from the hospital morgue.

One of the alleged militants was an 8-year-old boy, according to hospital records.

On Thursday, an Israeli airstrike hit a U.N.-run school compound in Nuseirat, killing over 33 people inside the school, including three women and nine children.

Catholic Mass Attendance Has Fallen by Half

Is Politics to Blame?

graphsaboutreligion.com

I was born and raised Southern Baptist. Gave my life to Jesus at 15. Got baptized in a pair of white pajamas. Then, I went to a Free Methodist college. Got a job at an American Baptist Church and have been serving in the ABCUSA for more than twenty years. I will be elected to the Board of General Ministries for American Baptist denomination this summer.

My wife is Irish Catholic. We got married in St. Teresa of Avila in our hometown. My very Southern Baptist grandmother went to her grave not knowing that piece of information.

Both my boys have been raised in the Catholic church. They were baptized as infants, and both have had their First Communions. They go to PSR classes nearly every Sunday morning before coming to worship at my church. And our sons attend Wednesday night youth group at the local United Methodist Church.

We wanted them to be part of a religious community. They are active in three. I hope that one of those sticks.

I try to get to Mass with my family a few times a year. Usually on Holy Days of Obligation, and other important days like Ash Wednesday. I really do like a lot of aspects of the Catholic Church. They certainly have better architecture than the average non-denominational Protestant building. Plus, I don’t have to do anything when I go to Mass. I can just sit there and meditate on the scriptures and get lost in the rituals.

I think one of the reasons I like going to Mass is that it gives me something to compare my own church to. We worship the same God, are saved by the same Jesus, and read (mostly) the same Bible.

From a data standpoint, however, there’s a lot going on in the Catholic Church that’s worth unpacking.

But before we dig into that - let’s just start as broad as we can: What share of Americans identify as Catholic and has that changed over time?

The General Social Survey has been asking about religious affiliation for nearly five decades. Same question, basically the same response options. The results are pretty boring, to be honest. Between 1972 and 1990, the share of Americans who identify as Catholic did not budge - 26%. From 1990 through 2010, it barely shifted as well - maybe dropping a single percentage point.

But, from 2010 through 2021, the trend line begins to move. It’s pretty evident that the Catholic share has dropped below 25%. However, it’s hard to pinpoint the exact percentage. In both 2016 and 2018, the number was 23% and in 2021 it dropped to 21%. But that last figure may be impacted by a methodological issue that I discuss at length here.

Overall, though, that’s a pretty solid result. I’ve shared this graph in a few talks that I have given with Catholics in the audience, and they seem fairly pleased with this result. I mean, I don’t blame them. Between 1972 and 2010, the Catholic share dropped by a single percentage point. Not bad.

However, that’s not the entire story with American Catholicism. Not even close. Lots of Americans still identify as Catholics but how many of them actually come to a Mass on a regular basis? That’s where the narrative about the Catholic Church in the United States starts to change.

I calculated the share of four Christian groups that report attending services nearly every week or more over the last fifty years. I love a graph like this one because the point I am trying to make becomes crystal clear in the visualization: Mass attendance for Catholics has fallen off a cliff.

In the early 1970s, about half of Catholics were weekly attenders. Today, it’s about 25%. And no, that’s not a result of the pandemic. Attendance was already down to 26% in 2018 - long before the world had ever heard the word “COVID-19.”

Note, also that the share of evangelicals who attend weekly has noticeably risen over the last fifty years (up at least a dozen percentage points). Weekly attendance for both Black and Mainline Protestants has stayed relatively stable, as well.

I think what is happening in the latter two cases, at least, is that people who marginally attended decades ago now no longer identify as Protestant. That means the denominator has gotten smaller and only the truly committed are left in the fold. It isn’t a resurgence, it’s probably more like a concentration.

The burning question here is: why have Catholics seen their attendance decline so precipitously? There could be a million and one reasons for Catholic churches to be emptying out, just like their Protestant cousins. But I wanted to focus on just one today: politics. I am a political scientist, after all.

I calculated weekly attendance rates among Catholics, but I broke it down by political partisanship. I was hoping to see some type of narrative emerge. It’s surprising to note that even through the mid-1990s, a Catholic Democrat was just as likely to attend weekly Mass as a Republican Catholic.

The clear partisan gap in Mass attendance only began to open up around the election of George W. Bush. But the divide was a small one: only three percentage points. It’s continued to widen from there, though. From about 2010 onward, a Republican Catholic is about six percentage points more likely to attend Mass nearly every week compared to a Catholic Democrat.

That’s not what I would call a huge divide. And if you don’t focus on the gap and instead look at the trend line - Mass attendance among Republicans has dropped from 55%+ to below 30% now. It’s not like conservatives are holding the line while liberal Catholics are jumping ship in huge numbers.

I wanted to take one more look at this, so I pulled up the Cooperative Election Study to test a working hypothesis. Maybe the devout White Catholics are becoming more Republican, while the ones who never darken the church doors are moving more toward the Democrats. I was surprised with the result, to say the least.

First, look at the right-hand side of the graph. Among weekly attending White Catholics, there is little to report. In 2008, 57% were Republicans. In 2022, it was 59%. Certainly, no big shift there - just a lot of stability over the last fourteen years.

Now, look at the never or seldom Mass attenders. This is where things get very interesting. In 2008 and 2012, it’s pretty clear that this group was a point of strength for the Democrats. However, between 2012 and 2016 some pretty tectonic shifts were underway. Instead of the distribution being +15 for the Democrats, it now becomes an even mix (around 42% for both parties).

From that point forward, the composition of low attending White Catholics continued to tilt to the right. Look at 2022 - it’s basically a mirror image of 2008. Democrats were 50% - Republicans were 35% in 2008. Now they are the exact opposite of that.

I am not one to write myself out of a job - but it’s pretty hard to make a causal argument that theology is what pushed low attending White Catholics toward the GOP - because they weren’t in the pews to hear those arguments from the priests and bishops.

For now I will leave you with this thought: shouldn’t White people who report their religious attendance as seldom or never have the same view of politics regardless of how they answer a question about religious identity? You can probably guess that a non-attending Catholic is a bit distinct from a non-attending agnostic. I will explore just how big that divide is in a future post.

The Next Generation Is Leaving the Faith Earlier Than You Realize - Lifeway Research

The next generation is often leaving the faith while under the supervision of parents who believe they're passing on their religious values.

Lifeway Research

The next generation is often leaving the faith while under the supervision of parents who believe they’re passing on their religious values.

When church leaders imagine young people turning away from Christianity, they may picture a college student being convinced by an atheist professor or an older high schooler getting a driver’s license and using their newfound freedom to leave church behind. In reality, the secularization of the next generation may look more like a 14-year-old watching YouTube in their room.

New analysis published at the Institute for Family Studies (IFS) reveals children born in the 1980s and ’90s never absorbed the faith in their home. And they walked away from it at an earlier age than most parents and leaders suspect.

In the early 1990s, no more than 16% of 8th, 10th, and 12th graders said religion was not important to them at all, according to the Monitoring the Future survey series. By the early 2000s, however, the percentage of high school seniors who completely dismissed the importance of religion to them personally began to increase dramatically.

For close to a decade, sophomores were more like 8th graders, with both hovering around 15%. But around 2010, 10th graders became more like 12th graders in terms of their disregard for religion. A few years later, the percentage of 8th graders who said religion is not at all important began to rapidly increase.

In the latest study, close to 30% of seniors and sophomores and almost 25% of 8th graders said they didn’t consider religion to have any importance.

When does secularization happen?

One explanation for this could be fewer parents saying religion is important to them. More secular parents may be passing on their lack of faith to their children. But the IFS analysis also looked at a 2019 Pew Research study that asked both children and parents about the importance of religion.

At age 13, there is little difference between the percentage of teenagers who self-report that religion is not at all important and the percentage of parents who say religion is not important to their child. A gap emerges at 14. This gap is sizeable by 15 when more than 20% of teenagers say religion is not at all important.

There’s no real increase in secularization among teenagers after they reach 15. The shift away from religion occurs before then. Meanwhile, parents’ perception stays flat across the age range at around 10-15% who say religion is unimportant for their child.

Additionally, the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY) followed the religious affiliation of those born between 1980-86 until around age 30. “Of NLSY respondents surveyed at age 13, around 12% were nonreligious. By age 17, 17% were nonreligious,” reported research fellow Lyman Stone in the IFS report.

“Religious affiliation wasn’t surveyed for a few young adult years, but then by age 21, about 21-23% of these young people were nonreligious, a share that has been essentially unchanged until today. In other words, this cohorts’ rise in secularism occurred by age 21, and much of it by age 17.” Yet, only 7% of parents report raising their children with no religion between the ages of 13-17.

Stone concludes that “most nonreligious children are born into religious households and lose their faith while under the supervision of parents who believe that they are successfully transmitting their religious values.”

Sweet 16

Similarly, the most recent Lifeway Research study of teenage church dropouts found 66% of those who attended a U.S. Protestant church regularly for at least a year also stopped attending for at least a year as a young adult. Similarly to the IFS analysis, teenagers often begin their religious separation prior to their college years.

Sixteen is often a pivotal age for those dropping out of church. At that age, the attendance rates start to diverge for those who stay in church as adults and those who drop out. The next few years become the church dropout danger zone when most teenagers leave behind regular church involvement.

Alarma en el Vaticano por los continuos vacíos

Aunque los medios oficiales del Vaticano tratan de ocultar la realidad, lo cierto es que la asistencia a los actos presididos por Francisco

InfoVaticana

Although the official Vatican media tries to hide the reality, the truth is that attendance at the events presided over by Francis are plummeting.

For several months now, due to the reduced mobility suffered by the Pontiff, the Vatican has been trying to control and limit all of Francis' movements. The low attendance and participation of the faithful in the Angelus, audiences or Masses in the Vatican has set off alarm bells in Rome.

In this medium, both Specola and La Cigüeña de la Torre have echoed on countless occasions the continuous gaps that Pope Francis faces every time he has a public meeting. The vast majority of official photographs are close-ups of Pope Francis and first rows to avoid showing gaps and empty chairs. Gone are those years of enthusiasm in which St. Peter's Square became too small and you had to queue for hours to get a place.

As Specola stated a few weeks ago in his blog, «the content of the audiences is of no interest to anyone, the papal catechesis, in other times so followed and cared for, today is inconsequential. Pope Francis continues to have problems with his persistent knee that does not fully straighten and that makes it impossible to extend the audience with hugs and kisses. "You can no longer hear the pope cheering, you can't breathe the warmth and affection of the attendees."

These gaps, already typical on Sundays - during the Angelus prayer - and on Wednesdays - in the Pope's public audiences - are also extending to other events of greater significance.

Without going any further, during these last few days we have confirmed the low attendance of faithful at two very important events such as the creation of 21 new cardinals last Saturday or the Mass on Wednesday with which the starting signal for the start was given. of the Synod Assembly. The images of both Masses leave no room for doubt and it is a topic (that of empty chairs) that is increasingly discussed in ecclesial environments.

There will be those who say that everything has to do with the process of secularization that affects the Church worldwide. The truth is that the Church plays less and less role in society, it no longer appears on the front pages unless there is some scandal due to abuse by the clergy, as we have seen in recent days in Spain with the case of the priest of Malaga.

The Church no longer has its own agenda. This -unfortunately- translates into not having anything new to contribute to the world and it is precisely now, in this postmodern and secularized world when the Good News must be announced with more vehemence than ever. But of course, this means going against the current and fighting against what is politically correct.

On the other hand, more and more voices are focusing on Francis himself, who fails to attract either outsiders or insiders with shallow speeches or empty content. This is the problem of wanting to please everyone or move in an ideological 'center' so as not to offend anyone, but unfortunately, center and lukewarmness in this case are synonymous and in this very materialistic world and where people thirst for God Good speeches that in a matter of minutes are blown away by the wind are not valid.

Surely there are multiple options to revive the activity and enthusiasm of the faithful in the cradle of Catholicism. We can affirm, without fear of being wrong, that the solution is to talk about God again and leave aside other worldly issues. Talk about God, his Gospel and the sacraments to nourish all those souls that wander the world longing for an answer that satisfies their empty transit through this Earth.

Proportion of Catholics in Poland falls to 71%, new census data show

That is down from 88% in the last census a decade earlier, while the proportion saying they belong to no faith rose from 2.4% to 6.9%.

Notes From Poland

The proportion of people in Poland identifying as Roman Catholics has fallen to 71% in the latest national census, down from 88% a decade earlier.

The figures mirror other findings from recent years showing declining attachment to Poland’s Catholic church, which has been hit by a series of scandals over child sex abuse by clergy and has faced criticism for its support of an unpopular near-total ban on abortion.

The new data, released by Statistics Poland (GUS), a state agency, show that in the 2021 census, 27.1 million people (71.3%) identified themselves as followers of the Roman Catholic church. That was down from 33.7 million (87.6%) at the last census a decade earlier.

Meanwhile, the proportion saying that they belonged to no faith almost tripled, from 2.4% in 2011 to 6.9% in 2021. Likewise, those who refused to answer the question also almost tripled, from 7.1% to 20.5%.

The highest proportions of Roman Catholics were found in the eastern provinces of Subcarpathia (82.9%), Świętokrzyskie (81.2%), and Lublin (80.7%). The lowest were in West Pomerania (64.5%), Lower Silesia (65.3%) and Pomerania (67.2%)

Apart from Roman Catholicism, all other religious denominations remained small in the 2021 census, with the Orthodox church the second largest (151,648 believers, 0.4% of the population), followed by Jehovah’s Witnesses (108,754, 0.3%) and Lutherans belonging to the Evangelical Church of the Augsburg Confession (65,407, 0.2%).

Among non-Christian denominations, none were larger than 0.1% of the population. The biggest, with 3,236 followers, was Diamond Way Buddhism.

Meanwhile, the number belonging to the Muslim Religious Union (2,209) was smaller than the number identifying as Pastafarians (2,312) – followers of the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, a parody religion.

Regular polling by state research agency CBOS shows that the proportion of Poles who declare themselves to be religious believers fell from 94% in 1992 to 87% in 2021. Over the same period, those regularly practising their religion dropped from 70% to 43%.

Among young Poles, the decline was even more dramatic: from 69% practising regularly in 1992 to 23% in 2021. Last year, the Catholic Primate of Poland, Archbishop Wojciech Polak, admitted that the decline in religious practice among young Poles was “devastating”.

The church’s own figures show that the proportion of Catholics in Poland attending mass fell from 37% in 2019 to 28% in 2021. While the pandemic played a part, the church admits that “socio-cultural factors” were also involved. It has also noted a growing number of people formally leaving the church through apostasy.

Less than half of England and Wales population Christian, Census 2021 shows

The number of people who say they have no religion has risen, the 2021 Census for England and Wales shows.

BBC News

For the first time fewer than half of people in England and Wales describe themselves as Christian, the Census 2021 has revealed.

The proportion of people who said they were Christian was 46.2%, down from 59.3% in the last census in 2011.

In contrast the number who said they had no religion increased to 37.2% of the population, up from a quarter.

Those identifying as Muslim rose from 4.9% in 2011 to 6.5% last year.

People were also asked about their ethnic group and national identity - the responses of which were released in the results just published.

The census is carried out every 10 years by the Office for National Statistics (ONS).

People were asked the broad question what their religion was rather than being asked more specifically about their beliefs or religious practices, in the voluntary question included in the census since 2001.

Ticking "no religion" does not mean having no beliefs, says Prof Linda Woodhead, from King's College London.

"Some will be atheist, a lot will be agnostic - they just say, 'I don't really know' - and some will be spiritual and be doing spiritual things." she said.

Separately when people were asked about their ethnic group, 81.7% of residents in England and Wales identified as White, down from 86.0% a decade earlier, according to the census.

And 74.4% of the total population identified as White as well as English, Welsh, Scottish, Northern Irish or British.

The next most common ethnic group was Asian, Asian British or Asian Welsh accounting for 9.3% of the overall population - 5.5 million people, up from 4.2 million.

The number of people identifying as Black, Black British, Black Welsh, Caribbean or African was 4% of the population, up from 3.3%, taking the figure from 1.9 million to 2.4 million.

One in 10 of households across England and Wales are now made up of people from two or more different ethnic groups - an increase from 8.7%.

And Luton, Birmingham and Leicester. are among 14 areas in England where people identifying as White are now in the minority.

In terms of national identity, among those who described it as not being the UK, the most common response was Polish, followed by Romanian.

Opinion | America Is Losing Religious Faith

At present rates, only a minority of Americans will identify as Christian by the mid-2030s.

nytimes.com

While much of the rest of the industrialized world has become more secular over the last half-century, the United States has appeared to be an exception.

Politicians still end their speeches with “God bless America.” At least until recently, more Americans believed in the virgin birth of Jesus (66 percent) than in evolution (54 percent).

Yet evidence is growing that Americans are becoming significantly less religious. They are drifting away from churches, they are praying less and they are less likely to say religion is very important in their lives. For the first time in Gallup polling, only a minority of adults in the United States belong to a church, synagogue or mosque. (Most of the research is on Christians because they account for roughly 90 percent of believers in the United States.)

“We are currently experiencing the largest and fastest religious shift in the history of our country,” Jim Davis and Michael Graham write in a book published this week, “The Great Dechurching.”

The big religious shifts of the past were the periodic Great Awakenings that beginning in the mid-1700s led to surges in religious attendance. This is the opposite: Some 40 million American adults once went to church but have stopped going, mostly in the last quarter-century.

“More people have left the church in the last 25 years than all the new people who became Christians from the First Great Awakening, Second Great Awakening and Billy Graham crusades combined,” Davis and Graham write.

This “dechurching,” as they call it, is apparent in most denominations, reducing the numbers of Presbyterians and Episcopalians and also of evangelicals like Southern Baptists. White and Black congregants have left churches in similar percentages, but Hispanic religious attendance has dipped less.

To be clear, the United States remains an unusually pious nation by the standards of the rich world. Pew reports that 63 percent of American adults identify as Christian — but that’s down from 78 percent in 2007. And in that same period the percentage of adults who say they have no religion has risen to 29 percent from 16 percent.

If this trend continues at the same pace, by the mid-2030s fewer than half of Americans may identify as Christian.

There are various theories for what is behind the struggles of Christianity, and multiple factors are probably at work. One noted by Davis and Graham is that to many people the church hasn’t seemed very Christian.

When the Rev. Jerry Falwell dismissed AIDS as God’s lethal judgment on promiscuity, he conveyed a sanctimoniousness that in the 1980s and 1990s allowed much of the religious right to turn a cold shoulder to the suffering of people with the virus.

Jesse Helms, a leader of the religious right in the Senate, even suggested in 1995 that funds for fighting AIDS should be reduced because gay men contract the virus through “deliberate, disgusting, revolting conduct.” In retrospect, the most immoral conduct in America in the late 20th century was not taking place in gay bathhouses but in conservative churches where blowhards preached homophobia, embraced bigots like Helms and resisted efforts to counter AIDS — allowing millions of people, gay and straight alike, to die around the world. That is not morally inspiring.

Then in 2001, Falwell and the Rev. Pat Robertson suggested that the Sept. 11 terror attacks were God’s punishment for the behavior of feminists, gay people and secularists. My view was that God should have sued them for defamation.

The embrace of Donald Trump by many Christian leaders, even as he boasted about assaulting women, separated children from parents at the border and backed an insurrection, was for some a final indication of moral decay.

(It’s important to note that conservative churches had another side that worked tirelessly and without much recognition to address disease and poverty, as I’ve often written. It was evangelicals like Michael Gerson who in 2003 helped persuade President George W. Bush to adopt a huge initiative to fight AIDS worldwide. That may be the single best American program of my lifetime, saving some 25 million lives around the world so far. We owe Bush and evangelicals our thanks for that.)

The loss of religious community has far-reaching implications. Congregations are a crucial part of America’s social capital, providing companionship, food pantries and a pillar of community life. There’s also some evidence that religious faith is associated with increased happiness and better physical and mental health.

One of the most thoughtful contemporary religious commentators, Russell Moore, an evangelical who is now editor of Christianity Today, bluntly acknowledges the challenges ahead.

“American Christianity is in crisis,” Moore writes in his new book, “Losing Our Religion.” “The church is a scandal in all the worst ways.”

Moore is deeply critical of the way many evangelical leaders embraced Trump, and he is pained by church sex abuse scandals. In his own ministry, Moore said that he increasingly has heard from committed young Christians who are upset that their parents have been politically radicalized: “I was less likely to hear about wayward children going out into ‘the real world’ and losing their faith as I was to hear about wayward parents retreating into an imaginary world and losing their minds.”

Moore cites data suggesting that the reason people leave churches is not that they lose their belief in God so much as that they lose confidence in religious leaders and in the church’s moral leadership. He thinks faith can still recover; I’m not so sure.

Religious charlatans like Falwell may have meant to usher in a new Great Awakening, but in fact they taught millions of Americans to be wary of preening ventriloquists who claim to speak for God.

"Church attendance is the first thing that goes, then belonging and finally belief — in that order. Belief goes last." -- Ryan Burge

Churchgoing and belief in God stand at historic lows, despite a megachurch surge

The share of Americans who belong to churches dipped below half in 2020, a historic low.

thehill.com

Story at a glance

• Church membership, church attendance and belief in God all declined during the pandemic years, survey data suggest, accelerating decades long trends away from organized worship.
• In-person church attendance plummeted by 45 percent in the pandemic, according to an ABC News analysis.
• At least one-fifth of Americans today embrace no religion at all.

Church membership, church attendance and belief in God all declined during the pandemic years, survey data suggest, accelerating decadeslong trends away from organized worship.

At least one-fifth of Americans today embrace no religion at all. Researchers call them “nones.”

A similar share tell pollsters they do not believe in God, an all-time high.

The lone, striking countertrend is a steep rise in nondenominational Protestants, who attend churches outside the “mainline” denominations — the once-ubiquitous Baptists, Methodists and Lutherans.

Nondenominational Protestants — “nons” — became a majority in 2021, signaling a new era of churches and clergies untethered from religious tradition.

In-person church attendance plummeted by 45 percent in the pandemic, according to an ABC News analysis. Most churches have reopened, but not all congregants have returned.

“People are not getting together much, generally speaking. Not just in church, but in the village,” said Thomas Groome, a professor in theology and religious education at Boston College. “People are staying home. They’re on their cellphones. They’re on the Internet.”

The share of Americans who belong to churches dipped below half in 2020, a historic low, according to Gallup polling.

Church membership held steady at around 70 percent of the U.S. population from the 1940s through the 1990s. Membership plummeted in the new millennium.

The decline is largely driven by a surging population of “nones,” or Americans who claim no religion, at 21 percent, as of 2021, according to Gallup.

It’s tempting, if not entirely accurate, to conflate “nones” with nonbelievers. Yet, one Pew analysis found that a significant share of “nones” consider religion important in their lives.

“Somebody who has no religious affiliation, they may well value religion,” said David Campbell, a political scientist at the University of Notre Dame. “And they may well believe in God.”

Belief in God was near-universal in previous generations. It’s a notion bound up in American identity, not to mention American currency.

In 1954, at the height of the Cold War, President Eisenhower signed a bill that added the words “under God” to the Pledge of Allegiance. The next year, he signed a bill that inscribed “In God We Trust” on currency.

“To be a communist was to be an atheist, and to be an American was to be a Christian, and a person of faith,” said Ryan Burge, a political scientist at Eastern Illinois University.

If the Cold War pushed religion into politics, the Republican Revolution of 1994 pushed religion into partisan politics. Republican leaders of that era increasingly identified Christianity and churchgoing with patriotism and republicanism, seeding a generational retreat from the church by Democrats and the Left.

Today, agnostics are three times as likely to identify as Democrat than Republican, Pew research shows, while only 15 percent of atheists count themselves as Republicans.

“Christian nationalism is a very potent force right now,” said Annie Laurie Gaylor, co-founder of the Freedom From Religion Foundation, a nonprofit that advocates for atheists, agonistics and nontheists. “We’re at a great polarization, and we’re seeing such extremists at that religious end. That might tip people out: ‘I’m coming out of the closet as a nonbeliever, I’ve had it.’”

The rise in “nons,” “nones” and nonbelievers all come at the expense of a vanishing “moderate middle” of American faith, Campbell said.

Mainline Protestantism “is collapsing,” Burge wrote in a recent article tracking the decline of Christian denominations and the rise of nondenominational churches.

Since the 1970s, the share of Americans who identified as Baptists, Methodists and other Protestant denominations has slipped from more than 30 percent to around 10 percent. In the same span, the share of nondenominational Protestants has exploded. The 2020 U.S. Religion Census found 6.5 million more nondenominational congregants and thousands more churches than in 2010.

“If ‘nondenominational’ were a denomination, it would be the largest Protestant one, claiming more than 13 percent of churchgoers in America,” Daniel Silliman wrote in Christianity Today.

Nondenominational churches often start as, “literally, a guy in his basement,” Burge said.

“They’re real-estate brokers, they’re insurance agents, they’re farmers. And they start a church. You got famous because of your tweets or your YouTubes.”

Some nondenominational churches are large enough to seed new denominations. Willow Creek, an evangelical “megachurch” based in the Chicago suburbs, has claimed as many as 25,000 worshippers at several locations.

Multigenerational communities formed around the Baptist and Methodist churches that dominated town squares for generations. By contrast, nondenominational churches often thrive on their otherness, attracting congregants who mistrust ancient American institutions.

“What those churches try to do is to be as easy as possible,” Burge said. “They don’t have membership rolls. They don’t fill out contact cards. They make it really easy to get in, but that also makes it really easy to get out. That’s how they’re designed, is to be much more transitory. A lot of these churches don’t have membership. It’s not a thing.”

Not all socioeconomic groups are leaving the pews at the same rate. College-educated Americans are now markedly more likely to belong to a church than those without a college education, according to Gallup polling.

The statistic belies the long-held suspicion that college professors were killing religion.

“People who aren’t college-educated tend to be less likely to participate in civic institutions, to participate in politics, to get married,” said Melissa Deckman, CEO of the nonprofit Public Religion Research Institute.

Younger people are less religious than older generations. Gallup polls show 34 percent of Generation Z identify as “nones,” compared with 29 percent of Millennials and 25 percent of Generation X.

Some of this generational difference is, well, generational: Older people tend to be more religious, first as they settle down and have children, then as they approach a reunion with their creator, assuming they believe in one.

But the Gen-Z religious disconnect also stems from political divisions, some of which may not go away.

The Freedom From Religion Foundation sponsors an annual essay contest for young people. Recent essays have focused on the LGBTQ movement and abortion rights, Gaylor said, both issues with entrenched opposition among a wide swath of conservative religious organizations.

Faith-based groups see hope in recent evidence of a rebound in churchgoing. Research from Barna Group, a Christian polling firm, suggests that the share of Millennials making weekly church outings nearly doubled to 39 percent in 2022 from 21 percent in pre-pandemic 2019. The group found smaller bumps in church attendance among Gen-X families and boomers.

Groome, of Boston College, takes heart in new data suggesting the “nones” population is leveling off in recent years, after two decades of steady rise.  

“So, I don’t think it’s all over yet,” he said.

And while it may be socially acceptable these days to identify as a nonbeliever, some of the atheist stigma endures.

On Wednesday, Winter Solstice, Gaylor’s foundation plans to run an ad in The New York Times, a red-cheeked Santa framed by the message, “Yes Virginia. . . There is no God.”

The Times wouldn’t run it, Gaylor said, unless her organization added two more lines of clarification: “That’s what tens of millions of nonreligious Americans believe.”

‘I couldn’t pretend any more’: readers on why they left the Christian faith

Readers respond to the census finding that England and Wales are now minority Christian countries

www.theguardian.com

Diana, 44, a retail worker from Yorkshire, was raised in a Christian fundamentalist home and always struggled with her faith; concepts such as predestination and creationism “never made sense” to her.

“Losing my faith was a process of gradual disengagement,” she says. “At some point, I didn’t think that I, as a woman, was made to submit to a man. But the final straw was watching my father die of cancer and trying to do so without pain relief as it was ‘God’s will’, while waiting to be healed. I finally admitted to myself that I didn’t believe in a supernatural being, and couldn’t pretend any more.”

Today, Diana is an atheist, like many other people who got in touch with the Guardian to share why they no longer identified as Christians, after the census found that England and Wales were now minority Christian countries.

Various people cited similar experiences. Some were able to point to specific events in their lives that suddenly made clear their values were no longer congruent with Christian teachings, while others distanced themselves more gradually and gently from their faith.

‘The teachings began feeling like a fairytale’

For James, a programme manager from Birmingham, it was more of a creeping realisation as he got older that certain aspects of Christian dogma were incompatible with critical thinking.

“I was raised as a Christian: church every Sunday, C of E [Church of England] school, taught to say grace before dinner.

“At some point in my late teens the stuff that provided comfort, such as the idea of an omnipotent, omniscient god, suddenly started to feel more like a fairytale you tell kids to help them sleep, and posed questions. And then I thought: ‘If God knows exactly what I’m going to do, and lets it happen, then I no longer have a free will’,” the 44-year-old says.

Although James describes himself as an atheist now and sees religion as “the old approach to controlling the masses and providing public health advice”, he enrolled his two daughters in a C of E primary school.

“I can see the value of spirituality and religion, and I wanted to give my children the opportunity to figure things out for themselves.”

The result? “When my seven-year-old daughter was told at school that God created everything, she asked her teacher: ‘Well, who created God?’ My children have both decided these teachings don’t stack up.”

‘The church hasn’t moved with the times’

Pauline, 54, who is retired and lives in Bristol, says certain Christian teachings became irreconcilable with her values over time.

“I probably stopped calling myself a Christian in my 30s. I was brought up as a strict Roman Catholic with Irish parents. We always went to church on Sunday, and for most of my childhood it was a ritual that was nice and comforting,” she says.

But as she got older she began to have doubts. “I felt that if God made everyone in his image, then why were people who were gay so hated by the church? It felt as if they were saying: ‘Jesus loves everybody but only if they’re like us’. The church was peddling a form of hate, and it didn’t sit right with me.

“All of the hell and damnation stuff as well, plus the amount of money the Catholic church has, it led me to be totally disillusioned by the whole thing.”

Although there are times she misses her Christian faith, Pauline says, she feels certain she will not return to it. “I’ve decided to have a direct cremation when I die, no religious service at all. The church simply hasn’t moved with the times, people don’t recognise their own views in it any more.”

‘I feel a lot more at peace’

During the Covid lockdowns, Stephen Hunsaker, 28, had time to step back and found he felt “so much better” when no longer practising his religion. Raised in the Church of Latter Day Saints in the US, the London-based researcher says he realised it was no longer something he identified with.

“I had been very devout my entire life, but when lockdown happened and I just stepped back, that made me realise there was so much that I no longer identified with. I felt like I had to justify it at every turn and it was bringing me an immense amount of guilt and hurt,” Hunsaker says, explaining that he also felt alienated by some Christians’ treatment of minorities and LGBTQ+ people. “Religion is meant to help you be a better person, but I felt like it was holding me back.”

Hunsaker says leaving his faith was the hardest decision he ever made. “I was very fearful that my relationship with my family and friends would be affected – my world was so wrapped up in it. [But] it went better than I thought.

“Guilt is an incredibly powerful emotion,” he says. “But as I lived without religion and found other people in solidarity it allowed for me to figure out who I am. I feel a lot more at peace.”

Less than half of England and Wales population Christian, Census 2021 shows

The number of people who say they have no religion increases, the 2021 census for England and Wales shows.

www.bbc.com

Fewer than half of people in England and Wales have described themselves as Christian for the first time, the 2021 census has revealed.

The proportion of people who said they were Christian was 46.2%, down from 59.3% in the last census in 2011.

Meanwhile the number who said they had no religion increased to 37.2% of the population, up from a quarter.

And people identifying as Muslim rose from 4.9% in 2011 to 6.5% last year

The census results published on Tuesday also report back on people's national identity and ethnic group as well as religion.

The census is carried out every 10 years by the Office for National Statistics (ONS).

It explores how British society is being shaped from people's answers to questions about themselves, their household and their home.

The results help organisations make decisions on planning and funding public services including transport, education and healthcare.

The 2021 survey was held on 21 March of that year.

The ONS said the census question broadly asked "what is your religion" - referring to people's affiliation, rather than their beliefs or active religious practices.

Professor Linda Woodhead, head of Theology and Religious Studies at King's College London, said ticking "no religion" could still indicate a number of different beliefs.

She told BBC News: "Some will be atheist, a lot will be agnostic - they just say, 'I don't really know' - and some will be spiritual and be doing spiritual things.

"But they don't want to identify with a particular religion, and certainly not with institutional religion."

Meanwhile, London is the most religiously diverse region of England, with just over 25.3% of people reporting a religion other than Christianity.

And south-west England is shown to be the least religiously diverse region, with 3.2% selecting a religion other than Christian.

A total of 81.7% of residents in England and Wales identified their ethnic group as white on the day of the 2021 census, down from 86.0% a decade earlier.

The figures also showed differences in nations - in England alone, 37.2% of people said they had no religion, while in Wales this rose from 32.1% in 2011 to 46.5% last year.

Following the announcement, the Archbishop of York said the country had "left behind the era when many people almost automatically identified as Christian".

The Most Rev Stephen Cottrell said: "It's not a great surprise that the census shows fewer people in this country identifying as Christian than in the past, but it still throws down a challenge to us not only to trust that God will build his kingdom on Earth but also to play our part in making Christ known."

Chief executive of Humanists UK Andrew Copson added the figures should be a "wake-up call which prompts fresh reconsiderations of the role of religion in society".

The 2021 survey, carried out on March 21 last year, was filled out by more than 24 million households across England and Wales.

More data from the census is set to be published in stages over the next two years.

The data released on Tuesday covers ethnicity, religion, national identity and language.

Modeling the Future of Religion in America

If recent trends in religious switching continue, Christians could make up less than half of the U.S. population within a few decades.

www.pewresearch.org

Since the 1990s, large numbers of Americans have left Christianity to join the growing ranks of U.S. adults who describe their religious identity as atheist, agnostic or “nothing in particular.” This accelerating trend is reshaping the U.S. religious landscape, leading many people to wonder what the future of religion in America might look like.

What if Christians keep leaving religion at the same rate observed in recent years? What if the pace of religious switching continues to accelerate? What if switching were to stop, but other demographic trends – such as migration, births and deaths – were to continue at current rates? To help answer such questions, Pew Research Center has modeled several hypothetical scenarios describing how the U.S. religious landscape might change over the next half century.

The Center estimates that in 2020, about 64% of Americans, including children, were Christian. People who are religiously unaffiliated, sometimes called religious “nones,” accounted for 30% of the U.S. population. Adherents of all other religions – including Jews, Muslims, Hindus and Buddhists – totaled about 6%.1

Depending on whether religious switching continues at recent rates, speeds up or stops entirely, the projections show Christians of all ages shrinking from 64% to between a little more than half (54%) and just above one-third (35%) of all Americans by 2070. Over that same period, “nones” would rise from the current 30% to somewhere between 34% and 52% of the U.S. population.

However, these are not the only possibilities, and they are not meant as predictions of what will happen. Rather, this study presents formal demographic projections of what could happen under a few illustrative scenarios based on trends revealed by decades of survey data from Pew Research Center and the long-running General Social Survey.

All the projections start from the current religious composition of the U.S. population, taking account of religious differences by age and sex. Then, they factor in birth rates and migration patterns. Most importantly, they incorporate varying rates of religious switching – movement into and out of broad categories of religious identity – to model what the U.S. religious landscape would look like if switching stayed at its recent pace, continued to speed up (as it has been doing since the 1990s), or suddenly halted.

Switching rates are based on patterns observed in recent decades, through 2019. For example, we estimate that 31% of people raised Christian become unaffiliated between ages 15 to 29, the tumultuous period in which religious switching is concentrated.2 An additional 7% of people raised Christian become unaffiliated later in life, after the age of 30.

While the scenarios in this report vary in the extent of religious disaffiliation they project, they all show Christians continuing to shrink as a share of the U.S. population, even under the counterfactual assumption that all switching came to a complete stop in 2020. At the same time, the unaffiliated are projected to grow under all four scenarios.

Under each of the four scenarios, people of non-Christian religions would grow to represent 12%-13% of the population – double their present share. This consistency does not imply more certainty or precision compared with projections for Christians and “nones.” Rather, the growth of other religions is likely to hinge on the future of migration (rather than religious switching), and migration patterns are held constant across all four scenarios. (See Chapter 2 for an alternative scenario involving migration.)

Of course, it is possible that events outside the study’s model – such as war, economic depression, climate crisis, changing immigration patterns or religious innovations – could reverse current religious switching trends, leading to a revival of Christianity in the United States. But there are no current switching patterns in the U.S. that can be factored into the mathematical models to project such a result.

None of these hypothetical scenarios is certain to unfold exactly as modeled, but collectively they demonstrate how much impact switching could have on the overall population’s religious composition within a few decades. The four main scenarios, combined with four alternatives outlined in Chapter 2, show that rates of religious switching in adulthood appear to have a far greater impact on the overall religious composition of the United States than other factors that can drive changes in affiliation over time, such as fertility rates and intergenerational transmission (i.e., how many parents pass their religion to their children).

The decline of Christianity and the rise of the “nones” may have complex causes and far-reaching consequences for politics, family life and civil society. However, theories about the root causes of religious change and speculation about its societal impact are not the focus of this report. The main contribution of this study is to analyze recent trends and show how the U.S. religious landscape would shift if they continued.

Scenario assumptions and projection results

The four main scenarios presented here vary primarily in their assumptions about the future of religious switching among Americans between the ages of 15 and 29 – which are the years when most religious change happens. Only a modest amount of switching is modeled among older adults.

Fertility and mortality rates are held steady, as are rates of intergenerational transmission. In each scenario, the groups begin with their current profiles in terms of age and gender. Christians, for example, are older than the religiously unaffiliated, on average, and include a higher share of women. Finally, the models assume that migration remains constant, which helps explain why non-Christian groups follow the same trajectory in each of the four scenarios. Immigration has an outsized effect on the composition of non-Christian groups in the U.S. because adherents of religions like Islam and Hinduism make up a larger share of new arrivals than they do of the existing U.S. population.

Chapter 2 presents four additional scenarios that explore the impact of the factors held constant here. These additional projections show how the U.S. religious landscape might change if current switching patterns held steady, but intergenerational religious transmission occurred in 100% of cases; there were no fertility differences by religion; there was no switching after age 30; or there was no migration after 2020.

The alternative scenarios are intended to help isolate – and thereby illuminate – the impact of various factors. One might think of the projections as an experiment in which some key drivers of religious composition change are turned on or off, sped up or slowed down, to see how much difference they make. For more information about modeling assumptions and results, see Chapter 2 and the Methodology.

Scenario 1: Steady switching – Christians would lose their majority but would still be the largest U.S. religious group in 2070

Switching assumption: Switching into and out of Christianity, other religions and the religiously unaffiliated category (“nones”) continues among young Americans (ages 15 to 29) at the same rates as in recent years. Most significantly, each new generation sees 31% of people who were raised Christian become religiously unaffiliated by the time they reach 30, while 21% of those who grew up with no religion become Christian.

Outcome: If switching among young Americans continued at recent rates, Christians would decline as a share of the population by a few percentage points per decade, dipping below 50% by 2060. In 2070, 46% of Americans would identify as Christian, making Christianity a plurality – the most common religious identity – but no longer a majority. In this scenario, the share of “nones” would not climb above 41% by 2070.

Scenario 2: Rising disaffiliation with limits – ‘nones’ would be the largest group in 2070 but not a majority

Switching assumption: Continuing a recent pattern, switching out of Christianity becomes more common among young Americans as each generation sees a progressively larger share of Christians leave religion by the age of 30. However, brakes are applied to keep Christian retention (the share of people raised as Christians who remain Christian) from falling below about 50%.3 At the same time, switching into Christianity becomes less and less common, also continuing recent trends.

Outcome: If the pace of switching before the age of 30 were to speed up initially but then hold steady, Christians would lose their majority status by 2050, when they would be 47% of the U.S. population (versus 42% for the unaffiliated). In 2070, “nones” would constitute a plurality of 48%, and Christians would account for 39% of Americans.

Scenario 3: Rising disaffiliation without limits – ‘nones’ would form a slim majority in 2070

Switching assumption: The share of Christians who disaffiliate by the time they reach 30 continues to rise with each successive generation, and rates of disaffiliation are allowed to continue rising even after Christian retention drops below 50% (i.e., no limit is imposed). As in Scenario 2, switching into Christianity among young Americans becomes less and less common.

Outcome: If the pace of switching before the age of 30 were to speed up throughout the projection period without any brakes, Christians would no longer be a majority by 2045. By 2055, the unaffiliated would make up the largest group (46%), ahead of Christians (43%). In 2070, 52% of Americans would be unaffiliated, while a little more than a third (35%) would be Christian.

Scenario 4: No switching – Christians would retain their majority through 2070

Switching assumption: This scenario imagines no person in America has changed or will change their religion after 2020. But even in that hypothetical situation, the religious makeup of the U.S. population would continue to shift gradually, primarily as a result of Christians being older than other groups, on average, and the unaffiliated being younger, with a larger share of their population of childbearing age.

Outcome: If switching had stopped altogether in 2020, the share of Christians would still decline by 10 percentage points over 50 years, reaching 54% in 2070. The unaffiliated would remain a substantial minority, at 34%.

Which scenario is most plausible?

The scenarios in this report present a wide range of assumptions and outcomes. Readers may wonder which scenario is most plausible. While there are endless possibilities that would lead to religious composition change that is different from the plotted trajectories, it may be helpful to consider how closely the hypothetical switching scenarios adhere to real, observed trends.

The “no switching” scenario (No. 4) is not realistic – switching has not ended and there is no reason to think it will come to an abrupt stop. The purpose of this scenario is to show the influence of demographic factors (such as age and fertility) on religious affiliation rates. Still, if fewer future young adults switch from Christianity to no affiliation, or if movement in the opposite direction increases, the future religious landscape might resemble the results of this projection.

The “steady switching” scenario (No. 1) is conservative. It depicts moderate, steady “net” switching (taking into consideration some partially offsetting movement in both directions) away from Christianity among young adults for the foreseeable future, rather than the extension of a decades-long trend of increasing disaffiliation across younger cohorts. Even long-standing trends can be unsustainable or otherwise temporary, and this scenario best represents what would happen if the recent period of rising attrition from Christianity is winding down or already has ended.

By contrast, the scenario of rising disaffiliation without limits (No. 3) assumes there is a kind of ever-increasing momentum behind religious switching. The visible rise of the unaffiliated might induce more and more young people to leave Christianity and further increase the “stickiness” of an unaffiliated upbringing, so that fewer and fewer people raised without a religion would take on a religious identity at a later point in their lives.

On the other hand, highly religious parents tend to raise highly religious children who are less likely than children of less religious parents to disaffiliate in young adulthood. As a result, there may continue to be a self-perpetuating core of committed Christians who retain their religion and raise new generations of Christians. It may be useful to consider the experience of other countries in which data on religious switching is available. In 79 other countries analyzed (with a variety of religious compositions), most of the 30- to 49-year-olds who report that they were raised as Christians still identify as Christian today; in other words, the Christian retention rate in those countries has not been known to fall below about 50%.4 The “rising disaffiliation with limits” scenario (No. 2) best illustrates what would happen if recent generational trends in the U.S. continue, but only until they reach the boundary of what has been observed around the world, including in Western Europe. Overall, this scenario seems to most closely fit the patterns observed in recent years.

None of the scenarios in this report demonstrate what would happen if switching into Christianity increased. This is not because a religious revival in the U.S. is impossible. New patterns of religious change could emerge at any time. Armed conflicts, social movements, rising authoritarianism, natural disasters or worsening economic conditions are just a few of the circumstances that sometimes trigger sudden social – and religious – upheavals. However, our projections are not designed to model the consequences of dramatic events, which might affect various facets of life as we know it, including religious identity and practice. Instead, these projections describe the potential consequences of dynamics currently shaping the religious landscape.

Religious change in context

These projections indicate the U.S. might be following the path taken over the last 50 years by many countries in Western Europe that had overwhelming Christian majorities in the middle of the 20th century and no longer do. In Great Britain, for example, “nones” surpassed Christians to become the largest group in 2009, according to the British Social Attitudes Survey.5 In the Netherlands, disaffiliation accelerated in the 1970s, and 47% of adults now say they are Christian.

While the change in affiliation rates in the United States is largely due to people voluntarily leaving religion behind, switching is not the only driver of religious composition change worldwide. For example, differences in fertility rates explain most of the recent religious change in India, while migration has altered the religious composition of many European countries in the last century. Forced conversions, mass expulsions, wars and genocides also have caused changes in religious composition throughout history.

Moreover, the scenarios in this report are limited to religious identity and do not project how religious beliefs and practices might change in the coming decades.

Along with the decline in the percentage of U.S. adults who identify as Christian in recent years, Pew Research Center surveys have found declining shares of the population who say they pray daily or consider religion very important in their lives. Still, it is an open question whether the Christian population in the future will be more or less highly committed than U.S. Christians are today.

On the one hand, within each generation, Christians with lower levels of religious commitment may be most likely to shed their identity and become religiously unaffiliated, while new converts may bring greater zeal. These dynamics could lead to rising levels of commitment in the remaining Christian population. On the other hand, religious commitment could steadily weaken from generation to generation if people continue to identify as Christian but are less devout than their parents and grandparents. This dynamic could lead to steady or declining levels of belief and practice.

Meanwhile, religiously unaffiliated Americans today are not uniformly nonbelieving or nonpracticing. Many religious “nones” partake in traditional religious practices despite their lack of religious identity, including a solid majority who believe in some kind of higher power or spiritual force. It is also unclear how this may change in the future, and whether connections to these beliefs will weaken if disaffiliation becomes even more common in the broader society. At the same time, many observers have wondered what kinds of spiritual practices, if any, may fill the void left by institutional religion. We plan to continue exploring this question in future research. This report marks the first time Pew Research Center has projected religious composition in the United States under multiple switching scenarios, and the first time that differing rates of religious transmission from parents to children have been taken into account.

These population projections were produced as part of the Pew-Templeton Global Religious Futures project, which analyzes religious change and its impact on societies around the world. Funding for the Global Religious Futures project comes from The Pew Charitable Trusts and the John Templeton Foundation.

American churches closing faster than new ones can open

American churches are closing faster than new churches open, despite four out of five saying they believe in God and nine in 10 that believe in a higher power.

www.foxnews.com

Churches are closing at a record pace in the U.S. as less than 50% of Americans are saying they are members of a church.

"Sometimes you got to ask yourself the question, ‘Are we doing the good Lord’s work by just keeping the doors open?’" said Paul Coston, who was the minister of the Ragsdale Church of Christ in Tennessee before it closed earlier this year, according to WTVR.

Coston's church is one of many across the country that have closed in recent years, with fewer and fewer Americans opting for membership.

Small-town churches have been particularly hard hit by the trend, having previously served as the cultural center of small communities that have since declined or been consolidated into larger metropolitan areas in recent years.

"Church membership trends mirror white population trends in the United States," said Kristina Lizardy-Hajbi, a professor at Denver’s Iliff School of Theology. "You had 100 children in Sunday school. You had adults whose not only religious lives but professional and civic lives were related to the church itself."

Coston said that the Ragsdale Church of Christ used to be one of those churches at the center of a small community, but now people are more apt to drive to churches in the nearby Manchester, Tenn., area.

"We have people who’ll drive 30 minutes to Murfreesboro for a hamburger. If they’ll drive 30 minutes for a hamburger, they will drive five miles to worship God," Coston said.

Ultimately, the lack of people attending the church forced Coston into a tough decision after serving as a minister at the church for nearly 20 years.

"You can’t have a church with eight people," Coston said.

But while church membership attendance declines across the country, many Americans still identify as religious or believe in a higher power.

According to a Pew Research Poll, four out of five Americans believe in God, while nine out of 10 believe in a higher power.

Lizardy-Hajbi said the poll shows that religion is still important despite the decline in church membership.

"It doesn’t necessarily mean that religion is dying," Lizardy-Hajbi said.

Church attendance is the first thing that goes, then belonging, and finally belief—in that order,’ says Ryan Burge, author of a new book on who is leaving religion and why. ‘Belief goes last.’

Most Teenagers Drop Out of Church When They Become Young Adults - Lifeway Research

Church pews may be full of teenagers, but a Lifeway Research study says college students might be a much rarer sight on Sunday mornings.

research.lifeway.com

Church pews may be full of teenagers, but a new study says college students might be a much rarer sight on Sunday mornings.

Two-thirds (66 percent) of American young adults who attended a Protestant church regularly for at least a year as a teenager say they also dropped out for at least a year between the ages of 18 and 22, according to a new study from Nashville-based Lifeway Research. Thirty-four percent say they continued to attend twice a month or more.

While the 66 percent may be troubling for many church leaders, the numbers may appear more hopeful when compared to a 2007 study from Lifeway Research. Previously, 70 percent of 18- to 22-year-olds left church for at least one year.

“The good news for Christian leaders is that churches don’t seem to be losing more students than they were 10 years ago. However, the difference in the dropout rate now and then is not large enough statistically to say it has actually improved,” said Scott McConnell, executive director of Lifeway Research.

“The reality is that Protestant churches continue to see the new generation walk away as young adults. Regardless of any external factors, the Protestant church is slowly shrinking from within.”

When They Drop Out

The dropout rate for young adults accelerates with age, the study found.

While 69 percent say they were attending at age 17, that fell to 58 percent at age 18 and 40 percent at age 19. Once they reach their 20s, around 1 in 3 say they were attending church regularly.

“Overall Protestant churches see many teenagers attending regularly only for a season. Many families just don’t attend that often,” said McConnell.

“As those teenagers reach their late teen years, even those with a history of regular church attendance are pulled away as they get increased independence, a driver’s license, or a job. The question becomes: will they become like older adults who have all those things and still attend or will students choose to stay away longer than a year.”

Ben Trueblood, director of student ministry at Lifeway, said those numbers speak to the issue at hand. “We are seeing teenagers drop out of the church as they make the transition out of high school and student ministry,” he said. “This moment of transition is often too late to act for churches.”

Why They Drop Out

Virtually all of those who dropped out (96 percent) listed a change in their life situation as a reason for their dropping out. Fewer say it was related to the church or pastor (73 percent); religious, ethical or political beliefs (70 percent); or the student ministry (63 percent).

The five most frequently chosen specific reasons for dropping out were: moving to college and no longer attending (34 percent); church members seeming judgmental or hypocritical (32 percent); no longer feeling connected to people in their church (29 percent); disagreeing with the church’s stance on political or social issues (25 percent); and work responsibilities (24 percent).

Almost half (47 percent) of those who dropped out and attended college say moving to college played a role in their no longer attending church for at least a year.

“Most of the reasons young adults leave the church reflect shifting personal priorities and changes in their own habits,” said McConnell. “Even when churches have faithfully communicated their beliefs through words and actions, not every teenager who attends embraces or prioritizes those beliefs.”

Among all those who dropped out, 29 percent say they planned on taking a break from church once they graduated high school. Seven in 10 (71 percent) say their leaving wasn’t an intentional decision.

“For the most part, people aren’t leaving the church out of bitterness, the influence of college atheists, or a renunciation of their faith,” said Trueblood.

“What the research tells us may be even more concerning for Protestant churches: there was nothing about the church experience or faith foundation of those teenagers that caused them to seek out a connection to a local church once they entered a new phase of life. The time they spent with activity in church was simply replaced by something else.”

Where Are They Now

Not all teenagers leave church as a young adult. A third (34 percent) say they consistently attended twice a month or more through the age of 22.

Those who stayed saw the church as an important part of their entire life. When asked why they stayed in church, more than half say the church was a vital part of their relationship with God (56 percent) and that they wanted the church to help guide their decisions in everyday life (54 percent).

Around 4 in 10 (43 percent) say they wanted to follow the example of a parent or other family member.

Similar numbers say they continued to attend because church activities were a big part of their life (39 percent), they felt church was helping them become a better person (39 percent), or they were committed to the purpose and work of the church (37 percent).

Among all young adults who attended church regularly at least one year as a teenager, almost half (45 percent) currently attend at least twice a month, including more than a quarter (27 percent) who attend once a week or more.

Another 8 percent say they attend once a month, while 25 percent say they attend a few times a year. Twenty-two percent of those who attended regularly at least one year as a teenager now say they do not currently attend at all.

Among those who dropped out for at least a year, 31 percent are currently attending twice or month or more.

“On some level, we can be encouraged that some return,” said Trueblood, “while at the same time, we should recognize that when someone drops out in these years there is a 69 percent chance they will stay gone.”

He advised churches to begin by working to lower the number who leave in the first place. “There are steps we can begin taking with those currently in student ministry that will keep them connected from the beginning of these years.”

Trueblood also asserted churches should have a strategic focus on individuals during those traditional college years. “In many places this is a forgotten, under-resourced ministry area,” he said. “Focus is placed on children, students, and then not again until someone enters the ‘young family’ stage. This needs to change.”

Among those who attended a Protestant church as teenager, 7 in 10 say they’re Protestant now. Another 10 percent identify as Catholic. Few say they are agnostic (4 percent) or atheist (3 percent).

“While some young adults who leave church are rejecting their childhood faith, most are choosing to keep many of the beliefs they had, but with a smaller dose of church,” said McConnell.

Church attendance is the first thing that goes, then belonging, and finally belief—in that order,’ says Ryan Burge, author of a new book on who is leaving religion and why. ‘Belief goes last.’

About Three-in-Ten U.S. Adults Are Now Religiously Unaffiliated

Self-identified Christians make up 63% of the U.S. population in 2021, down from 75% a decade ago.

www.pewresearch.org

The secularizing shifts evident in American society so far in the 21st century show no signs of slowing. The latest Pew Research Center survey of the religious composition of the United States finds the religiously unaffiliated share of the public is 6 percentage points higher than it was five years ago and 10 points higher than a decade ago.

Christians continue to make up a majority of the U.S. populace, but their share of the adult population is 12 points lower in 2021 than it was in 2011. In addition, the share of U.S. adults who say they pray on a daily basis has been trending downward, as has the share who say religion is “very important” in their lives.

Currently, about three-in-ten U.S. adults (29%) are religious “nones” – people who describe themselves as atheists, agnostics or “nothing in particular” when asked about their religious identity. Self-identified Christians of all varieties (including Protestants, Catholics, members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and Orthodox Christians) make up 63% of the adult population. Christians now outnumber religious “nones” by a ratio of a little more than two-to-one. In 2007, when the Center began asking its current question about religious identity, Christians outnumbered “nones” by almost five-to-one (78% vs. 16%).

Roughly three-in-ten adults in the new survey (31%) say they attend religious services at least once or twice a month, including 25% who say they attend at least once a week and 7% who attend once or twice a month. These figures are similar to 2020, when 33% reported attending religious services at least once or twice a month.1 (Unlike the data about religious identity, frequency of prayer and importance of religion, estimates of religious attendance from the NPORS – which is conducted online and on paper – are not comparable with estimates from the Center’s earlier telephone polling. For a detailed analysis of how NPORS results can be compared with data from telephone surveys, see the Center’s January 2021 report “Measuring Religion in Pew Research Center’s American Trends Panel.”)

In addition to the 63% of U.S. adults who identify as Christians, the 2021 NPORS finds that 6% of adults identify with non-Christian faiths. This includes 1% who describe themselves as Jewish, 1% who are Muslim, 1% who are Buddhist, 1% who are Hindu and 2% who identify with a wide variety of other faiths. (While 1% of NPORS respondents identify with Judaism as a religion, a larger and more comprehensive Pew Research Center survey of U.S. Jews conducted in 2020 estimates that 1.7% of U.S. adults identify as Jewish by religion.)

All the subgroups that together make up the religious “nones” have grown over time. In the 2021 NPORS, 4% of respondents describe themselves as atheists (up from 2% in 2011), and 5% describe themselves as agnostics (up from 3% a decade ago). One-in-five U.S. adults (20%) now describe their religion as “nothing in particular,” up from 14% who said this 10 years ago.

“Church attendance is the first thing that goes, then belonging and finally belief — in that order. Belief goes last.” -- Ryan Burge