Numbers, Facts and Trends Shaping Your World
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.” If recent trends in religious switching continue, Christians could make up less than half of the U.S. population within a few decades.
This study projects the future population sizes of Christians, religious “nones” and people of other religions in the United States. Since recent religious change in the U.S. has been driven primarily by voluntary changes in religious identity – religious switching – we modeled for the first time how the religious landscape could change in scenarios […]
The first half of this chapter provides details on the assumptions and results of each of the four main scenarios. These are not predictions for the future. Rather, projections show what would happen under a number of hypothetical scenarios. Some scenarios are intentionally implausible and meant only to illustrate the impact of different demographic forces. […]
This report relies on religion data from several sources. Data on current patterns of religious switching come from Pew Research Center’s American Trends Panel (ATP). Adult religious composition data in the ATP is weighted to results from Pew Research Center’s National Public Opinion Reference Survey (NPORS). Data on patterns of religious transmission between parents and […]
Only a few decades ago, a Christian identity was so common among Americans that it could almost be taken for granted. As recently as the early 1990s, about 90% of U.S. adults identified as Christians. But today, about two-thirds of adults are Christians.[6. numoffset=”6″ This chapter focuses on results of public opinion surveys of U.S. […]