Changing American Religious Landscape
To be sure,
the United States remains home to more Christians than any other country in the
world, and a large majority of Americans – roughly seven-in-ten – continue to
identify with 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
massive Pew Research survey in 2007 to 70.6% in 2014. Over the same period, the
percentage of Americans who are religiously unaffiliated – 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 inched up, 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.
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