There has been a great deal of chatter and doomsaying in recent years about the apparent decline of Christianity in the United States. The Pew Research Center, for instance, suggested in 2022 that the number of Americans who are Christian could shrink significantly over the next few decades — from what was then less than 65% to as little as one-third of the population by 2070.
Pew Research revealed Wednesday that the faithful are holding the line and proving its previous scenario modeling wanting.
Citing the results of its 2023-2024 religious landscape survey of 36,908 American adults, Pew indicated that “after many years of steady decline, the share of Americans who identify as Christians shows signs of leveling off.”
When Pew first ran its religious landscape study in 2007, 78% of respondents identified as Christians. Subsequent surveys found over the next 12 years that Christians as a percentage of the population had steadily declined to 71% in 2014, then down to 63% in 2019.
Between 2019 and 2024, however, survey results have shown the Christian share of the adult population begin to stabilize between 60% and 64%.
Pew’s 2023-2024 survey found that 62% of American adults identified as Christians. Of the 62% total, 40% are Protestants, 19% are Catholics, and 3% belong to other denominations.
Just as the decline in Christian identification appears to have been arrested in recent years, so too has the increase in so-called “nones” — a religiously unaffiliated camp populated by agnostics, atheists, and nothings in particular.
The Public Religion Research Institute published the results of a survey of over 5,600 American adults last year, indicating:
Around one-quarter of Americans (26%) identify as religiously unaffiliated in 2023, a 5 percentage point increase from 21% in 2013. Nearly one in five Americans (18%) left a religious tradition to become religiously unaffiliated, over one-third of whom were previously Catholic (35%) and mainline/non-evangelical Protestant (35%).
Pew noted that the size of the “nones” cohort “has plateaued in recent years after a long period of sustained growth, accounting now for 29% of the population.
Ryan Burge, a political scientist at Eastern Illinois University, told the New York Times that the slowing or stoppage of the nones cohort’s growth is a “big deal.”
Pew suggested that while the decline in America’s Christian population and the growth of its faithless population are presently paused, these trends might resume down the road partly as the result of young adults’ disproportionate irreligiosity compared to older adults — whereas 75% of Americans born in the 1950s identified as Christian, 46% of those born between 2000 and 2006 identified as Christian — as well as the allegedly greater relative “stickiness” of nonreligious upbringings compared to religious upbringings.
‘Always expect the unexpected.’
Pew’s suggestion that the stabilization of America’s Christian population might be short-lived does not, however, appear to factor in other relevant trends underway.
The Barna Group, a Christian polling firm based out of California, indicated that 52% of U.S. teens are very motivated to continue learning about Jesus Christ. Another 25% indicated they were somewhat motivated to do so.
There is, of course, no guarantee that an openness to learning about Christ will necessarily translate into religious affiliation. Nevertheless, researchers indicated that the results signal a “significant opportunity for meaningful engagement.”
Pew’s religious landscape study also hints at opportunities awaiting American proselytizers: 86% of respondents indicated they believed in a human soul or spirit; 83% signaled belief in God or a universal spirit; 79% said there is “something spiritual beyond the natural world”; and 70% said they believed in heaven, hell, or both.
Christian religiosity has undergone many a boom and bust in the U.S. It’s unclear which way the nation is headed next, in this regard, and it may be imprudent to pretend to know, especially with unseen forces at work.
Conservative author Ross Douthat noted in a 2023 op-ed for the New York Times, “When it comes to the religious future, you should follow the social trends, but also always expect the unexpected — recognizing that every organized faith could disappear tomorrow and some spiritual encounter would resurrect religion soon enough.”
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Faith, Religion, Christianity, Christian, Decline, Religiosity, Atheism, Nones, Church, Churches, Abide
