Survey: Decline in number of US Christians is leveling off
The number of Americans who identify as Christian has declined steadily for years, but that drop shows signs of slowing, according to a new survey Wednesday from the Pew Research Center.
The Religious Landscape Study finds 62% of U.S. adults call themselves Christians. While a significant dip from 2007, when 78% of Americans identified as Christian, Pew found the Christian share of the population has remained relatively stable since 2019.
The rapid rise of the religiously unaffiliated — the so-called "nones" — has also reached at least a temporary plateau, according to Pew. Approximately 29% of U.S. adults identify as religiously unaffiliated, including those who are atheist (5%), agnostic (6%) or "nothing in particular" (19%).
"It's striking to have observed this recent period of stability in American religion after that long period of decline," said Pew's Gregory Smith, one of the study's co-authors. "One thing we can't know for sure is whether these short-term signs of stabilization will prove to be a lasting change in the country's religious trajectory."
By some measures, the U.S. remains overwhelmingly spiritual. Many Americans have a supernatural outlook, with 83% believing in God or a universal spirit and 86% believing that people have a soul or spirit. About seven in 10 Americans believe in heaven, hell or both.
Young adults are less religious than their elders
Despite this widespread spirituality, there are harbingers of future religious decline. Most notably, Pew found a huge age gap, with 46% of the youngest American adults identifying as Christian, compared to 80% of the oldest adults. The youngest adults are also three times more likely than the oldest group to be religiously unaffiliated.
"These kinds of generational differences are a big part of what's driven the long-term declines in American religion," Smith said. "As older cohorts of highly religious, older people have passed away, they have been replaced by new cohorts of young adults who are less religious than their parents and grandparents."
Michele Margolis, a University of Pennsylvania political scientist not affiliated with the Pew survey, has studied how religious involvement changes over a lifetime.
Young adults frequently move away from religion. "Then when you get married and have kids, this is a time where scholars have noted that religion is more likely to become important," Margolis said.
Margolis said one question going forward is whether the youngest American adults firmly reject organized religion, or if some of them will return to the religious fold as they age.
Between 2007 and 2024, Pew religious landscape studies haven't indicated that Americans are growing more religious as they get older.
Smith at Pew said "something would need to change" to stop the long-term decline of American religion, whether that's adults becoming more religious with age or new generations becoming more religious than their parents.
How partisan politics intertwines with religious identity
The long-term decline of U.S. Christianity and rise of the "nones" has occurred across traditions, gender, race, ethnicity, education and region. But it is much more evident among political liberals, according to Pew. The survey shows 51% of liberals claim no religion, up 24 points from 2007. Only 37% of U.S. liberals identify as Christian, down from 62% in 2007.
Penny Edgell, a University of Minnesota sociologist and expert adviser for the Pew study, said this religious and political sorting aligns with whether people "support traditional, patriarchal gender and family arrangements."
Edgell also notes that Black Americans defy the assumption that all Democrats are less religious than Republicans.
"More Black Americans percentagewise are Democrats, but their rates of religious involvement are still really high," Edgell said. "That has something to do with the way that religious institutions and politics have been intertwined in historically unique ways for different groups."
Roughly seven in 10 Black Protestants told Pew that religion is very important to them — about the same rate as evangelicals and members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. But Black Protestants are likely to identify as Democrats (72%), whereas evangelicals and Latter-day Saints are likely to identify as Republican (70% and 73%, respectively).
The Pew survey tracks many religious traditions
It's been nearly 10 years since the last Religious Landscape Study, which tracks religious data that the U.S. census does not.
The new survey found that a majority of immigrants to the U.S. are Christian (58%), but they also follow the upward trend of the religiously unaffiliated, with a quarter of foreign-born U.S. adults claiming no religion.
The number of Americans who belong to religions besides Christianity has been increasing, though it's still a small portion of the population (7%). That includes the 2% who are Jewish, and the 1% each who are Muslim, Buddhist or Hindu.
Of U.S. Christian adults, 40% are Protestant and 19% are Catholic. The remaining 3% in Pew's survey include Latter-day Saints, Orthodox Christians, Jehovah's Witnesses and smaller Christian groups.
The two largest Protestant denominations in the Pew survey remain the Southern Baptist Convention and the United Methodist Church – though both have lost many members since the first Religious Landscape Study in 2007.
The Pew Religious Landscape Study was conducted in English and Spanish between July 2023 and March 2024, among a nationally representative sample of 36,908 respondents in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. The survey's margin of error for results based on the full sample is plus or minus 0.8 percentage points.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Voice of America
14-03-2025
- Voice of America
Sew and Knit
This week on Ask a Teacher, we answer a question from Rohullah in Afghanistan about using the words 'sew' and 'knit' and related terms. Dear VOA Learning English, I am sending this email to know what the differences are between "sewing and knitting" or "sew and knit.' Besides [that], I wanted to know what I can call a woman or a man that makes clothes. Thank you I'm happy to answer this question, Rohullah. An important difference between sewing and knitting is that when we sew, we connect pieces of fabric or cloth that are already made. When we knit, we make the cloth itself from strings called yarn. Also, the word 'sewing' can describe many ways people connect or repair fabric and clothes. For example, people can sew many kinds of clothes, such as socks, shirts, dresses, hats, and gloves. People can also sew larger things, such as window coverings or tents. A person can sew using a sewing machine or simply by using their hands with a needle and thread. Knitting does not generally require use of a machine or a needle and thread. To knit, a person uses thicker strings called yarn, along with two thin sticks called knitting needles. Yarn is usually made of small, natural pieces, called fibers, such as wool or cotton. While sewing thread is often less than one millimeter thick, knitting yarn is generally two to five millimeters thick. Many people who knit make clothing for cold weather, such as wool sweaters, hats, and scarves. They may also knit blankets or other things that can be used in the home. More than 50 years ago, most Americans who earned money sewing clothes in a factory were women. They were called 'seamstresses.' Today, we sometimes call any person who sews a 'sewist.' Or we can simply say 'a person who sews.' And a person whose job is to sew or repair clothes to make them fit well is called a tailor. For our readers and listeners, what are your questions about American English? Do you like to knit or sew? We want to hear from you! Send us an email at learningenglish@ And please let us know where you are from, too. And that's Ask a Teacher. I'm Andrew Smith. Andrew Smith wrote this lesson for VOA Learning English. ______________________________________________________ Words in This Story fabric – n. cloth or other material made from cotton, wool, silk, nylon or other threads tent – n. a shelter made of nylon or strong, heavy cloth held up by poles, typically used for camping needle – n. a small, very thin piece of metal with a sharp point at one end and a hole at the other for a thread to go through thread – n. a long, thin piece of material such as cotton, nylon or silk used for sewing blanket – n. a large square or rectangular piece of cloth, typically put on bed to keep you warm
Voice of America
10-03-2025
- Voice of America
Exclusive: Top US Marine says 'crisis' with amphibious ships causing coverage gaps
A shortage of amphibious warfare ships for commanders across the globe has reached a breaking point, with defense officials warning VOA the crisis has triggered a monthslong drought in critical firepower from sea-based Marines. 'I have the Marines, and I have the squadrons, and I have the battalions and the batteries … I just don't have the amphibs,' Marine Corps Commandant Gen. Eric Smith told VOA in an exclusive interview. While the amphibious warfare ships, known as amphibs, make up just 10% of the fleet, they are the go-to alternative to aircraft carriers when commanders need something more precise or expedient. They also are the only ships made for the Marine Corps' rapid reaction forces, known as Marine Expeditionary Units (MEUs), to get equipment and troops from sea to shore during an assault. 'Amphibs are vital to us. They are an existential part of who we are as Marines,' Smith said. Military's Swiss Army Knife Once deployed, these units of about 2,000 Marines and sailors are the military's Swiss Army Knife, providing everything from strike power with F-35 fighter jets, to support in non-combatant evacuation operations and disaster relief, like when the 15th MEU rushed humanitarian aid to the Philippines after deadly floods and landslides last October. It takes three amphibs – one big-deck amphib and two smaller ones – to make an Amphibious Ready Group that transports the Marines, a unit often referred to as an ARG/MEU. Smith says the military needs three of these 3-ship units deployed abroad at all times –one from the East Coast, one from the West Coast, and one from Japan – a plan known as 3.0. 'The INDOPACOM Commander, the EUCOM Commander, the AFRICOM commander have all called for an ARG/MEU, so 3.0 is the requirement.' However, Smith tells VOA he cannot achieve this requirement with the number of amphibs that are ready today. 'Running ships to ground' While the U.S. military was busy fighting two wars in the Middle East, its amphib fleet, plagued with maintenance deferments and delays, fell into disrepair, said Shelby Oakley with the Government Accountability Office. Oakley authored a GAO report in December that showed half of the 32 amphibs in the fleet are in poor material condition. 'You're running these ships to ground, not taking care of them,' she told VOA. 'This is kind of equivalent to just driving your car and never changing the oil and expecting it to last 15 years. … Key systems aren't functioning the way they are supposed to,' Oakley said. In 2022, Congress mandated the Navy keep a minimum of 31 amphibs in its fleet after the service had tried to divest six of these poorly maintained ships in their fiscal year 2023 budget plan. The Marine Corps had said a minimum of 31 amphibs would be enough to complete their missions, so long as the fleet's readiness rate remained at 80% or higher. 'Your readiness rate is down in the 50-percentile range, and it needs to be 80%, then I would say that's a crisis,' Smith told VOA. One of the amphibs – USS Tortuga – hasn't sailed in more than a decade. And there are 15 more that the Government Accountability Office says are not on track to make it to the end of their 40-year service lives. 'We're trying to keep an aging force ready and focused on what it needs to do,' Admiral Jim Kilby, the acting chief of naval operations, told VOA in an exclusive interview last month. According to Kilby, the problem extends beyond amphibious ships. 'We're running the whole Navy hard. So, when I started in the Navy, we had almost 600 ships. Now, we've got half that, but we are still doing the same mission,' Kilby said. Coverage gaps Kilby says the Navy is trying to tackle the issues dragging down its fleet the same way it fixed issues grounding its fighter jets a few years ago, closely monitoring its processes to adjust long-held practices that are slowing down change. 'The surface committee has doubled the number of ships that completed maintenance on time. It's not where I want to be. I want to get better, so it is not acceptable to have 50%,' he said. Kilby did not have a set date, though, for when the Navy planned to increase the readiness of the amphib fleet from 50% to 80%, an urgent need for the commandant who says the 'gaps in coverage' already have begun. 'There was a non-combatant evacuation operation required to get American citizens out of Sudan when violence was erupting. And because there was no ARG/MEU presence, the AFRICOM commander was forced to use commercial airlines," Smith said. Even when ARG/MEU units have deployed, they've frequently deployed incomplete. The USS America Amphibious Ready Group deployed with two ships instead of three last year because there wasn't another amphib available. And the USS Boxer Amphibious Ready Group had so many maintenance delays that the Navy had to stagger each ship's deployment last year, all months later than planned. What was supposed to be a nine-month deployment resulted in just two months with all three ships together. 'When the Boxer wasn't there, they couldn't do F-35 operations, they couldn't support an international partner as they had planned,' Oakley told VOA. 'Not a Navy requirement' The 31st MEU just completed their last patrol aboard the USS America Amphibious Ready Group earlier this month. The next ARG/MEU to deploy from the East Coast or Japan is still months away, according to officials who spoke to VOA on condition of anonymity to discuss future planning. Officials say one likely won't deploy from the West Coast until 2026. One Navy official told VOA the service only budgets to deploy one ARG/MEU at a time for only 10 months in the year. Asked about the discrepancy between the Marine's needs and the Navy's amphib availability, Kilby told VOA the Marine Corps' 3.0 requirement 'is not a Navy requirement.' 'I do not have a plan to get 3.0. I have a plan to maintain 31 ships per law in our shipbuilding plan,' Kilby said. As the Government Accountability Office points out in its report, that plan banks on the Navy keeping six of the amphibs in the fleet for several years beyond their expected 40-year service life, including some of those currently in poor condition. 'There's huge questions about whether or not they will even make it to their service, expected service life,' Oakley said. Amphibious warfare ships have generally not met the Navy's planned maintenance schedules dating back to 2010, according to Marine Corps documentation. Specifically, from 2010-2021, the Navy extended more than 70% of amphibious warfare ship maintenance beyond its original planned end date. 'This cumulatively resulted in 28.5 years of lost training and deployment time for those ships and their associated Marines,' according to the December Government Accountability Office report. A decade to fix The acting chief of naval operations said the Navy is currently planning the maintenance availabilities needed to do the work necessary to get the amphibs to a life cycle health assessment above poor. Maintenance for seven of the amphibs that were not funded in previous budgets are being funded in the budget being considered by Congress today, Kilby told VOA. 'We're committed to 31 amphibious ships … and when we get a new ship, we'll replace an old ship, because that old ship is more expensive and harder to maintain,' he said. The Government Accountability Office says that even if the planning improves, the Navy and Marine Corps may still need to revisit the overall number of ships required for its missions. 'That's the math, and that's the data that we need them to do to be able to understand how many more of these things do we need to buy, how many more do we need to get online quicker to be able to continue to meet this number,' Oakley said. Gen. Smith said the problem will take at least a decade to fix, which could compound should the United States find itself in a future conflict with China. 'The whole point of having the ARG/MEU out is to prevent conflict,' he said. Kilby says the Navy wants the problem solved by 2027 — year Chinese leader Xi Jinping has ordered the military to be prepared to take democratically ruled Taiwan by force. 'We have the Navy we have. That's the Navy we're going to have largely in 2027, and we just need to operate it more efficiently and effectively,' he said.
Voice of America
09-03-2025
- Voice of America
Green Means Spring and Other Things
Now, the VOA Learning English program Words and Their Stories. Today we talk about a color found all throughout nature – green! Green is also very common in American English. Let's hear Warren Scheer read a story about these colorful expressions! Green is an important color in nature. It is the color of grass and the leaves on trees. It is also the color of most growing plants. Sometimes, the word green means young, fresh and growing. Sometimes, it describes something that is not yet ripe or finished. For example, a greenhorn is someone who has no experience, who is new to a situation. In the fifteenth century, a greenhorn was a young cow or ox whose horns had not yet developed. A century or so later, a greenhorn was a soldier who had not yet had any experience in battle. By the eighteenth century, a greenhorn had the meaning it has today - a person who is new in a job. About one hundred years ago, greenhorn was a popular expression in the American west. Old-timers used it to describe a man who had just arrived from one of the big cities back east. The greenhorn lacked the skills he would need to live in the hard, rough country. Someone who has the ability to grow plants well is said to have a green thumb. The expression comes from the early 1900s. A person with a green thumb seems to have a magic touch that makes plants grow quickly and well. You might say that the woman next door has a green thumb if her garden continues to grow long after your plants have died. The Green Revolution is the name given some years ago to the development of new kinds of rice and other grains. The new plants produced much larger crops. The Green Revolution was the result of hard work by agricultural scientists who had green thumbs. Green is also the color used to describe the powerful emotion, jealousy. The green-eyed monster is not a frightening creature from outer space. It is an expression used about four hundred years ago by British writer William Shakespeare in his play "Othello." It describes the unpleasant feeling a person has when someone has something he wants. A young man may suffer from the green-eyed monster if his girlfriend begins going out with someone else. Or, that green-eyed monster may affect your friend if you get a pay raise and she does not. In most places in the world, a green light is a sign to move ahead. A green light on a traffic signal means your car can continue on. In everyday speech, a green light means approval to continue with a project. We want you to know we have a green light to continue this series next week. And that's all the time we have for this Words and Their Stories. Don't forget to tune in again for another story about American English expressions. Until next time! I'm Anna Matteo. Marilyn Christiano wrote this program. Warren Scheer and Anna Matteo narrated.
