The demise of Christianity in America?
The results of a very interesting survey were released a few weeks ago – the American Religious Identification Survey. You can read about the survey results in a USA Today article from a couple weeks ago, and you may also be interested in the cover story based on the survey in this week’s Newsweek.
In short, the survey points to a significant decrease in the number of people identifying with Christianity and a sharp increase in the number unaffiliated with any particular faith. Here are some numbers (comparing 1990 and 2008):
- 11% drop in the percentage of people identifying with Christianity
- 3.5% drop in Baptists
- 5.8% drop in Mainline Protestant
- 6.8% increase in the number who don’t identify with any religion (referred to as “nones”), which is a jump from 8.2% in 1990 to 15% in 2008
To put this last number in perspective, Baptists are the largest Protestant denomination in the United States including approximately 36.1 million people, or 15.8% of the population. The so-called “nones” are now at 15% of the population and 34.2 million people. If these trends continue, the “nones” will very soon be larger than any other group except Catholics, who are at 25.1% and falling.
I find all of this very intriguing. What is going on? What do we make of these “nones?” How does this change the religious climate in the US? How does this impact Christianity? How should Christians respond to these changes?
