28% Americans switch faiths or quit
religion
BY A CORRESPONDENT
March 2, 2008:
Some very
interesting facts have been revealed
about the state of religion in the
United States. Perhaps the most
significant among them is that 28% of
American adults have left the faith in
which they were raised – either
switching to another religion or
giving up religion altogether.
A survey
conducted by the Pew Forum on Religion
and Public Life found that “adults who
claim no ties to any religious
institution have grown into the
fourth-largest category of religious
identification.”
This trend is
being led by California and other
states in the western United States.
The reason: the large number of
immigrants who have come to California
from Central America and Asia have
impacted the religious affiliation in
the state as well as the makeup of
particular denominations, especially
Catholics.
Even though
10% adults in the United States have
left the Catholic Church, arrival of
Catholic immigrants into the country
has kept the Catholic Church's
population stable, the survey showed.
As for the
Protestants – who have historically
been the majority in the United States
– are about to lose that position.
This has been attributed partly to the
rise in the numbers of the
"unaffiliated.” Now, only 51% of
adults in the United States describe
themselves as Protestant.
According to
the survey by the Pew Forum on
Religion and Public Life, the 28% of
Americans who left their childhood
faith comprised those who deserted
institutional religion totally and
people who have converted to another
religion – like a Christian converting
to Judaism or a Buddhist embracing
Islam.
Besides,
another 16% of American adults changed
over from the Christian denomination
of their childhood to another
Christian denomination, for example, a
Methodist becoming a Southern Baptist.
Luis Lugo,
director of Pew Forum on Religion and
Public Life, was quoted by the media
as remarking, "The fluidity of
affiliation in the United States
underscores the competitiveness of the
religious market, in which groups are
vying for members. If you're going to
rest on your laurels, you're history."
The survey,
involving over 35,000 adults, also
found that 78% of the 220 million
adults in the United States are still
Christian.
Among the
Protestants, evangelicals form the
largest single group – 26.3% of the
nation's adult population. And, the
number of mainline Protestant
denominations, which include
Methodists, Presbyterians, and
Episcopalians, continues to get
smaller – representing only 18.1%
America's overall population.
Traditionally
black churches were found to be
increasingly enlisting members of
other ethnicities – representing 6.9%
of the overall population.
Catholics are
the second largest group of Christians
in the United States, making up around
24% of the population. This figure has
been rather constant for the last 35
years.
However, the
survey stressed that “the constancy of
that figure obscures the dramatic and
unique way in which immigration
patterns are reshaping America's
religious identity.”
Among
immigrant adults, Catholics account
for 46%, and Protestants, 24%. But,
among US-born adults, Protestants
outnumber Catholics.
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