While America is a very long way from becoming “Godless,” the trend away from Christianity has been confirmed by the Pew Research Foundation’s massive survey of 35,000.
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In details just out Tuesday, Pew reports:
— The Christian share of America is down 7.8 percent since 2007, from 78 million to 70 million, led by a drop on self-declared Protestants and Catholics.
— The share of Americans “unaffiliated” with any church is soaring, up 6.7 percent to 23 million.
— Atheists are up 1.5 percent to 3.1 million.
— Agnostics are up 1.6 percent to 4 million.
— Non-Christian faiths are up 1.2 percent.
— Marriage between those with different religions has doubled.
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Pew reported that the trend away from religion is led by younger Americans.
“While many U.S. religious groups are aging, the unaffiliated are comparatively young – and getting younger, on average, over time. As a rising cohort of highly unaffiliated Millennials reaches adulthood, the median age of unaffiliated adults has dropped to 36, down from 38 in 2007 and far lower than the general (adult) population’s median age of 46. By contrast, the median age of mainline Protestant adults in the new survey is 52 (up from 50 in 2007), and the median age of Catholic adults is 49 (up from 45 seven years earlier),” said the new report.
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What’s more, old rules frowning on intermarriage between religions are pretty much dead, and the trend is on the rise.
“Among Americans who have gotten married since 2010, nearly four-in-ten (39%) report that they are in religiously mixed marriages, compared with 19% among those who got married before 1960. The rise in intermarriage appears to be linked with the growth of the religiously unaffiliated population. Nearly one-in-five people surveyed who got married since 2010 are either religiously unaffiliated respondents who married a Christian spouse or Christians who married an unaffiliated spouse. By contrast, just 5% of people who got married before 1960 fit this profile,” said Pew.
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Paul Bedard, the Washington Examiner’s “Washington Secrets” columnist, can be contacted at [email protected].
