Slowly, relentlessly, America’s culture is undergoing profound change. But the transformation mostly is under the radar, hardly noticed.
A new study by the Public Religion Research Institute and Religion News Service finds that the largest faith category in the United States now is people who say their religion is “none.” Apparently, this marks the first time in U.S. history for the churchless to reach top status.
Specifically, the PRRI-RNS report says the three chief groups among all ages in 2016 are: nones, 25 percent; Catholics, 21 percent; and white evangelicals, 16 percent.
Among young adults under 30, the gap is enormous: Nones, nearly 40 percent; Catholics, 15 percent; white evangelicals, 9 percent; white mainline Protestants, 8 percent; black Protestants, 7 percent; other nonwhite Protestants, 11 percent; and non-Christian faiths, 7 percent.
Many of the unaffiliated young adults say they simply don’t believe church dogmas.
As these younger Americans advance to middle age, the churchless segment is expected to increase. It surely will alter U.S. society. It has snowballed rapidly, unexpectedly. The report says:
“One of the most consequential shifts in American religion has been the rise of religiously unaffiliated Americans. This trend emerged in the early 1990s. In 1991, only 6 percent of Americans identified their religious affiliation as ‘none.’ … By the end of the 1990s, some 14 percent of the public claimed no religious…