America’s Religious Supermarket

David Aikman

If anyone doubted that America has become a national supermarket of different world religions, with people changing brands at a dizzying pace, they need doubt no more. A new survey by one of the country’s most prestigious research organizations, the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, shows how rapidly and dramatically the religious scene in the U.S. is changing. The U.S. Religious Landscape Survey was conducted during the spring and summer months in 2007, and involved interviews with no fewer than 35,000 Americans.

The basic outline of the landscape is not so new to those who have studied the American religious scene in the recent past. Though 78.4 percent of adult Americans (according to U.S. Census Bureau estimates, in late February 2008 the total estimated U.S. population was 303.5 million people) describe themselves as Christian in some category or other, Protestants, the majority religion of Americans for most of our history, may soon be a minority. Today, they hold onto a narrow majority of 51.3 percent. Catholics comprise 23.9 percent and Evangelicals, a sub-category of Protestants, a robust 26.3 percent of American adults.

So far, no great surprises. But what the Landscape Survey makes starkly clear is how rapidly Americans are changing their religious affiliations. An amazing 28 percent have abandoned the faith in which they were raised in favor of another religion, or even of secularism. Though the total percentage of Americans describing themselves as “atheist” or “agnostic” is only 4 percent, an amazing 44 percent of all adults say they had switched their religious affiliation as adults, either dropping out of religion altogether, or changing their faiths. A solid 12.1 percent of the adult population described their religion as “nothing in particular.” Presumably, in the American religious supermarket, they haven’t made up their minds whether to forage in the meat aisle or the breakfast cereal one.

The biggest decline in Christian denominations was experienced by the Catholic Church. Though one in three Americans was raised as a Catholic, only one in four today identifies himself or herself as a Catholic. Jews remain 1.7 percent of the adult population but Muslims still number barely half of one percent—in fact, 0.6 percent. As many previous studies have noted, Jews are much more likely to have a post-graduate degree and to earn more than the general American population, but their achievement is actually overshadowed by that of American Hindus. Nearly half of all Hindus in the U.S. have obtained advanced degrees, compared with one third of Jews and only one tenth of the general population. There are even fewer Hindus than Muslims, only 0.4 percent of adults. Interestingly, Buddhists, who at 0.7 percent of the population are more numerous than Hindus and Muslims, are primarily made up not of immigrants, as might be supposed, but are home-grown.

Political analysts of both major parties are sure to pore over this survey for clues how to present their political candidates most effectively to this faith supermarket. They had better decide soon how to proceed. The faith landscape itself is changing in front of our eyes.  

Dr. Aikman, a Senior Fellow of the Trinity Forum, was for many years senior correspondent for Time.

1 Responses (comments are closed) • Columns, David Aikman, Faiths and Worldviews, Religious Liberty, Society, Fri 07 Mar 2008