Religious affiliation changes increase, Pew survey says

By Mary Daly
Feb. 29, 2008

Campus Crusade for Christ director Matt Thiessen discusses Christ’s love at the group’s weekly meeting Thursday in Ellis Auditorium. The international organization focuses on spreading faith through on-campus activities and mission trips.

Junior Chris Patane was brought up Catholic and spent eight years in Catholic elementary and middle schools. He stopped practicing Catholicism and became an atheist shortly after entering high school.

“I was never that devoted and I had had my doubts for a long time,” Patane said. “I never had a day where I woke up and decided ‘Hey, I’m an atheist.’ I simply came to realize that I did not believe and felt no connection to religion over time.”

The American public’s religious affiliations are changing at ever-increasing numbers, according to a new survey released Monday by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life.

The study, titled “U.S. Religious Landscape Survey,” stated that more than a quarter of Americans older than 18 have left the faith in which they were raised and joined another religion or claimed no religious affiliation.

The survey is based on interviews with more than 35,000 Americans aged 18 and older. Its findings prove religious affiliation is not only extremely diverse, but also very fluid.

“People will be surprised by the amount of movement by Americans from one religious group to another or to no religion at all,” Pew Forum Director Luis Lugo said.

When change in affiliation from one type of Protestantism to another is included, the number of adults who have switched religious affiliations rises to include almost half of all American adults.

These findings confirm previous estimates that Protestant churches are declining in the United States and nondenominational churches are gaining members.

Although the survey claims 78 percent of the United States is Christian, the survey estimates the country is about to lose its standing as a nation of mostly Protestants.

The survey finds the number of adults who are unaffiliated with any specific religion is more than double the amount who were unaffiliated as children.

A quarter of Americans aged 18 to 29 do not associate with any particular religion, according to the study.

While the amount of Americans who are unaffiliated with any religion has experienced the greatest increase, the Catholic Church has seen the most net losses.

According to the survey, about 31 percent of Americans are raised Catholic, but fewer than 24 percent of adults describe themselves as Catholic.

“Although Christian denominations are experiencing the most losses of adult members, Americans still overwhelming identify themselves as Christians,” Pew Forum spokesman Robert Mills said.

Freshman Alex Browning said she is a devout Christian and active in her Episcopalian church in her hometown of Dallas.

“My church at home was more than just a church,” Browning said. “It became a home away from home, and many of the people there formed a sort of family for me. That in itself made the Episcopalian church really important to me.”

Browning said there are many reasons for a person to become disillusioned with religion.

“Some people may not have chosen their religion for themselves, so it never became a personal experience and they didn’t get anything out of going to church,” Browning said. “Some people get frustrated because they feel like the whole idea of any faith leaves a lot of unanswered questions.”

Mills said the reason the large churches, such as Catholic and Protestant, are losing members could be because those churches do not offer an intimate setting for worship.

“People go to church for answers,” Mills said. “And all the large-scale ministries make it difficult for a person to walk in and find their answers.”

The Pew Forum will release other findings of the survey this spring, focusing on the relationship between religious beliefs and social views.

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Religious affiliation changes increase, Pew survey says

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