Americans shop around for religion
By ASMA AHMAD, Staff Writer
LOS ANGELES – A new poll released last month shows that almost half of all
Americans have
changed their religious affiliation in their lifetime, pointing to a
religious landscape today
which is much more diverse and fluid than ever before.
The "U.S. Religious Landscape Survey," released Feb. 25 by the Pew Forum
on Religion and Public
Life, was based on surveying a nationally representative sample of 35,000
adults. It shows a
remarkable increase in the number of Americans who are looking for other
religions.
"People will be surprised by the amount of movement by Americans from one
religious group to
another – or to no religion at all," said Luis Lugo, director of the Pew
Forum. "They’ll also
be surprised by the extent to which immigration is helping to reshape the
US religious landscape."
The study indicates that the largest increase is in the group of people
who do not associate
with any specific religion, but this does not mean they are atheist. When
asked, they describe
their religion as "nothing in particular."
Some highlights of the survey include:
• Roughly 44 percent of American adults have either switched religious
affiliation, moved from
being unaffiliated with any religion to being affiliated with a particular
faith, or dropped
any connection to a specific religious tradition altogether.
• The number of adults who said they are not affiliated with any
particular faith today (16.1
percent) is more than double the number who said they were not affiliated
with a particular
religion as children.
• Among Americans ages 18-29, one-in-four say they are not currently
affiliated with a
particular religion.
• Protestantism is on the verge of becoming a minority. It is at 51
percent today as compared
to the 1980s, when almost two-thirds of the population was Protestant.
• Nearly four-in-ten people are married to a spouse with a different
religious affiliation.
• Nearly one-third of those raised Catholic have left the religion, but
due to immigration the
overall percentage of Catholics remains stable.
• Hindus and Mormons are the most likely to be married.
• Mormons and Muslims have the largest families.
• Hindus and Jews are much more likely than other groups to re****t high
income levels.
• In sharp contrast to Islam and Hinduism, Buddhism in the United States
is primarily made up
of native-born adherents. Three-in-four Buddhists say they are converts to
the religion.
According to the survey, religions which demand the least from their
adherents are losing the
most people, and vice versa. As the Wall Street Journal noted on March 1,
"The mainline
Protestant churches -- with their less exclusionary views of salvation,
looser rules for ***ual
conduct and sermons about social justice -- have lost member****p,
especially since the early
1990s. The more traditional evangelical churches keep growing."
Analysts of the survey have also noted that the remarkable increase in
change of religious
affiliation is not necessarily a cause for alarm, pointing out that
"shopping for religion"
displays a conscious effort by people to make a choice, rather than just
accept what they were
born with.
Subsequent releases of the survey will include analyses of the US
Religious Landscape Survey’s
findings on Americans’ religious beliefs and practices as well as their
social and political views.
On the Web:
http://religions.pewforum.org
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