Protestants soon to be minority in U.S., study finds

Chicago Sun-Times ^ | July 21, 2004 | Cathleen Falsani

[RWR8189]

America's Protestant majority is about to disappear, according to a new study by researchers at the University of Chicago.

Since the pilgrims landed at Plymouth Rock nearly 400 years ago, America has been a largely Protestant nation.

But as early as the end of this year, Protestants likely will make up less than 51 percent of the population for the first time in history, sociologists at the university's National Opinion Research Center surmise in a new report released Tuesday.

According to survey results from more than 43,000 Americans gathered over the last 30 years, the percentage of Protestants in the national population has shrunk from 63 percent in 1993 to 52 percent in 2002.

Surveys defined Protestant as any Christian denomination that was formed at the time of the Reformation or thereafter, including groups such as the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, said Tom Smith, director of the NORC's General Social Survey, where most of the data was collected.

"Our projection is that the Protestant percentage in the 2004 survey will probably be somewhere between 50 and 51 percent," Smith said. "It's particularly striking because for 30 years, it was absolutely stable.''

Smith said media have covered "the rise of nontraditional American religions ... and the rise of people without any faith, but what was missing from that story was, OK, the number of people with no faith was rising but nobody was paying attention to where they were coming from."

In the last 30 years, the number of people who say they were brought up with no religion at all has risen from 2 percent to 7 percent, according to the NORC report.

From 1993 to 2002, the number of people who said they had no religion rose from 9 percent to nearly 14 percent, and in that same time period the number of people who said they were raised Protestant fell from 64 percent to about 56 percent.

"There is some evidence that a large portion of this problem is that a fair number of marginal Protestants are not really engaged in their faith and therefore didn't pass it on to their kids," Smith said. "The mom and dad would say, for example, 'Yeah, we're Methodists,' but they never went to church. They'd baptize their kids and that's about it."

If the Protestant majority does indeed disappear, the United States will be a nation of religious minorities. The next largest religious group after Protestant is Roman Catholic, at about 25 percent. The Catholic population has remained stable over the last decade, according to the NORC study.

"The Catholic defection is [also] pretty large, but they are being replaced by immigrants," said R. Stephen Warner, a professor of sociology at the University of Illinois at Chicago, after reviewing the NORC report. "Christianity is becoming a religion of people of color. Part of this is the decline of the WASP."

The Rev. John Buchanan, pastor of Chicago's 5,200-member Fourth Presbyterian Church, said he welcomes the demise of the Protestant majority.

"I'm not applauding the Protestant decline . . . what I'm applauding is the viability of a truly diverse nation, a nation that opens its arms and heart to different races, different religions," said Buchanan, whose own congregation is bucking trends by doubling its attendance in the last decade.

"I think that's a better place to be than a nation that's dominated by one religion -- whatever it is."

RELIGIOUS TRENDS

 

PERCENTAGE OF THE U.S. POPULATION

Year	Protestant	Catholic	Jewish	None	Other
1972	62.5	27.4	3.0	5.1	1.9
1982	63.9	25.7	2.1	7.1	1.2
1993	63.1	23.0	2.1	9.0	2.8
2002	52.4	25.5	1.5	13.8	6.9

RELIGION RAISED IN

Year	Protestant	Catholic	Jewish	None	Other
1973	64.3	29.0	2.8	2.3	1.6
1983	62.4	30.8	2.9	3.1	0.7
1993	64.0	27.4	2.2	4.4	2.1
2002	55.7	30.7	1.9	7.2	4.5

Source: National Opinion Research Center/University of Chicago

[bereanway]

The Rev. John Buchanan needs to find some work other than the pastorate. The guy is an absolute joke.

[randog]

I dunno about protestant churches, but christian churches are popping up like crazy in my town. My wife and I attend a christian church (OK, my wife more than me), and it's grown from a roster of about 300 three years ago to about 5000 today. They held Easter services this year in the largest auditorium in town (the arena at the university).

[squarebarb]

'Study finds" = "liberal spin".

[maestro]

Protestants soon to be minority in U.S., study finds

LOL......

another,......'Moore' production!

LOL

[vikingchick]

Protestants soon to be minority in U.S., study finds

2002
Protestant
55.7
Catholic
30.7

Oh yeah, Protestants are lagging behind by far. What kind of stupid idiot wrote this article?

[mlmr]

It is not a Protestant Catholic statistic

It is a Protestent Whole populaiton statistic

[maestro]

UR# 6.......

Answer:

National Opinion Research Center/University of Chicago/Hitlery Branch

/sarcasm

[weegee]

Or another way of saying this is to say that the majority of Americans are still Christians despite efforts by the left to make this an atheist country (with some muslim inroads).

[Search4Truth]

A member church of the infamously Liberal PCUSA. They were proud co-sponsors of the so-called March for Womens Lives (pro-abortion).

http://headlines.agapepress.org/archive/6/182004a.asp

There's a special place in hell for those that codify evil in the house of the Lord.

[q_an_a]

left out of the reporting is the FACT that a new box marked "Christan" was added and that many people choose that box instead of Protestant. Add the two categories and you find that America is still a Christan nation.