Free Republic

Poll: Nones Outnumber Catholics More than 1 in 4 US adults are atheist, agnostic or irreligious DETROIT (ChurchMilitant.com) - Irreligious adults — called "nones" — now outnumber adult Catholics in the United States, according to a recent poll. A report by Pew Research Center released Thursday is showing that 26% percent of America's adult population identify as nones, a group composed of atheists, agnostics and irreligious. This dwarfs the mere 20% of U.S. adults claiming to be Catholic. The poll found the percentage of U.S. adults professing to be nones surged in just one decade from 17% in 2009 to 26% in 2019. During the same period, the adult...

The religious landscape of the United States continues to change at a rapid clip. In Pew Research Center telephone surveys conducted in 2018 and 2019, 65% of American adults describe themselves as Christians when asked about their religion, down 12 percentage points over the past decade. Meanwhile, the religiously unaffiliated share of the population, consisting of people who describe their religious identity as atheist, agnostic or “nothing in particular,” now stands at 26%, up from 17% in 2009. Both Protestantism and Catholicism are experiencing losses of population share. Currently, 43% of U.S. adults identify with Protestantism, down from 51% in...

An updated survey from Gallup, which it has conducted every 10 years since 1955, shows that only 39% of Catholics and 45% of Protestants attend church weekly. Back in 1955, about 75% of Catholics went to Mass every week. For the Protestants, about 42% went to church weekly.

And church attendance by Roman Catholics is on the decline again. So, in fact, is the religious affiliation among Americans at large.The drop continues a long trend of declining attendance at mass. In the last three years, an average of only 39 percent of Catholics reported attending church in the past week. That’s down from an average of 45 percent just 10 years ago. And severely off from the mid-1900’s. In 1955, for instance, 75 percent of Catholics reported attending mass during the previous week.On the other side of the aisle, the new Gallup survey found that church attendance...

Much of the switching in religious identity in the United States over the past several years occurred among the “nones,” specifically Americans who identify as agnostic or as “nothing in particular.” But the Christian landscape hasn’t remained static in the meantime. Though academics have long wondered whether the US will follow the secularizing trend found in most of Europe, the greatest shifts among believers have occurred within Christianity, not away from it. The three-wave Cooperative Congressional Election Study (CCES)—which surveyed the same individuals in 2010, 2012, and 2014, and started with 9,500 respondents—reveals how few Catholics and Protestants have changed...

Millennials are losing their faith and replacing it with pizza, pushups and profound digital connections. Just 27 to 28 percent of people in their 20s and early 30s attend religious services regularly, according to the latest figures from the Pew Research Center. Compare that to the 38 percent of baby boomers who log time in houses of worship, and 51 percent of folks in the silent and greatest generations who still show up for services. Instead, millennials are getting their spiritual fix from secular pursuits such as fitness classes and Facebook groups — community-driven activities that create a sense of...

Facebook co-founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg wants his social network to fill the role that churches and social clubs once did in communities.

The number of college students with no religious affiliation has tripled in the last 30 years, from 10 percent in 1986 to 31 percent in 2016, according to data from the CIRP Freshman Survey. Over the same period, the number who attended religious services dropped from 85 percent to 69 percent. These trends provide a shapshot of the current generation of young adults; they also provide a preview of rapid secularization in the U.S. over the next 30 years.

College-aged millennials today are far more likely than the general population to be religiously unaffiliated. This is true when they are compared to previous generations as well. In fact, the Pew Research Center documents that millennials are the least outwardly religious American generation, where “one in four are unaffiliated with any religion, far more than the share of older adults when they were ages 18 to 29.” Just over 60 percent of millennials say that Christianity is “judgmental,” and 64 percent say that “anti-gay” best describes most churches today. In ministry circles, it has long been reported that of youth...

Six Cultural Trends that Challenge the Modern Evangelizer Msgr. Charles Pope • October 17, 2016 • It is critical for us who would preach the Gospel to ponder what sorts of presuppositions our listeners bring to the conversation. Today, sadly, there are many trends that have poisoned the culture and thus make our task much more difficult.But difficult does not mean impossible. It helps to describe modern mindsets, not to despair of them, but rather to look at them with some insight rather than being only vaguely aware of them. If we are more clear on the presuppositions that...

The Surprising Reason Why More Americans Are Not Going To ChurchThe standard narrative of American religious decline goes something like this: A few hundred years ago, European and American intellectuals began doubting the validity of God as an explanatory mechanism for natural life. As science became a more widely accepted method for investigating and understanding the physical world, religion became a less viable way of thinking—not just about medicine and mechanics, but also culture and politics and economics and every other sphere of public life. As the United States became more secular, people slowly began drifting away from faith.Of course,...

LANCASTER, Pa. -- America just marked its 239th Independence Day, the birth of what many consider the greatest nation on earth. But after all these years of celebrating, Americans may soon be mourning its downfall. That's the conclusion of researcher George Barna and historian David Barton in their book U-Turn: Restoring America to the Strength of Its Roots. ***** Faith is losing its foothold in the land. "The proportion of unchurched people has risen from 28 percent to 48 percent in six years," Barna shared. "The fastest growing faith group in America is atheists and agnostics."

Hebrews 4:15 For we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin. Despite more than nine out of 10 Americans agreeing Jesus was a historical figure, what they believe about Him diverges widely, according to a newly released survey from the Barna Research Group, a nonprofit organization that has been analyzing cultural trends related to religious belief since 1984. The survey of more than 4,000 U.S. adults online and by phone suggests Americans are conflicted about the central figure of...

Religious affiliation in the United States is at its lowest point since it began to be tracked in the 1930s, according to analysis of newly released survey data by researchers from the University of California, Berkeley, and Duke University. Last year, one in five Americans claimed they had no religious preference, more than double the number reported in 1990. Fewer Americans affiliated with an organized religion, survey shows UC Berkeley sociologists Mike Hout and Claude Fischer , along with Mark Chaves of Duke University, analyzed data on religious attitudes as part of the General Social Survey, a highly cited biannual...

The formula seems simple: parents pass down what they believe to their children. Atheist parents don’t believe in God or go to church, therefore…. Yet, a surprisingly large number of atheist scientists from elite universities raise their children in a religious community such as a church. Sociologists Elaine Ecklund (Rice University) and Kristen Lee (University of Buffalo, SUNY) found that these atheist scientists do so because they want to give their children religious choice, have a religious spouse, or think that religious communities will give their children moral bearings and community. Unfortunately, very little research has been done concerning how...

The son of author and speaker Brian McLaren, who is often identified as part of the controversial emergent church, married his same-sex partner this past weekend. Trevor Douglas McLaren, 28, wed Owen Patrick Ryan on Saturday in Washington, according to The New York Times. The marriage ceremony was officiated by a Universal Life minister, and his father, Brian McLaren, led a commitment ceremony with "traditional Christian elements" afterward. The elder McLaren recently recalled to NPR the time his son – one of four sons – came out to him. It had just been a couple of years when McLaren shifted...

According to a new study by the Pew Forum, Protestants are, for the first time in history, not a majority in the United States of America. I don’t think that’s anything for evangelical Protestants, or anyone else, to panic about. Several years ago, I pointed out here that studies were showing a declining Protestant majority, and projections were being made for this very reality. Now, the surveys says we have a 48 percent plurality of Protestants. I wasn’t frantic about that several years ago, and I’m still not. When working toward our “God and country” badges, my childhood Boy Scout...

According to a recent study, religion is dying in America. And it’s a trend that has grave implications for our politics, culture, and the fate of our civilization. Ben Fearnow of CBS News reports on the story, writing: ...The study also posits some theories for this burgeoning irreligiosity, which, writes Fearnow, “run the gamut from a backlash against the entanglement of religion and politics to a global relationship between economic development and secularization.” Now, I don’t know if that “gamut” includes the obvious, but these two theories miss the mark. Question: Do we wonder why Pakistan is spawning jihadists when...

NEW YORK –  For the first time in its history, the United States does not have a Protestant majority, according to a new study. One reason: The number of Americans with no religious affiliation is on the rise. The percentage of Protestant adults in the U.S. has reached a low of 48 percent, the first time that Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life has reported with certainty that the number has fallen below 50 percent. The drop has long been anticipated and comes at a time when no Protestants are on the U.S. Supreme Court and the Republicans have...