For First Time In History, U.S. Has Fewer Evangelicals and More People Who Identify As ‘Non-Religious’

Pew Research Center has released a new study that indicates organized religion doesn’t have the hold over the nation that it once had.

Self-identified Christians of all varieties (including Protestants, Catholics, members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and Orthodox Christians) make up 63% of the adult population. According to the new data, three in ten Americans, or roughly 29%, are categorized as religious “nones” – people who describe themselves as atheists, agnostics, or “nothing in particular” when asked about their religious identity.

Christians now outnumber religious “nones” by a ratio of a little more than two-to-one. In 2007, when the Center began asking its current question about religious identity, Christians outnumbered “nones” by almost five-to-one (78% vs. 16%).

No need to paint it worse than it actually is. Pew research shows that general American trust and belief in science is high. pic.twitter.com/dHE9HiZG4u

— Bruce Swanton🚫👧🍔👯, 🚫👧🍔👯 (@bruceaswanton) December 20, 2021

The study also found that fewer than half of U.S. adults (45%) say they pray on a daily basis. By contrast, nearly six-in-ten (58%) reported praying daily in the 2007 Religious Landscape Study, as did 55% in the 2014 Landscape Study. Roughly one-third of U.S. adults (32%) now say they seldom or never pray, up from 18% who said this in 2007.

I see that according to a new Pew Research survey, 33% of U. S. adults say that religion is not very important to them. Perhaps that points to a primary cause of many of our problems-God is missing from our lives. We need a spiritual revival in our country.

— Bishop Thomas Tobin (@ThomasJTobin1) December 14, 2021

On the surface, these trends would seem to point to a much more liberal America, but the political deck is still stacked with Republicans who overwhelmingly lean Christian, with more Evangelicals than not.

New data from Pew Research: About three-in-ten U.S. adults are now religiously unaffiliated.https://t.co/H7ppg29NPf pic.twitter.com/UJFtE0M4Zx

— NateTalksToYou (@NateTalksToYou) December 14, 2021

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Still, the available data indicates that Americans are growing less religious by this measure, too. Random-digit-dial (RDD) telephone surveys conducted in 2017 and 2019 found fewer U.S. adults saying religion is “very important” in their lives compared with previous telephone polls. Also, 41% of U.S. adults now say religion is “very important” in their lives, 4 points lower than the 2020 survey, and substantially lower than all of the Center’s earlier RDD readings on this question.

GLORY HALLELUJAH #TaxTheChurches https://t.co/sOKy18dnF3

— Tara Dublin (Taylor's Version) (@taradublinrocks) December 20, 2021

See the full study breakdown and results here.