Saturday, 05 Oct, 2024
By: Anshul Vipat
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A new study conducted by the Pew Research Center shows that America's Christian majority population is declining consistently for years, and if this trends continue, Christians could lose majority status in the United States within a few decades.
Christianity is the majority religion in the United States, as it has been since the country's founding, but it's on the decline. A new study conducted by the Pew Research Center shows that America's Christian majority population is declining consistently for years, and if this trends continue, Christians could lose majority status in the United States within a few decades.
As recently as the early 1990s, about 90 percent of U.S. adults identified as Christians. However since then, a large number of Americans have left Christianity and are now identifying themselves as atheist, agnostic or “nothing in particular”. According to the estimates by the think tank based in Washington DC, the number of Americans identifying themselves as Christians as of 2020 that figure had slumped to about 64 percent, eventually falling below 50 percent by 2060 and landing at 46 percent by 2070. However, they will continue to represent the largest religious group in the country.
The study modeled four hypothetical scenarios for how religious affiliation could change: a stable rate of people moving away from Christianity and vice versa; majority share of Christian leaving their religion as compared to a minority share of people with no religious affiliation switching in; the same as the former but the switching rate is capped to prevent the share of Christians who leave the faith from rising above 50%; and the final scenario in which no person changes their religion. In each of the case, it found a sharp drop in Christianity.
More youths switching their religious affliction
The Pew research observed that there has been a growing trend among the youths who were raised religiously but are now identifying themselves as non-religious. More than a quarter of former Christians (27 percent) are under 30, compared with 14 percent of all adults who were raised Christian and remain Christian. While in 1990, around 90 percent of young Americans were raised as Christians. It dropped to 84 percent in the new millennium, further dropping to 65 percent in 2020.
This shows, that among the younger adults, the unaffiliated identity has become the stickier one. Among the older age group (40 and older), 56 percent who were raised unaffiliated in childhood still do not identify with a religion today. Talking about the people in their 30s, 73 percent of those raised unaffiliated continue to remain the same.
