high for several decades thereafter. Prior to that, America had a tradition of “Great Awakenings,” in which much of the population exhibited renewed religious fervor. We should therefore hesitate before inferring that the current trend toward secularization will continue indefinitely. The dramatic drop in religious affiliation did not really begin in the United States until the early 1990s. By the early 2000s, the “nones” — those that identified with no particular religion — were one of the largest religious categories in the United States. In their book, American Grace, Robert Putnam and David Campbell noted that, as of 2006, 17 percent of Americans identified with no religion.1 This number has continued to rise since that time; it was nearly 20 percent by 2012. There is also a serious generation gap when it comes to religious trends in the U.S. The decline in religious identification is particularly pronounced among younger Americans. Nearly one-third of Americans between the ages of 18 and 29 are unaffiliated with any religion.2 Furthermore, most Americans who are not religiously affiliated are not presently in search of a church home — 88 percent claimed they were not looking for a religion. One thing to keep in mind, however, is that this dramatic change in religious behavior and religious identification has not led to a similarly dramatic change in religious beliefs. That is, while more and more Americans continue to say they belong to no particular religion, the overwhelming majority of Americans continue to believe in God (less than three percent of the population identifies as atheist).3 Looking forward, Skirbekk, Goujon, and Kaufmann examined contemporary trends in American religious affiliation and projected the religious composition of the United States to 2043.4 By examining projected changes in the ethnic makeup of the country, trends in immigration, birthrates for different religious categories, and the degree to which religious identity tends to be passed on from one generation to the next, they were able to provide some informed speculation regarding the nation’s future
religious landscape. Their cohort-component projection analysis indicated that Hispanic Catholics would be the fastest growing ethnic/religious group in the coming decades. They further argued that the American Jewish population will decline, and the Muslim population will increase. Among non-Hispanic whites, the greatest decline will be among liberal Protestants, as this group has exceptionally low fertility and tends to lose members to other denominations or religions. Moderate and fundamentalist white Protestants, however, were not expected to further decline in absolute numbers, but would shrink as a percentage of the population. The largest gains within the non-Hispanic white population will be in the secular category, assuming current trends continue.
Changes in Religious Affiliation
1 Robert D. Putnam and David E. Campbell, American Grace: How Religion Divides and Unites Us (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2010).
When considering the issue of population growth at a national level, the primary considerations are simply the number of births, the average life expectancy, and the number of immigrants and emigrants. For the population of a particular denomination, however, there are additional considerations. Keeping children in the faith after they leave home, and successfully evangelizing among others, are of equal importance for a church’s long-term stability. While a thorough discussion of these issues is outside the bounds of this study, they do warrant consideration here. Our task would be simpler if we could predict that most people will maintain their childhood faith throughout their lives. This is not the case. According to a 2009 Pew Study, about half of all adults in the United States have changed their religious affiliation at least once during their lives.5 Among those raised Christian, the most common change is to simply become unaffiliated with any religion. This is true of half of former Protestants and two-thirds of former Catholics. The good news is that majorities of people raised in a religious tradition will maintain that religious affiliation throughout life, and this is especially true of American Protestants. Eighty percent of Americans raised Protestant remain Protestant throughout their lives — though only 52 percent consistently maintain their childhood denomination.6 We may
2 “Nones on the Rise,” Pew Research Religion and Public Life Project, October 9, 2012, accessed January 12, 2015, http://www.pewforum. org/2012/10/09/nones-on-the-rise/.
5
3
“Nones.”
4 Vegard Skirbekk, Eric Kaufmann, and Anne Goujon, “Secularism, fundamentalism, or Catholicism? The religious composition of the United States to 2043,” Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 49, no. 2 (2010): 293-310.
“Faith in Flux,” Pew Research Center, Religion and Public Life Project, April 27, 2009, accessed December 26, 2014, http://www.pewforum. org/2009/04/27/faith-in-flux/. Jane Lampman, “Why so many Americans switch religions,” The Christian Science Monitor, April 28, 2009, accessed January 19, 2015, http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Society/2009/0428/p02s01-ussc.html. 6
Journal of Lutheran Mission | The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod
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