‘UNAPOLOGETICALLY CATHOLIC’

Pastoral approach, focused evangelization are best responses to decline in Christian numbers

By Therese Horvat Special to The Leaven

Last fall, a Pew Research Center report projected that if current trends continue, the percentage of Christians in the United States will decline quite a bit — or perhaps drastically — by 2070. The decline is not because of more people embracing other faiths.

Rather, Americans — and in particular 15- to 29-year-olds — are detaching themselves from any faith affiliation at all.

Pew admits that this is a bit of a snapshot of the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come. Things may not unfold exactly as projected, or events outside the scope of the Pew study could trigger a revival of Christianity.

The Leaven reached out to six individuals — priests, religious and laity, serving different constituencies — for reactions to this report. Here is what we found.

Changing religious landscape: ‘nones’ to outpace Christians

In “Modeling the Future of Religion in America,” Pew notes that since the 1990s, large numbers of Americans have left Christianity to join growing ranks of U.S. adults who describe their religious identity as atheist, agnostic or nothing in particular. Trends indicate that the unaffiliated/ disaffiliated, also known as religious “nones,” are outpacing the number of persons who identify as Christians. If current trends accelerate, Christianity could become a minority religion in the United States by 2070.

“Switching” religious identity from Christian to “not affiliated with any religion” is a relatively new phenomenon. In the early 1990s, 90% of U.S. adults said they were Christian. Pew estimated that in 2020, 64% of Americans, including children, were Christian; 30%, unaffiliated or “nones”; and 6%, other religions. Of note from the Pew report:

• There has been a steady shrinking share of young adults raised Christian in childhood who have retained their religious identity over the past 30 years.

• Among persons born in the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s, there has been more substantial movement away from

Christianity after age 30. Switching identity from Christian to disaffiliated has been extending to more age groups.

• As progressively fewer adults retain their childhood Christian identity, fewer parents are raising children in Christian households.

• A declining percentage of people raised without a religion have converted or taken on a religion later in life.

• The pace of disaffiliation increased continuously between 2010 and 2020.

• Americans give a wide range of reasons for leaving religion behind.

Pew modeled four main hypothetical scenarios based on these trends depicting how the religious landscape might change over the next 50 years. Whether switching from Christian to disaffiliated identity continues at recent rates, speeds up or stops entirely, projections from the trend analysis show that Christians of all ages will shrink from 64% to between 54% and 35% of all Americans by 2070. The “nones” will rise from 30% to between 34% and 52% of the U.S. population (page 24, Pew report).

While not within the scope of the study, Pew researchers write that a religious revival is possible. Religious, social, economic and other types of upheaval (e.g., wars, natural disasters, etc.) have shifted trends in the past.

SISTER