The shift away from Christianity and other organized religions:
The United States appears to be going through an unprecedented change in religious practices. Large numbers of American adults are disaffiliating themselves from Christianity and from other organized religions. Since World War II, this process had been observed in other countries, like the U.K., other European countries, Australia, Canada, and New Zealand. But, until recently, affiliation with Christianity had been at a high level -- about 87% -- and stable in the U.S.
Polling data from the 2001 ARIS study, described below, indicate that:
bullet 81% of American adults identify themselves with a specific religion:
bullet 76.5% (159 million) of Americans identify themselves as Christian. This is a major slide from 86.2% in 1990. Identification with Christianity has suffered a loss of 9.7 percentage points in 11 years -- about 0.9 percentage points per year. This decline is identical to that observed in Canada between 1981 and 2001. If this trend continues, then by about the year 2042, non-Christians will outnumber the Christians in the U.S.
bullet 52% of Americans identified themselves as Protestant.
bullet 24.5% are Roman Catholic.
bullet 1.3% are Jewish.
bullet 0.5% are Muslim, followers of Islam.
bullet The fastest growing religion (in terms of percentage) is Wicca -- a Neopagan religion that is sometimes referred to as Witchcraft. Numbers of adherents went from 8,000 in 1990 to 134,000 in 2001. Their numbers of adherents are doubling about every 30 months. 4,5 Wiccans in Australia have a very similar growth pattern, from fewer than 2,000 in 1996 to 9,000 in 2001. 10 In Canada, Wiccans and other Neopagans showed the greatest percentage growth of any faith group. They totaled 21,080 members in 1991, an increase of 281% when compared with 1990.
bullet 14.1% do not follow any organized religion. This is an unusually rapid increase -- almost a doubling -- from only 8% in 1990. There are more Americans who say they are not affiliated with any organized religion than there are Episcopalians, Methodists, and Lutherans taken together. 6
bullet The unaffiliated vary from a low of 3% in North Dakota to 25% in Washington State. "The six states with the highest percentage of people saying they have no religion are all Western states, with the exception of Vermont at 22%." 6
A USA Today/Gallup Poll in 2002-JAN showed that almost half of American adults appear to be alienated from organized religion. If current trends continue, most adults will not call themselves religious within a few years. Results include:
bullet About 50% consider themselves religious (down from 54% in 1999-DEC)
bullet About 33% consider themselves "spiritual but not religious" (up from 30%)
bullet About 10% regard themselves as neither spiritual or religious.
religioustolerance.org
======== I really think we can chuck Xmas and its pagan and commercial practices for a winter mood-lifting celebration of the US Constitution and, heck, civil life. Then we wouldn't have to spend the rest of the year trying to get the quarter of the country that voted Shrub in to think clearly for a change. |
