Pew: We Are Less Religious

The Associated Press reports via Yahoo News the number of Americans reporting a religious affiliation has dropped. AP summarizes the findings of a survey of religious affiliation done by the Pew Research Center.

Between 2007 and 2014, when Pew conducted two major surveys of U.S. religious life, Americans who described themselves as atheist, agnostic or of no particular faith grew from 16 percent to nearly 23 percent. At the same time, Christians dropped from about 78 percent to just under 71 percent of the population. Protestants now comprise 46.5 percent of what was once a predominantly Protestant country.

Pew researchers said Christian losses were driven by decreases among mainline, or liberal, Protestants and Roman Catholics.

Muslims and Hindus each comprise less than 1 percent of the U.S. population. The number of Jews rose slightly over the period, from 1.7 percent to 1.9 percent of Americans.

Europe has been post-Christian for some years, it would seem the United States is moving in the same direction, albeit more slowly.