That’s up slightly from 2001 (14.2 percent).
Fifteen percent of respondents said they had no religion, an increase from 14.2 percent in 2001 and 8.2 percent in 1990, according to the American Religious Identification Survey.
The study also found:
Christians who aren’t Catholic also are a declining segment of the country.
In 2008, Christians comprised 76 percent of U.S. adults, compared to about 77 percent in 2001 and about 86 percent in 1990. Researchers said the dwindling ranks of mainline Protestants, including Methodists, Lutherans and Episcopalians, largely explains the shift. Over the last seven years, mainline Protestants dropped from just over 17 percent to 12.9 percent of the population.
And gosh, do Episcopalians count as religious? Or are they considered non-religious? (OK, that was a joke. No, it was. I LOVE Episcopalians. Seriously, I’m not prejudice against Episcopalians AT ALL. I’d totally be one if my wife liked liturgical worship. So, yeah, it WAS indeed a joke. You believe me, right? I have Episcopalian friends. I DO! Really. No, really, I do.)
But in all seriousness, does this “new” information surprise anybody? Other research has suggested this for quite some time. But I have two questions:
What do you learn (if anything) from a study like this?
And since 1990, has your “religious classification” changed? For instance, perhaps you once would have described your religious preference as born again and now you call yourself an evangelical or perhaps you were a Muslim in 1994 and today you’re a Methodist! Or something like that.
Care to discuss?
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I used to call myself a born again Christian.
Now, I refer to myself as a Godbotherer. It’s not my term. I stole it from a British Atheist Marxist (although, he may describe himself as a Marxist Atheist Brit) in my blogroll.
Interesting. I’ve always tried to stick to the moniker “Christian.” It means different things in different contexts to different people, but it’s suitable for me. I tried to go down the “born-again” route for awhile, inserting evangelical jargon into my everyday happenings as a means of proving my conversion to the world, but eventually got tired of it. Now, I just call myself a Christian and explain (to the best of my limited abilities) what Jesus has done in my life.
Nonetheless, I am tempted to jump onto the “missional” bandwagon, since the term encompasses a lot of values that I think should belong to the title of Christian.
But man, I just can’t keep up with the evolution of words. It can be exhausting! As a wordsmith, how do you fare in all of this, Matthew?
I read this online yesterday. Makes me sigh. Ultimately the Lord knows who belongs to Him. Surveys are just surveys.
I’ve been Baptist my whole life. I really don’t like denomination classifications, so I am a Christian of the Jesus Christ variety.
and i’m never talking to you again.
holly the episcopalian
I don’t think you learn much out of this kind of survey except for the fact that people change their minds sometimes.
In 1990, I would have called myself a Christian, but I was seven, so what did I know? Nowadays, my vocabulary regarding myself fluctuates. If someone asks, “Are you a Christian?” I say, “Yes.” But if someone were to ask, “What religion are you?” I would try to avoid getting into a long diatribe about what “religion” means and just say, “I’m a follower of Jesus.”
i call myself a recovering southern baptist. 🙂
-liz