Millennials are moving away from organized religion, but the observant remain devout
While the U.S. as a whole remains
overwhelmingly religious, overall the country has become less so in
recent years due largely to a growing group of Americans who say they
have no particular religious affiliation, according to a Pew Research survey released Tuesday.
The number of Americans who say they are
religiously unaffiliated climbed from 16% in 2007 to 23% in 2014, a
trend primarily driven by the widespread shift away from organized
religion among younger Americans. Fewer than half (44%) of older
Millennials—people born between 1981 and 1989—say religion is very
important to them, a stark difference from older generations. That
decline in religiosity is even more pronounced among younger
Millennials, but part of that effect may be due to people growing more
religious over time, Pew cautions. The unaffiliated are unsurprisingly
less religious than those who belong to a specific sect, and their
growth in numbers has dragged down religiosity among Americans overall.
But while America is gradually growing less
religious, those who do identify with a faith report slightly higher
levels of religiosity than they have in the past. Today, 43% of the
religiously affiliated say they say they read scripture at least once a
week, up three points from 2007, and 26% say they proselytize at least
once weekly, up from 23% in 2007.
The religiously unaffiliated, also known as
“Nones,” now represent the single biggest religious group in the
Democratic Party, larger than Catholics, Evangelicals, members of the
historically black protestant tradition, and mainline protestants. Nones
are also growing in the GOP, though much more slowly, and they remain a
distinct minority. And while Nones as a group are less religiously
observant, a majority say they still believe in God.
Despite the decline of
overall religiosity—church attendance, frequency of prayer, certainty of
belief in God are all trending downward—a certain kind of spirituality
is actually on the rise. The total number of Americans who say they
regularly experience “a deep sense of spiritual peace and well-being”
increased 7 points from 52% to 59%. An increase in that metric held true
for all age groups survey, from the Silent Generation to younger
Millennials.
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