
Is progressive Christianity dangerous?
MURFREESBORO, Tenn. — “We don’t want to be known for the…
Graphic via Pew Research Center
One-fifth of Americans — and one-third of adults under age 30 — have no religious affiliation, according to a new report from the Pew Research Center’s Forum on Religion and Public Life.
Dubbed “nones” by Pew, the number of Americans who do not identify with any religion continues to grow, the report indicates:
In the last five years alone, the unaffiliated have increased from just over 15% to just under 20% of all U.S. adults. Their ranks now include more than 13 million self-described atheists and agnostics (nearly 6% of the U.S. public), as well as nearly 33 million people who say they have no particular religious affiliation (14%).
This large and growing group of Americans is less religious than the public at large on many conventional measures, including frequency of attendance at religious services and the degree of importance they attach to religion in their lives.
However, a new survey by the Pew Research Center’s Forum on Religion & Public Life, conducted jointly with the PBS television program Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly, finds that many of the country’s 46 million unaffiliated adults are religious or spiritual in some way. Two-thirds of them say they believe in God (68%). More than half say they often feel a deep connection with nature and the earth (58%), while more than a third classify themselves as “spiritual” but not “religious” (37%), and one-in-five (21%) say they pray every day. In addition, most religiously unaffiliated Americans think that churches and other religious institutions benefit society by strengthening community bonds and aiding the poor.
Reader feedback: What are the ramifications of this trend for Churches of Christ? Please be sure to include your full name, home congregation, city and state in case we decide to quote you.
Read coverage of the study by The Associated Press, CNN and Religion News Service.
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Ken Hargesheimer
Sunset church of Christ
Lubbock TX