New Survey: Those With No Religion Fastest-Growing Tradition
By Dan Gilgoff, God & Country
A major new survey of religion in America reports three huge trends: that "nones"—people claiming no religion—constitute the only "religious" tradition that's growing in all 50 states, that nearly 40 percent of mainline Protestants now also identify themselves as evangelical or born again, and that the nation's massive Roman Catholic population has shifted from the Northeast to the Southwest. According to one survey's investigators, "California now has a higher proportion of Catholics than New England."
Enormous political implications here. Released today, the American Religious Identification Survey—conducted by the Program on Public Values at Trinity College—pays special attention to the growing ranks of American "nones." From the press release:
The percentage of Americans claiming no religion, which jumped from 8.2 in 1990 to 14.2 in 2001, has now increased to 15 percent. Given the estimated growth of the American adult population since the last census from 207 million to 228 million, that reflects an additional 4.7 million "Nones." Northern New England has now taken over from the Pacific Northwest as the least religious section of the country, with Vermont, at 34 percent "Nones," leading all other states by a full 9 points.
"Many people thought our 2001 finding was an anomaly," [Ariela] Keysar said. We now know it wasn't. The 'Nones' are the only group to have grown in every state of the Union."
When this secularizing trend collides with the growing strength of nondenominational evangelical Christianity—and with the fading of more liberal mainline Christianity—we get a demographic explanation for the growing ferocity of the nation's culture wars. Again, from the release:
The percentage of Christians in America, which declined in the 1990s from 86.2 percent to 76.7 percent, has now edged down to 76 percent. Ninety percent of the decline comes from the non-Catholic segment of the Christian population, largely from the mainline denominations, including Methodists, Lutherans, Presbyterians, Episcopalians/Anglicans, and the United Church of Christ. These groups, whose proportion of the American population shrank from 18.7 percent in 1990 to 17.2 percent in 2001, all experienced sharp numerical declines this decade and now constitute just 12.9 percent.
Most of the growth in the Christian population occurred among those who would identify only as "Christian," "Evangelical/Born Again," or "non-denominational Christian." The last of these, associated with the growth of megachurches, has increased from less than 200,000 in 1990 to 2.5 million in 2001 to over 8 million today. These groups grew from 5 percent of the population in 1990 to 8.5 percent in 2001 to 11.8 percent in 2008. Significantly, 38.6 percent of mainline Protestants now also identify themselves as evangelical or born again.
"It looks like the two-party system of American Protestantism—mainline versus evangelical—is collapsing," said Mark Silk, director of the Public Values Program. "A generic form of evangelicalism is emerging as the normative form of non-Catholic Christianity in the United States."
The Catholic shift to the Southwest, meanwhile, helps explain why Latino priorities will continue to be a top issue for the Catholic Church.
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Reader Comments
That's a fair question.
Dear Kathleen, although I wouldn't describe myself as 'proud', I'm simply a historian seeking the truth within the myths of what happened thousands of years ago, pride doesn't come into it, (truth is simply truth, even if it goes against belief, it's still just 'truth', it doesn't have feelings) the reason this particular atheist doesn't give his real name is because unfortunetely there are some fundamentalist whack jobs out there who may take offence at my seeking of truth, especialy if my findings disagrees with Biblical records and besides, it is also common sense to never give any personal details out on the internet in this day and age of computer hackers.
I could have chosen to use a more realistic name, and you would never have even realised it wasn't my real name, but that would be like lying, and as a seeker of truth, that goes against my morals.
Sadly, that's the truth of modern civilisation, people do exist who wish to silence people like me or even do harm to us, simply for disagreeing with their beliefs, I have a family, so you can obviously understand my use of a nom de plume.
Still, I don't see why a non de plume should get in the way of good, healthy debate, the whole point of debate is to attempt to get one's opinion across and have it tested, not to swap personal details.
I notice with disappointment that you refer to me as 'sad', however I assure you, I'm quite happy. If however that remark was meant as an insult, could I invite you to justify your opinion of me by supplying empirical evidence to the contrary of my own research?
Proud Atheist
How come the proud atheist cannot sign his/her name? How proud are you? I hope you can find your way before your life is over. Where do you think you are going? All dressed up with nowhere to go. Sad.
And furthermore...
We can actualy trace Abrahamic religion to a source. We know that Christianity and Islam developed from Judaism, but what did Judaism develop from?
Before 1000BC Semitic polytheism was the religion of the region (Canaan) with a pantheon of gods led by a head deity called 'El' who was regarded as the creator of humankind and all creatures and the husband of the Mother Goddess Asherah. We can link this 'El' to the Abrahamic God as 'El' is also one of the names used for the Abrahamic God. The archangel's names refer to him, Gabri-el means "Man of God", Rapha-el means "God's healing" ect.
But what caused their religion to become monotheistic?
Around 300 years beforehand, the pharoah Akhenaten developed the first known monotheistic religion which worshipped The Aten (the sun). This was an enforced religion that was very unpopular among the Egyptians and after Akhenaten's death, Egypt violently reverted back to polytheism, any Atenists would be driven out of Egypt (which nicely explains Exodus)
According to the Bible, around 1025 BC, several nomadic tribes united to form the United Kingdom of Israel and Judah. The only nomadic tribes we know about from before that time are the 'Habiru' who we know of from the 'Amarna letters' which were sent from leaders in Canaan to the Egyptian pharaohs, apparently the Habiru caused quite a lot of problems for the Canaanites by constantly raiding and invading their territories. They were a loose ethnic group formed out of outlaws from neighbouring agricultural societies and so would have made perfect allies of the outlawed Atenists from Egypt. The Habiru followed the same polytheistic mythology as the Cannanites, which itself was influenced by Mesopotamian mythology (which included the Epic of Gilgamesh, part of which tells how 'Utnapishtim' was warned by the water god 'Ea' that the world would be flooded and that he should build a boat to save his loved ones, which the Judaistic myth of Noah was obviously based upon and which itself is based upon even earlier Sumerian versions of the same myth) but historicaly, the Habiru suddenly disappear only to be replaced by the monotheistic 'Hebrews'.
These Hebrews were probably the same people as the Habiru but a generation or two later and with a religion that still worshipped El but was now monotheistic due to the influence of the Atenists. And we can still see the the influence of the Atenists on Judaism in Psalm 104 which has a remarkable similarity to the much earlier Great Hymn to the Aten.
Before the worship of the polytheistic pantheon of gods headed by the creator god 'El' existed, evidence shows that a form of solar deity worship was in place. Before then (the Neolithic Revolution) it was Mother Goddess worship and before that, ancestor worship.
This is essentialy the source of Abrahamic religion, and if truth exists anywhere within Abrahamic religion, it must logicaly exist here in abundance, before culture changed the original religion and it's meanings
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