A growing tide of young Americans is drifting away from the religions of their childhood — and most of them are ending up in no religion at all.
According to a new report from the Public Religion Research Institute (@publicreligion) and Georgetown University’s Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, & World Affairs (@GUberkleycenter), 1 in 4 young adults choose “unaffiliated” when asked about their religion. But most within this unaffiliated group — 55% — identified with a religious group when they were younger.
· Across denominations, the net losses are uneven, with Catholics losing the highest proportion of childhood adherents — nearly 8% — followed by white mainline Protestant traditions, which lost 5%.
· Among Catholics, whites are twice as likely as Hispanics to say they’re no longer affiliated with the church.
· White evangelical and black denominations fare better, with a net loss of about 1%. Non-Christian groups post a modest 1% net increase in followers.
· The only group that has significant growth between childhood and young adulthood is the unaffiliated — a jump from 11% to 25%.
· The study also finds a morally divided generation, with 50% of respondents saying right and wrong depends on the situation and 45% believing in absolute morality.
· An overwhelming majority of white evangelical Protestants (68%) say they believe some things are always wrong, compared to 49% of black Protestants, 45% of Catholics, and 35% of the unaffiliated.
Read the full report (pdf).
Also see our blogpost, "US Consumer Habits Evolving."
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