Study: Protestants No Longer Majority In US

A new study by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life shows that, for the first time in the history of the United States, Protestants no longer make up the majority of Americans.

The study’s findings came as no surprise and showed a growing trend in the number of Americans who claimed no religion, as well as a growing trend in non-denominational Christianity, which many no longer consider to be Protestant. Fox News reports that the study found 20 percent of Americans claimed no religious affiliation. While that 20 percent includes atheists, it also includes those who claim to be “spiritual” but are not seeking ties with any religious affiliation. The Huffington Post reported the study found there are 46 million religiously unaffiliated in the US, 13 million of whom are self-described atheists or agnostics.

Those who claim no affiliation have been termed “nones.”

“The rise of the nones (coincides) with the fall of American Protestantism,” Senior Pew Researcher Greg Smith said.

For the first time since Pew begin conducting religion surveys, fewer than half of Americans (48 percent) now identify as Protestant. One-third of adults under age 30, the study showed, have no religious affiliation compared to nine percent of people 65 and older. The Courier-Journal reported that protestants had been above 60 percent in the 1990s according to the General Social Survey, a separate polling agency not related to the Pew report.

Protestant decline, both evangelical and mainline, is focused mainly among whites, while the number of non-white Protestants has remained steady. The number of US Catholics has remained somewhat static as a result of immigration. In 2012, 21 percent of adults identified as Catholic compared to 22 percent in 2007.

Catholic decline is a concern as well, however, and the Pew study comes as Pope Benedict XVI has convened a three-week synod of bishops at the Vatican to develop a strategy for bringing lapsed Catholics back into the fold.

Perhaps most concerning to supporters of faith, the rise in the unaffiliated group, or nones, shows a trend that the group is not expected to return to protestantism, or any religious affiliation, as they age.