The Los Angeles Times ran a story about recent work from Trinity College sociologist Barry A. Kosmin (the study’s principal investigator) that suggests that Americans are turning away from many denominations with greater frequency. Moreover, Kosmin finds that the percentage of people who do not identify themselves as having a particular religious affiliation has almost doubled since 1990 – to 15%.
The LA Times writes:
Mainline Christian denominations, once bulwarks of the religious landscape, have suffered most from the drift. Methodists, Lutherans and Episcopalians are among the denominations that have seen their ranks decline. Although 86% of Americans identified as Christians in 1990, just 76% said the same last year, the result of onetime adherents rejecting organized religion, the survey concluded. The broad falloff has occurred as some groups, including Catholics, have seen their overall numbers rise. But despite growing by 11 million new members since 1990, Catholics now account for a smaller percentage of the U.S. population than they did then — 25% compared with 26%.
Kosmin’s commentary:
The survey’s principal investigator, sociologist Barry A. Kosmin of Trinity College in Connecticut, described the overall trend as an erosion of the “religious middle ground.” He said many people appeared to be rebuffing denominations altogether or favoring more conservative evangelical groups that have boosted their relatively small memberships by offering emotional and personalized religious experiences.
Kosmin said the changing religious outlook also reflected an increasingly diverse and complex culture that emphasized greater tolerance for diversity while eschewing respect for authority.He pointed to one sign of religious detachment — the fact that 27% of Americans do not expect to have a religious funeral.
“Even the people in the pews are more rebellious than they used to be,” said Kosmin, founding director of the Institute for the Study of Secularism in Society and Culture. “Those you would call ‘the religious’ don’t look like what their grandparents did in terms of their worship style, their ritual behaviors.”
Comments 2
Cbanman — March 17, 2009
My question is what religions are loosing members and what ones are gaining members. Is this just Christianity or what? I would think that as history has shown us that when the economy is bad more people turn to religion when they have nothing else to turn to. This happened during the depression in the 1930s. I can understand that more people are not turning to religion now though becaause of the environment that we live in is so different from when it was the 30s.
Penny Edgell — April 9, 2009
This study is important, but the decline they mention was confined almost entirely to the 1990s (in 1990 7% of Americans claimed "no religion" on their survey and in 2001 it was 14%). Hout and Fisher's 2002 ASR article shows pretty decisively that about half of the "nones" pray regularly, consider themselves spiritual, and sometimes engage in religious rituals. This 7-8% of Americans say they have "no religion" because religious identity has been politicized in ways they don't like, and they are opting out of that politicization.
I think the best interpretation of this study in combination with other trends in American religion, is to say that people are increasingly distant from, and critical of, mainstream religious institutions. We see this is poll data (Gallup, Pew) that shows for the first time in a long time, more Americans think religious leaders should 'stay out of politics' than welcome this involvement. And we see it in the very large and growing numbers of people who identify as "spiritual and religious" and, even more, in the 20% or so who identify as "spiritual and not religious."
The ARIS data takes a neo-Weberian substantive approach to religion that conflates the decline of mainstream religious institutions with the decline of religion per se. And there is some decline, no question about it. But there's also a lot of reconfiguration and a strong sense that mainstream religious institutions are a poor fit for the religious, spiritual, and social lives of Americans -- especially Americans under 45.