According to a disturbing new report from the Pew Research Center, the population of Christians in the United States is projected to fall below 5o percent of the population later this century if certain trends continue.
The survey examines four likely scenarios for the U.S. Christian population over the next several decades, in each of the different scenarios Americans who are ‘religiously unaffiliated’ will outnumber Christians by the year 2070.
According to Pew, around 64% of Americans, including children, will be Christian by 2020. Religiously unaffiliated people, sometimes known as religious “nones,” made up 30% of the U.S. population. Other religions, including Jews, Muslims, Hindus, and Buddhists, accounted for around 6% of all adherents.
Depending on whether this trend slows, pauses, or accelerates, Pew predicts that by 2070, Christians of all ages will fall from 64% to between 54% and 35% of all Americans. According to four scenarios predicted by Pew, “Nones” will increase from 30% to 34%-52% of the U.S. Americans who are religiously unaffiliated — not to be confused with atheists — are anticipated to approach or surpass Christians in number by 2070.
Furthermore, the rise of religious ‘nones’ looks similar in data from Pew Research Center and the General Social Survey.
Other findings uncovered by the Pew report include the fact that 1 out of 6 children of Christians mothers don’t share the faith of their parent as well as the fact that the majority of immigrants to the U.S. are Christians.
Another troubling finding uncovered by the Pew study was that while fifty percent of Americans in their 20’s identify as Christians compared to 80 percent of the oldest Americans.
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