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US religious
identity is rapidly changing (Top Posts - Social/Legal - 022608) - - - US religious identity is rapidly changing Protestants likely to become a minority; Growing percentage now unaffiliated; Immigrants help fill Catholic parishes Globe Staff / February 26, 2008 http://tinyurl.com/26g4et - - - Excerpts: The United States, founded by dissident Protestants seeking religious freedom, is on the verge of becoming a nation in which Protestants are a minority. - - - Graphics U.S. religious affiliations http://tinyurl.com/24khvt U.S. religious fluidity http://tinyurl.com/32oooq - - - ... The study, which is the most comprehensive such examination of the country in at least a half century, finds that the United States is in the midst of a period of unprecedented religious fluidity, in which 44 percent of American adults have left the denomination of their childhood for another denomination, another faith, or no faith at all. ... Protestantism in America has been declining at least since the 1980s, the researchers said, when about two-thirds of Americans identi- fied themselves as Protestant. Scholars have debated the causes of the decline, but said it might be due in part to low birth rates among mainline Protestants and difficulties among mainline Protestant churches in retaining the children of their members. ... The nation is still predominantly Christian - 78 percent of adults say they are Christian - but nearly 5 percent identify themselves as members of other faiths, and 16 percent say they are unaffiliated. The largest single faith tradition in the country is evangelical Protestantism, with about 26 percent of the adult population; followed by Catholicism, at 24 percent; mainline Protes- tantism, at 18 percent; the unaffiliated, at 16 percent; and historically black Protestant churches, at 7 percent. Evangelical Protestantism appears to be grow- ing, but its growth is being dwarfed by a de- cline in mainline Protestantism, and the result is that just 51 percent of Americans are now Protestant, the brand of Christianity that has dominated this nation's history, generating all but one of its presidents and dominating its town squares. ... Catholicism, the biggest single denomination in the country and the dominant faith group in the Northeast, is losing members nationwide faster than any other major grouping. One in three people raised Catholic is now a former Catholic, the study finds, and, as a result, 1 in 10 Americans is now a former Catholic. Yet, the overall Catholic population in the country remains fairly stable, because most immigrants today are Catholic. "If you remove immigrants, then Catholicism is in free fall, the way Episcopalianism and other mainline religions were 20 or 30 years ago," ... The study finds that among former Catholics, a little less than half are now Pro- testant and about the same number are unaffil- iated. ... In general, the study confirms, the Northeast remains the most Catholic region, the South the most evangelical, and the West the most unaffiliated. - - - end excerpts - - - |
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