A couple of weeks ago major news media reported the release of the American Religious Identification Survey 2008 data. This is the third time since 1990 that this massive survey has been conducted across the nation. It is known as ARIS among researchers.
I have had time to digest the report, which is now published by the Institute for the Study of Secularism at Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut, which makes that city the capital of the sociology of religion in America. The Hartford Religion Research Center (base for the Faith Communities Today collaborative, FACT) and the Greenberg Center for the Study of Religion in Public Life (producer of a series of books on regional studies of religion in America) are also located in the same city. In fact, the three "think tanks" are located within two miles of each other.
The new data show that most rapid growth in America is among the "Nones," or people who say they do not identify with any religion. This segment has nearly doubled in two decades. It was eight percent of the population in 1990 and 15 percent in 2008. Over the same period the percentage of Americans who identify with some branch of Christianity has declined from 86 percent to 76 percent. The only segment among Christians that is growing in terms of the size of its piece of the pie is made up of those who say they are non-denominational or belong to a non-denominational church. The mainline Protestant denominations are in steep decline, but even the percentage of Americans who identify as Evangelicals is in decline. For example, the percentage of Americans who say they are Baptists, has declined from nearly one in five in 1990 to only 15 percent today.
The ARIS team added some new questions this time around that give further insight to how secular America is becoming. Only seven in ten Americans report that they have been through some religious initiation ceremony (baptism, Christening, circumcision, confirmation, bar mitzvah or naming ceremony). A slightly smaller number of married adults report that they had a religious wedding service. Only two-thirds expect to have a religious funeral when they die. In other words, about a third of Americans do not participate in religious rites of passage in any faith.
The trend will very likely continue as evidenced by the age data. The Christian and Jewish groups are all over-balanced toward older adults, while there is a definite tilt toward the youngest generations among the "Nones," new religious movements, Islam and Eastern religions. The majority of African Americans no longer identify themselves as Baptist and the percentage of Hispanics who say they are Catholic has declined significantly.
If you would like a PDF of the entire report, email me at msahlin@creativeministry.org and I will gladly share a copy with you. It includes data for each state (and DC), except Alaska and Hawaii. (I guess it is too expensive to send graduate research assistants that far away.)
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