Americans’ religious beliefs in transformation: new research

How is religious belief changing, and what does this mean for the future?

The Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI) has published new findings about American religious behavior, and the results are fascinating. “Religion and Congregations in a Time of Social and Political Upheaval” offers a snapshot of a society in transformation. (I’ve previously written about their 2017 research, which was excellent.)

In this post I’ll identify what I thought of as the most important or interesting details of the report. One caveat: I’m not a religion scholar, but am looking at the topic as a futurist.

tl;dr — religious belief continues to decline in many registers, although things vary by race and faith.

Continued shift away from religious affiliation While the majority of Americans identify as Christians, their overall numbers are declining. The number of people who do not claim any religious affiliation keeps rising. Among white Americans, the unaffiliated now constitute a bit more than one quarter of the population.

One aspect of religious affiliation involves physically attending religious services. Attendance has declined significantly across most religions over the past decade: