wfn.org | Number of Americans with no formal religion increasing, survey finds

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Note #7000 from PCUSA NEWS to PRESBYNEWS:

07-January-2002
02010  
  
Number of Americans with no formal religion increasing, survey finds 

Signs of religious 'reawakening' hard to find, researchers say 

by Chris Herlinger
Ecumenical News International
  
NEW YORK - Though the United States remains a strongly religious nation, the
percentage of Americans saying they have no formal religious identity is
growing, the authors of a recent survey have concluded.

 	A national survey of U.S. religious affiliation suggests the existence of
a "wide and possibly growing swath of secularism" in the American
population.

 	The American Religious Identification Survey 2001, released by the
Graduate Center of the City University of New York (CUNY), also suggests
that the proportion of Christians in the U.S. has dropped - from 86 percent
in 1990, when the study was first conducted, to 77 percent in 2001.

 	The survey was based on random telephone interviews from February to June
2001 of more than 50,000 adults. Researchers estimated the responses to be
representative of the entire U.S. adult population.

 	The study was released late in 2001 after the Sept. 11terrorist attacks in
New York and Washington, DC - events that, by nearly all accounts, swelled
the numbers of people attending religious services.

 	But Egon Mayer, one of the co-authors of the study, said Sept. 11 had not
permanently altered the US religious landscape. Increased attendance at
religious services immediately after the attacks did not change the basic
religious affiliations that he and co-author Barry Kosmin studied, Mayer
said.

 	"People didn't attend church or synagogue just for religious reasons. They
wanted to be around other people," Mayer told ENI. "People probably feel
more religious, but whether they have changed behavior is another question."

 	Another survey, conducted by the Washington-based Pew Forum on Religion
and Public Life and released last month, confirmed part of Mayer's
contention.

 	In the Pew study, 78 percent of those surveyed in November 2001 said the
influence of religion in the United States was growing - an increase over an
earlier, March survey, in which only 37 percent of those questioned had felt
the influence of religion on
the rise.  

 	And yet the November Pew survey found no evidence that religion was
suddenly playing a larger role in Americans' personal lives. The proportion
of those surveyed post-Sept. 11 who said that religion was important in
their own lives - 61 percent - was virtually unchanged from what it had been
in the March study.

 	Other findings of the CUNY American Religious Identification Survey for
2001, based on extrapolations:
  
*  Fifty-two per cent of adults were Protestant, 24.5 percent were Catholic,
and 14.1 percent adhered to no religion. Jews and Muslims remained
relatively small groups in the U.S., the study concluded, Jews representing
1.3 percent of the population, and Muslims, 0.5 percent.

*  Some 33 million American adults - about 16 percent of the total adult
population - had changed their religious identification at some point.

*  The groups making the largest gains since 1990 included Evangelical
Christians, non-denominational Christians and those who professed no
religion. The latter group accounted for the largest single increase since
the previous, 1990 study. "One of the most striking 1990-2001 comparisons is
the more than doubling of the adult population identifying with no religion,
from 14.3 million (8 percent) in 1990 to the current 29.4 million
(14.1percent)," the study said.
  
	Those who claimed no formal religious affiliation were not, however,
atheists: only 0.4 percent of the people surveyed identified themselves as
atheists.

	Despite a strong sentiment in the United States that the country has
undergone something of a "religious re-awakening" in recent years, the study
concluded that the population's large secular segment should not be ignored.

	The finding was "completely consistent with similar secularizing trends in
other Western, democratic societies," the authors concluded. "The magnitude
and role of this large secular segment of the American population is
frequently ignored by scholars and politicians alike."

	Asked about what appeared to be a growing segment of Americans interested
in spirituality but not organized religion, Mayer acknowledged that the
survey did not account for such a group directly.

	"The spiritual question throws a curve ball into this," he said, adding
that he hoped future surveys would incorporate a category for non-religious
spirituality.

	Mayer said the challenges of a religious survey were considerable, given
the dynamic character of US religious and spiritual practice. "The
possibilities of how people think of
themselves and identify themselves are endless," he told ENI. "People are
pulled by longing, memory, family, even guilt."

	The complete CUNY American Religious Identification Survey for 2001 report
can be found at www.gc.cuny.edu/studies/studies_index.htm
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