Home
/
RELIGION & LIBERTY ONLINE
/
7 Figures: Christians Decline Sharply as Share of Population
7 Figures: Christians Decline Sharply as Share of Population
Jan 12, 2026 8:28 PM

The Christian share of the U.S. population is declining, while the number of U.S. adults who do not identify with any organized religion is growing, according to an a new survey by the Pew Research Center pares the religious landscape of 2015 to 2007. Here are seven figures you should know from the report.

1. Between 2007 and 2014, the share of the U.S. population that identifies as Christian fell from 78.4 percent to 70.6 percent, driven primarily by declines among mainline Protestant and Catholics.

2. The rise in intermarriage appears to be linked with the growth of the religiously unaffiliated population. Nearly one-in-five people surveyed who got married since 2010 are either religiously unaffiliated respondents who married a Christian spouse or Christians who married an unaffiliated spouse. By contrast, just 5 percent of people who got married before 1960 fit this profile.

3. Catholics appear to be declining both as a percentage of the population and in absolute numbers. The new survey indicates there are about 51 million Catholic adults in the U.S. today, roughly 3 million fewer than in 2007. But taking margins of error into account, the decline in the number of Catholic adults could be as modest as 1 million.

4. The new survey indicates that evangelical–including the Southern Baptist Convention, the Assemblies of God, Churches of Christ, the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod, the Presbyterian Church in America, and many nondenominational congregations—now have a total of about 62 million adult adherents. That is an increase of roughly 2 million since 2007, though once the margins of error are taken into account, it is possible that the number of evangelicals may have risen by as many as 5 million or remained essentially unchanged. And evangelical Protestants, while declining slightly as a percentage of the U.S. public, probably have grown in absolute numbers as the overall U.S. population has continued to expand.

5. Of the major subgroups within American Christianity, mainline Protestantism—a tradition that includes the United Methodist Church, the American Baptist Churches USA, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) and the Episcopal Church, among others—appears to have experienced the greatest drop in absolute numbers. In 2007, there were an estimated 41 million mainline Protestant adults in the United States. As of 2014, there are roughly 36 million, a decline of 5 million – although, taking into account the bined margins of error, the number of mainline Protestants may have fallen by as few as 3 million or as many as 7.3 million between 2007 and 2014.

6. The size of the historically black Protestant tradition—which includes the National Baptist Convention, the Church of God in Christ, the African Methodist Episcopal Church, the Progressive Baptist Convention and others—has remained relatively stable in recent years, at nearly 16 million adults.

7. Christianity – and especially Catholicism – has been losing more adherents through religious switching than it has been gaining. More than 85 percent of American adults were raised Christian, but nearly a quarter of those who were raised Christian no longer identify with Christianity. Former Christians represent 19.2 percent of U.S. adults overall.

Comments
Welcome to mreligion comments! Please keep conversations courteous and on-topic. To fosterproductive and respectful conversations, you may see comments from our Community Managers.
Sign up to post
Sort by
Show More Comments
RELIGION & LIBERTY ONLINE
Harry Reid, Fiscal Conservative
Sophisticated followers of politics such as the readers of PowerBlog will not be surprised by this story, but I’ll bring it to your attention anyway. The US House recently passed a bill that includes a dramatic tax increase on mining businesses. Supporters argue that the tax helps reign in the environmentally abusive mining industry. Higher taxes. Environmental concern. Senate Democrats would be scrambling to get on that bus, right? One problem: Majority Leader Harry Reid is from Nevada, whose economy...
‘The New Fellow Travelers’
In the Washington Post, Anne Applebaum takes a look at Hugo Chavez, president of Venezuela, and his worshipful celebrity fans in the United States. Here’s the key paragraph from her column, The New Fellow Travelers: In fact, for the malcontents of Hollywood, academia and the catwalks, Chávez is an ideal ally. Just as the sympathetic foreigners whom Lenin called “useful idiots” once supported Russia abroad, their modern equivalents provide the Venezuelan president with legitimacy, attention and good photographs. He, in...
New Blog of Note: The Immanent Frame
A new blog has been added to our blogroll sidebar (along with a much-needed round of housecleaning on old and out-of-date links). Announcement below: The Social Science Research Council is pleased to announce the launch of The Immanent Frame, a new SSRC blog on secularism, religion, and the public sphere. The blog is opening with a series of posts on Charles Taylor’s A Secular Age, including recent contributions from Robert Bellah, Wendy Brown, Jose Casanova, Elizabeth Shakman Hurd, and Colin...
Misguided Hop Hip Protests: Media Companies Aren’t The Problem
The New York Times reports of a well-intentioned protest by a pastor to protest the ridiculous and dehumanizing lyrics of the type of hip hop shown on networks like BET and MTV. Wearing white T-shirts with red stop signs and chanting “BET does not reflect me, MTV does not reflect me,” protesters have been gathering every Saturday outside the homes of executives in Washington and New York City. The orderly, mostly black crowds are protesting music videos that they say...
The Few, The Proud, The Marines
U.S.M.C. War Memorial Last summer I visited the National Museum of the Marine Corps in Quantico, Virginia. It is an impressive and moving tribute to the U.S. Marines, focusing especially on WWII to the present War on Terror. There was an even a section which chronicled the transformation of young recruits to Marines who embody the virtues of “honor, courage, mitment.” David Zucchino of the Los Angeles Times has written a piece titled, “From Boys to Marines.” The article is...
Global Warming Consensus Alert: Coal is Universal!
When you think about it, NBC’s little promotional stunt on Sunday Night Football for their “Green is Universal” week is a lot like a mini-Kyoto treaty: it was an empty gesture that had no long-term impact on the problem it was trying to address, while immediately making things worse on their broadcast, and in the end the only thing it plished was to make the participants feel a bit better about themselves. They probably shouldn’t though, considering that in order...
The Greatness of America
Here is a fantastic quote about America that deserves a hearing: From the very beginning, the American dream meant proving to all mankind that freedom, justice, human rights and democracy were no utopia but were rather the most realistic policy there is and the most likely to improve the fate of each and every person. America did not tell the millions of men and women who came from every country in the world and who–with their hands, their intelligence and...
Film Screening: ‘The Kite Runner’
GodblogCon 2007 hasn’t quite started yet, but one of the privileges of attendance at this year’s conference was an opportunity to see an early screening of “The Kite Runner,” (courtesy Grace Hill Media) directed by Marc Forster (who has also directed “Stranger than Fiction” and “Finding Neverland”). The film is based on the best-selling novel by Khaled Hosseini. Michael Medved helped to host the event late last night, introducing the film and as a special treat leading a Q&A session...
GodblogCon 2007 Day 1
Today was a pretty full day that just wrapped up a few minutes ago. Al Mohler, president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, KY, opened up the day with a keynote address, “Pioneering the New Media for Christ.” Mohler emphasized municative mandate of the Christian faith: “To be a Christian is to bear the responsibility municate.” Setting this statement within the context of stewardship, Mohler emphasized the biblical foundations for a Christian view munication. In creation God made...
GodblogCon Radio Roundtable
On Hugh Hewitt’s radio show yesterday, he hosted a roundtable discussion with folks at this year’s GodblogCon (link here). After Hugh interviews Mark Steyn, Hugh has Michael Medved, Al Mohler, John Mark Reynolds, and Mark D. Roberts to discuss the conference and the significance of new media for Christian cultural engagement. ...
Related Classification
Copyright 2023-2026 - www.mreligion.com All Rights Reserved