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Christians Likely Minority in US By 2050, Pew Says

4) Finally, in the scenario Pew describes as most unrealistic among the four considered, what if switching ceases altogether? Only in this case would Christians retain their majority as late as 2070, ranking at 54 percent of the population. Still, the majority ranking would represent a 10 percentage point decrease from today.

“While the change in affiliation rates in the United States is largely due to people voluntarily leaving religion behind, switching is not the only driver of religious composition change worldwide,” Pew said. “For example, differences in fertility rates explain most of the recent religious change in India, while migration has altered the religious composition of many European countries in the last century. Forced conversions, mass expulsions, wars and genocides also have caused changes in religious composition throughout history.

“Moreover, the scenarios in this report are limited to religious identity and do not project how religious beliefs and practices might change in the coming decades.”

Progressively since 1990, a larger share of adults who were raised Christian no longer describe themselves as such. In the early 1990s, nearly 90 percent of U.S. adults described themselves as Christian, a percentage that has fallen to 64 percent. About 30 percent of U.S. adults said they have no religion today. The remaining six percent of the population reflects several faiths including Jews, Muslims, Buddhists and Hindus.

Scenario 2 “best illustrates what would happen if recent generational trends in the U.S. continue, but only until they reach the boundary of what has been observed around the world, including in Western Europe,” Pew said of the possibilities. “Overall, this scenario seems to most closely fit the patterns observed in recent years.”

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