How America's Religious Identity Has Settled—But Not Stopped Shifting - ZENIT - English

 How America's Religious Identity Has Settled—But Not Stopped Shifting - ZENIT - English https://zenit.org/2025/08/02/how-americas-religious-identity-has-settled-but-not-stopped-shifting/?eti=26337

ANALYSIS OPINION, LOCAL CHURCH, YOUNG PEOPLE The Overall Religious Affiliations Of Americans Have Remained Largely Unchanged Over The Past Five Years. Photo: Consolata América How America’s Religious Identity Has Settled—But Not Stopped Shifting What does this mean for the future of religion in the United States? If current patterns hold, Gallup suggests that Christian affiliation could dip below 50% once millennials become the nation’s senior generation—or even sooner, should Gen Z and the next cohorts maintain their distance from organized religion

How America’s Religious Identity Has Settled—But Not Stopped Shifting | ZENIT - English

ANALYSIS OPINION, LOCAL CHURCH, YOUNG PEOPLE The Overall Religious Affiliations Of Americans Have Remained Largely Unchanged Over The Past Five Years. Photo: Consolata América How America’s Religious Identity Has Settled—But Not Stopped Shifting What does this mean for the future of religion in the United States? If current patterns hold, Gallup suggests that Christian affiliation could dip below 50% once millennials become the nation’s senior generation—or even sooner, should Gen Z and the next cohorts maintain their distance from organized religion. AGOSTO 02, 2025 23:46TIM DANIELSANALYSIS OPINION, LOCAL CHURCH, YOUNG PEOPLE WhatsAppMessengerFacebookTwitterShare Share this Entry (ZENIT News / Washington, 08.02.2025).- After two decades of dramatic change in religious identity, the United States appears to have reached a kind of calm. But it’s the calm of a river that has changed course—still flowing, still reshaping its banks, and still redefining the spiritual map of American life.Pope Francis prayer books According to recent data from Gallup, the overall religious affiliations of Americans have remained largely unchanged over the past five years. In 2024, 45% of Americans identified as Protestant or non-denominational Christian, 21% as Catholic, and 10% with other religions. Meanwhile, 22% reported no religious affiliation at all. These numbers mirror those from 2018 to 2020 almost exactly. But this surface-level stability masks deeper generational currents. The long-term decline of Christian affiliation in the U.S.—particularly among Protestants—has been driven not by a sudden cultural shift, but by the slow and steady march of generational change. Younger Americans are replacing older, more traditionally religious cohorts with markedly different spiritual profiles. Back in 2000, over half of Americans—57%—identified as Protestant or non-denominational Christian. A quarter were Catholic, and only 8% claimed no religious affiliation. Today, the share of Protestants has dropped by 12 points and Catholics by 4. Meanwhile, the religiously unaffiliated—often called «nones»—have nearly tripled. This shift is starkest among those under 44. More than 30% of millennials and members of Generation Z (ages 18–43 in 2024) say they have no religious preference. Among baby boomers, that number falls to around 13%, and to under 10% in the so-called Silent Generation. In these youngest adult groups, the unaffiliated now rival Protestants as the largest spiritual category—a quiet but telling sign of transformation. Still, the majority of Americans—69%—continue to identify with a Christian denomination. Only 4% adhere to non-Christian faiths, including Judaism (2.2%), Mormonism (1.5%), and smaller proportions for Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, and Orthodox Christianity. Another 6% identify as “spiritual” or offer no specific answer at all. The age divide is not just about whether people belong to a religion, but about «which» religion they claim. While Protestantism has seen the sharpest declines across generations, Catholic identity has also thinned—albeit less dramatically. In older generations, over 70% still identify as Christian, often strongly tied to denominational traditions. In Generation Z and millennials, that number falls below 60%. The presence of non-Christian affiliations is still limited overall, but it too reveals generational nuances. Roughly 2% of Gen Z adults identify as Muslim, compared to less than 1% among their grandparents’ generation. Young Americans are not only more likely to reject formal religion—they are also more likely, when they do affiliate, to choose outside the historic Christian mainstream. Importantly, this evolution is not «only» the result of generational turnover. Even within each age cohort, more adults have shifted toward religious disaffiliation over time. In Generation X, baby boomers, and the Silent Generation, Gallup notes a consistent pattern: every decade, the share of “nones” increases by two to three points. Among millennials, that increase is even sharper—an eight-point jump in the 2000s, followed by seven more points in the last ten years. And this disaffiliation often comes at the direct expense of Christian identification. For millennials, a 15-point increase in those with no religion since 2000 is matched by equivalent losses in Protestant and Catholic identities.

What does this mean for the future of religion in the United States? If current patterns hold, Gallup suggests that Christian affiliation could dip below 50% once millennials become the nation’s senior generation—or even sooner, should Gen Z and the next cohorts maintain their distance from organized religion. There’s no evidence of a dramatic cultural revolt, no mass rejection of faith. But there is a quiet, generationally-driven reshaping of American religiosity—a redefinition not just of what people believe, but of whether they feel any need to belong. The Christian majority is not gone, but it is no longer a given. The future of American faith will depend not on reversing that trend, but on understanding the deeper questions behind it.