Is the Enemy to Blame?

Protestants decline as religious affiliations change in U.S.
THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH

Nearly half of American adults do not belong to the religious group they grew up in, and 12 percent have abandoned organized religion altogether, according to a comprehensive study released today.

That doesn’t mean those who left have all become atheists or agnostic. That group accounts for 4 percent of the population.

But they are leaving mainline religious groups, moving away from Catholic churches and many traditional Protestant faiths for nondenominational worship. One in four adults under the age of 30 say they have no religious affiliation at all, although faith is at least somewhat important to most of them.

The Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life interviewed 35,000 adults to gauge the religion landscape of the United States.

The United States is 78 percent Christian, the study found. It has long been mainly Protestant, but now that faith accounts for only 51 percent of the population.

Catholic churches have also people who grew up in that faith. One in three of the people surveyed said they grew up Catholic, but one in four said they are Catholic now. Ten percent of those surveyed were former Catholics.

But the Catholic Church is retaining members, largely because of the immigrant population. Many Latinos, particularly younger ones, are Catholic.

In Ohio, the largest religious group is Evangelical Protestants at 26 percent, following by mainline Protestants. The survey showed that 21 percent of Ohio’s population is Catholic, compared to 24 percent nationally.

Seventeen percent of Ohioans said they had no religious affiliation, just slightly higher than the national average.

John Green, senior fellow at the Pew Forum, said the Midwest reflects the religious diversity of the United States.