by Stanley Scism
Pew Forum interviewed 35,000+ Americans age 18 and older to find out–hold on to your hats and seats!  Surprise, Surprise!–that religious affiliation in the US is very diverse and extremely fluid (article by Pew Research, ‘US Religous Landscape Survey Reveals a Fluid and Diverse Pattern of Faith’, article dated 2008 February 25).

NOTE:  Pew Forum used self-report as the measure–that is, a person is Catholic if he says he’s Catholic, whether he attends Mass or not.  Atheists or agnostics are so if they say they are, even if some believe in some notion of God.  Using self-report fits with the UN’s Declaration in 1948 that a person’s religion is what he/she says it is.

Who paid them to interview 35,000 people to find out this?  We didn’t know this already, just by driving through American cities, seeing the multiplicity of churches, some progressing, some with brand new buildings, some with grass growing in the parking lot, seeing new temples and mosques, also?

Turns out they have a little more than that to say.  They announce:
44% of American adults either switched religious affiliation, moved from being unaffiliated to being affiliated, or reverse.

51% of Americans say they are Protestant.  This divides into:
26% evangelical Protestant
18% mainline Protestant
7% historically black Protestant
24% Catholic (31% of the total population were raised Catholic)

NOTE:  The foreign-born adult population are 46% Catholics, 24% Protestant.  The native-born Americans are 55% Protestant, 21% Catholic.

16% say they’re unaffiliated with any faith (double the number who say that was true in childhood).  This divides into:
1.6% atheist
2.4% agnostic
12% ‘nothing in particular’–this divides into:
6.3% because it’s not important to me
5.8% it’s important to me, but not affiliated with anything
(25% of Americans age 18-29 are unaffiliated with any religion
1.7% Mormon
1.7% Jew (Orthodox, Conservative or Reform)
.7% Jehovah’s Witness
.7% Buddhist (Theravada, Tibetan or Zen)
.6% Orthodox
.6% Muslim (Sunni or Shia)
.4% Hindu

Race distribution:
Blacks are most likely to report formal affiliation.  Even those unaffiliated are 3/4 ‘religious unaffiliated’.
Only 1/3 of Buddhists are Asian.  Most are white.
Latinos are now 1/3 of all Catholics:  1/8 of all Catholics age 70+, 45% of all Catholics age 18-29.
This is due to immigration.

Immigration:
General Social Surveys by National Opinion Research Center at University of Chicago since 1972 say the US adult population’s Catholic share has held fairly steady at around 25%, but 1/3 of the people who say they were raised Catholic have left–that means about 10% of America is former Catholic.  These losses have been overcome a little by the 2.6% who have changed affiliation TO Catholicism, but more by the many Catholic immigrants (many illegal from Latin America).
Also,
2/3 of all Muslims are foreign-born
80% of all Hindus are foreign-born
3/4 of all Buddhists are converts, only 1/3 are foreign-born.

Age distribution:
Age 70+:  62% Protestant, 8% non-affiliated
Age 18-29:  43% Protestant, 25% non-affiliated
Of the non-affliated, 31% are under 30, 71% are under 50.
Of the population, 20% are under 30, 59% are under 50.
About 50% of Jews, and about 50$ of mainline Protestants, are over 50.
41% of the population at large are over 50.

Sex distribution:
20% of men say they have no religious affiliation, 13% of women

Marriage distribution:
Among married people, 37% are married to spouse of another religious affiliation (this includes Protestants married to another Protestant of a different denominational family, such as Baptists married to Methodists).  Hindus (78%) and Mormons (71%) are most likely to be married, and to be married to someone of the same religion (90%, 83%, respectively).

Largest families:  20% of Mormons and 15% of Muslims have 3 or more children at home.

Regional distribution:
The Midwest most resembles the nation as a whole.
The South has the largest concentration of evangelical Protestants.
The Northeast has the greatest concentration of Catholics.
The West has the greatest concentration of unaffiliateds.

Education distribution:  post-graduate education is obtained by
Almost 1/2 of Hindus
1/3 of Jews
1/4 of Buddhists
1/10 of total adult population overall

Income distribution:
Hindus and Jews report higher income levels.

Retention rate:
Only 37% of people raised as Jehovah’s Witnesses still are in that faith.

Predominant Protestants:  Baptists are…
1/3 of all Protestants
almost 1/5 of the total population
almost 2/3 of historically black Protestant churches