Christian Majority in U.S. Could Shrink to Minority by 2070
New study from Pew Research Center finds nearly a third of people raised in the Christian faith currently leave before turning 30 years old
Christianity could become a minority religion in the U.S. by 2070 if Americans continue to leave the faith at the current rate, according to new projections by the Pew Research Center.
The projections, released in a report Tuesday, used surveys and other data to figure out what religion in America would look like in the next 50 years. Pew created four different scenarios for its projections, including if Americans continued to leave Christianity at current rates or if that trend stopped. It found that the number of those with no religious affiliation would grow in all four scenarios.
Pew estimates that nearly a third of people raised in the Christian faith currently leave the religion before turning 30 years old, and an additional 7% do so after that age. If those rates continue, the group projects that 46% of Americans would identify as Christian by 2070 and those with no religious affiliation would stand at about 41%. That would mean Christianity would no longer be the majority religion in the U.S., according to Pew.
As of two years ago, Pew estimated that about 64% of Americans were Christian; 30% had no religious affiliation; and 6% were Jewish, Muslim, Hindu or part of another religion.
Religious affiliation in the country continued to fall during the Covid-19 pandemic, according to a Pew survey released in December, even as a portion of Americans said their faith had grown stronger.
If Pew’s latest projections become reality, the U.S. would fall more in line with other Western European countries, where Christianity has already lost its majority. In the U.K., for example, the percentage of those with no religious affiliation surpassed the percentage of those who said they were Christians in 2009, according to the British Social Attitudes Survey.
To come up with its projections, Pew said it used its surveys and looked at data, including birthrates and how religion is passed on from parents.
Pew said if the number of people switching to having no religious affiliation accelerated, Christianity would lose its majority earlier, by 2045 or 2050, depending on whether the rates of others joining the religion grow or not.
Many young people consider themselves spiritual but don’t identify with an organized religion, according to a 2021 study by the nonpartisan nonprofit Springtide Research Institute.
The survey found that half of young people ages 13 to 25 don’t think that religious institutions care as much as they do about issues that matter to them. Those include issues related to racial justice, gender equity, immigration rights, income inequality and gun control.
If Americans stopped leaving Christianity, which Pew said wasn’t realistic, the share of Christians in the U.S. would still fall by 10 percentage points in the next five decades to 54% in 2070. Pew said that is because Christians tend to be older, and Christian deaths would outpace Christian births.
It also noted the possibility that events outside the study’s model could reverse current religious trends, such as war or economic depression, and lead to a revival of Christianity in the U.S. But Pew said no current patterns could be factored into its models to project that result.