Pew Study: More Americans Discard Religion, Believers Firm in Faith

Pew Study Religion in America

Generally speaking, Americans are becoming less religious, but those who still identify themselves as religious are just as committed to their respective faiths as before. The 2014 U.S. Religious Landscape Study, which was released last month by Pew Research Center, revealed that nearly all major faith groups have become more accepting of homosexuals, since another study like this was first conducted in 2007.

US Less Religious

This new study may offer some solace to those who regret the undeniable rise of religious nones in America.

“People who say they have a religion — which is still the vast majority of the population — show no discernible dip in levels of observance,” said Alan Cooperman, director of religion research at Pew. “They report attending religious services as often as they did a few years ago. They pray as often as they did before, and they are just as likely to say that religion plays a very important role in their lives … On some measures there are even small increases in their levels of religious practice.”

More religious adults, for instance, read Scripture regularly and attend spiritual gatherings than they did seven years ago, the survey found. Additionally, 88 percent religious adults said that they prayed on a daily, weekly or monthly basis – the same percentage to have reported such regularity in 2007.

“We should remember that the United States remains a nation of believers …” said Gregory A. Smith, Pew’s associate director of research, “… with nearly 9 in 10 adults saying they believe in God.”

That being said, generally, belief in God has reduced by approximately three percentage points in recent years. This change has probably been driven by a growth in the share of nones, who say that they do not believe in God. But even among Christians, 98 percent of those who say that they believe in God, fewer believe in Him with absolute certainty – 80 percent in 2007 in comparison to 76 percent in 2014. And currently, 77 percent adults studied describe themselves as religiously affiliated, which is a definite decline from the 83 percent that said so in 2007.

Pew researchers believe these changes stem from the possibility that many of the older believers may have passed away in the last seven years and the fact that there has been a growth in the number of millennials – those born between 1981 and 1996 – who claim to have no religious affiliation whatsoever.

The researchers also found that while religiosity in America has been waning, a more general form of spirituality has been on the rise, with six in 10 adults saying they often feel a deep sense of inner peace and spiritual well being, which is a seven percentage point rise since 2007. Also increasing is the number of people, who experience a deep sense of wonder about the universe, which increased by seven percentage points.

Spiritual Peace

Andrew Walsh, a historian of American religion at Trinity College, said that these trends do make sense as religious affiliation in America today is mostly shaped by individual choice and less by inheritance. Even though the current social climate, especially for young adults, permits Americans to choose and not affiliate with one religious institution, Walsh believes that many people are still spiritual in some ways. One example he cited is the proliferation of yoga studios throughout the country. Most advocates of the meditative practice, which combines physical postures with breathing exercises, are not looking to convert to Hinduism, Walsh explained, but they may still find the activity spiritually gratifying.

Cooperman warned however against concluding that such spirituality is replacing the more traditional forms of religious experiences.

“On the contrary, the people in the survey who express the most spirituality are the people who are the most religious in conventional ways,” he said, “and the respondents who are the least attached to traditional religion, including the ‘nones,’ report much lower levels of spiritual experiences.”

More striking revelations in the study described the changing attitude of Christians toward homosexuality. Even though this landscape study is not the first to document such changes, it showed in detail how drastically members of a broad swath of denominations, even those who officially oppose homosexuality, have changed their perspectives towards homosexuals. The number of evangelical Protestants, who said that homosexuality should be accepted by society, increased 10 percentage points between 2007 and 2014 from 26 percent to 36 percent. The increase for Catholics was even steeper, from 58 percent to 70 percent. For traditionally black Protestant churches, the acceptance rate increased from 39 percent to 51 percent.

“Despite attempts to paint religious people as monolithically opposed to LGBT rights, that’s just not the case and these numbers prove that,” said Jay Brown, head of research and education at the Human Rights Campaign Foundation, the national gay rights group. “There’s growing support of LGBT people and our families, often not in spite of people’s religions but because the very foundation of their faith encourages love, acceptance and support for their fellow human beings.”

Religious nones however displayed the highest rate of acceptance for homosexuals at 83 percent.

Homosexuality Acceptance

Other findings from the study include:

  • Forty percent Jews and 90 percent Muslims said that they do not eat pork because its consumption is forbidden by Jewish and Islamic laws. Similarly, Hinduism discourages the eating of beef and so nearly seven in 10 Hindus said that they do not eat it.
  • Nearly nine in 10 Americans said that religious institutions bring together people and strengthen community sentiments and 87 percent said that they play an important role in serving the needy.
  • Women pray more often than men, with 64 percent saying that they do so everyday as compared to 46 percent men.
  • With regards to evolution, over 62 percent Americans said that humans have evolved over time while 34 percent said that humans have always existed in their current form.
  • Six in 10 adults were found to believe in Scripture as the word of God, and 31 percent said it should be literally interpreted.

The 2014 U.S. Religious Landscape Study included 35,071 American adults. With a margin of error of less than one percentage point, the survey focused on religious beliefs and practices in the second of a two part study. The first, which was released in May, found that the country is significantly less Christian than it was seven years ago.

Photo Credits: Harvard Politics

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