> Survey: Americans switching faiths, dropping out
> b.. Survey: U.S. about to lose its status as a majority Protestant
> nation
> c.. Non-denominational churches are gaining members
>
> d.. 25 percent of adults leave faith of their upbringing
>
> e.. Survey found a dropping confidence in organized religion
>
> (AP) -- The U.S. religious marketplace is extremely volatile, with
> nearly half of American adults leaving the faith tradition of their
> upbringing to either switch allegiances or abandon religious
> affiliation altogether, a new survey finds.
>
> The study released Monday by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public
> Life is unusual for it sheer scope, relying on interviews with more
> than 35,000 adults to do***ent a diverse and dynamic U.S. religious
> population.
> While much of the study confirms earlier findings -- mainline
> Protestant churches are in decline, non-denominational churches are
> gaining and the ranks of the unaffiliated are growing -- it also
> provides a deeper look behind those trends, and of smaller religious
> groups.
> "The American religious economy is like a marketplace -- very
> dynamic, very competitive," said Luis Lugo, director of the Pew
> Forum. "Everyone is losing, everyone is gaining. There are net
> winners and losers, but no one can stand still. Those groups that are
> losing significant numbers have to recoup them to stay vibrant."
>
> The U.S. Religious Landscape Survey estimates the United States is 78
> percent Christian and about to lose its status as a majority
> Protestant nation, at 51 percent and slipping.
>
> More than one-quarter of American adults have left the faith of their
> childhood for another religion or no religion at all, the survey
> found. Factoring in moves from one stream or denomination of
> Protestantism to another, the number rises to 44 percent.
>
> One in four adults ages 18 to 29 claim no affiliation with a religious
> institution.
>
> "In the past, certain religions had a real holding power, where
> people from one generation to the next would stay," said Penn State
> University sociologist Roger Finke, who consulted in the survey
> planning. "Right now, there is a dropping confidence in organized
> religion, especially in the traditional religious forms."
>
> Lugo said the 44 percent figure is "a very conservative estimate,"
> and more research is planned to determine the causes.
>
> "It does seem in keeping with the high tolerance among Americans for
> change," Lugo said. "People move a lot, people change jobs a lot.
> It's a very fluid society."
>
> The religious demographic benefiting the most from this religious
> churn is those who claim no religious affiliation. People moving into
> that category outnumber those moving out of it by a three-to-one
> margin.
> The majority of the unaffiliated -- 12 percent of the overall
> population -- describe their religion as "nothing in particular," and
> about half of those say faith is at least somewhat im****tant to them.
> Atheists or agnostics account for 4 percent of the total population.
>
> The Roman Catholic Church has lost more members than any faith
> tradition because of affiliation swapping, the survey found. While
> nearly one in three Americans were raised Catholic, fewer than one in
> four say they're Catholic today. That means roughly 10 percent of all
> Americans are ex-Catholics.
> The share of the population that identifies as Catholic, however, has
> remained fairly stable in recent decades thanks to an influx of
> immigrant Catholics, mostly from Latin America. Nearly half of all
> Catholics under 30 are Hispanic, the survey found.
>
> On the Protestant side, changes in affiliation are swelling the ranks
> of nondenominational churches, while Baptist and Methodist traditions
> are showing net losses.
>
> Many Americans have vague denominational ties at best. People who call
> themselves "just a Protestant," in fact, account for nearly 10
> percent of all Protestants.
>
> Although evangelical churches strive to win new Christian believers
> from the "unchurched," the survey found most converts to evangelical
> churches were raised Protestant.
>
> Hindus claimed the highest retention of childhood members, at 84
> percent. The group with the worst retention is one of the fastest
> growing -- Jehovah's Witnesses. Only 37 percent of those raised in
> the sect known for door-to-door proselytizing said they remain
> members.
> Among other findings involving smaller religious groups, more than
> half of American Buddhists surveyed were white, and most Buddhists
> were converts.
> More people in the survey pool identified themselves as Buddhist than
> Muslim, although both populations were small -- less than 1 percent
> of the total population. By contrast, Jews accounted for 1.7 percent
> of the overall population.
>
> The self-identified Buddhists -- 0.7 percent of those surveyed --
> illustrate a core challenge to estimating religious affiliation: What
> does affiliation mean?
> It's unclear whether people who called themselves Buddhists did so
> because they practice yoga or meditation, for instance, or claim
> affiliation with a Buddhist institution.
>
> The re****t does not project member****p figures for religious groups,
> in part because the survey is not as authoritative as a census and
> didn't count children, Lugo said. The U.S. Census does not ask
> questions on religion.
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