People in the U.S. are leaving and switching faith traditions in large numbers. The idea of “religious churning” is very common in America, according to a new survey from the Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI).
It finds that around one-quarter (26%) of Americans now identify as religiously unaffiliated, a number that has risen over the last decade and is now the largest single religious group in the U.S. That’s similar to what other surveys and polls have also found, including Pew Research.
PRRI found that the number of those who describe themselves as “nothing in particular” has held steady since 2013, but those who identify as atheists have doubled (from 2% to 4%) and those who say they’re agnostic has more than doubled (from 2% to 5%).
As for why people leave their religions, PRRI found that about two-thirds (67%) of people who leave a faith tradition say they did so because they simply stopped believing in that religion’s teachings.
And nearly half (47%) of respondents who left cited negative teaching about the treatment of LGBTQ people.
Those numbers were especially high with one group in particular.
“Religion’s negative teaching about LGBTQ people are driving younger Americans to leave church,” Deckman says. “We found that about 60% of Americans who are under the age of 30 who have left religion say they left because of their religious traditions teaching, which is a much higher rate than for older Americans.”
This is the best summary I could come up with:
The idea of “religious churning” is very common in America, according to a new survey from the Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI).
“Thirty-five percent were former Catholics, 35% were former mainline Protestants, only about 16% were former evangelicals,” says Melissa Deckman, PRRI’s chief executive officer.
There is much lower religious churn among Black Protestants and among Jews who seem overall happy in their faith traditions and tend to stay there.
And nearly half (47%) of respondents who left cited negative teaching about the treatment of LGBTQ people.
“Religion’s negative teaching about LGBTQ people are driving younger Americans to leave church,” Deckman says.
Black Americans tend to agree more with these theological beliefs than other racial or ethnic groups.
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Judaism is much more accepting of questioning the religious authority, asking questions, etc. Some people even consider themselves both atheist and jewish. So that tracks.
Jews can be atheist because they are an ethnoreligious people group.