{"id":198882,"date":"2025-02-26T06:09:14","date_gmt":"2025-02-26T11:09:14","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2026-07-09T18:20:46","modified_gmt":"2026-07-09T22:20:46","slug":"decline-of-christianity-in-the-us-has-slowed-may-have-leveled-off","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/religion\/2025\/02\/26\/decline-of-christianity-in-the-us-has-slowed-may-have-leveled-off\/","title":{"rendered":"Decline of Christianity in the U.S. Has Slowed, May Have Leveled Off"},"content":{"rendered":"

Findings from the 2023-24 Religious Landscape Study<\/h2>\n\n\n
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Illustration by Shawna X<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
How we did this<\/summary>\n

Pew Research Center conducts the Religious Landscape Study (RLS) to provide authoritative estimates of the U.S. population\u2019s religious composition, beliefs and practices.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The new RLS was conducted in English and Spanish from July 17, 2023, to March 4, 2024, among a nationally representative sample of 36,908 respondents.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Our two previous Religious Landscape Studies, conducted in 2007 and 2014, were administered entirely by telephone. Because response rates to telephone surveys have dropped sharply over the past decade, we changed the design of the RLS in 2023-24.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To recruit people to take the survey, we used a method known as address-based sampling (ABS). This involved mailing invitation letters to randomly sampled addresses from the United States Postal Service\u2019s Computerized Delivery Sequence File. This approach gave nearly all U.S. adults a chance of being selected to participate in the survey.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

People who received our invitation had the option of completing the survey online, on paper, or by calling a toll-free number and completing the survey by telephone with an interviewer. In total, 25,250 respondents participated online, 10,733 completed the survey on paper, and 925 participated by phone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The survey is designed to be representative of all 50 states and the District of Columbia<\/a>. The study\u2019s large size also makes it possible to describe the religious characteristics of 34 large metro areas<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The data is weighted (using benchmarks from the U.S. Census Bureau and other sources) to be representative of the adult population of each state (and D.C.) and the overall U.S. adult population by gender, age, race, ethnicity, education and other categories. The survey\u2019s margin of error for results based on the full sample is plus or minus 0.8 percentage points. The response rate is 20%.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For more details, refer to the Methodology<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Previous research has shown that people may answer some questions differently<\/a> when completing a survey online or on paper than they do when speaking to a live interviewer over the phone. This means that when we compare data from the three landscape studies to see how Americans\u2019 religious beliefs and practices have changed over time, we must consider the possible effects of changing the primary mode of interviewing from telephone (in 2007 and 2014) to online and on paper (in 2023-24). These \u201cmode effects\u201d can be quite large on some survey questions but small or nonexistent on others.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To help determine whether the results of particular questions in the new RLS are \u2013 or are not \u2013 directly comparable with our previous landscape studies, we conducted a nationwide telephone survey alongside the RLS. It included all the questions in the 2023-24 RLS that previously appeared in the 2007 and 2014 surveys. We used the findings of this experimental \u201cbridge study\u201d to inform the discussion of long-term trends throughout this report. For more details, go to Appendix A<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This report was made possible by The Pew Charitable Trusts, which received support from the Lilly Endowment Inc., Templeton Religion Trust, The Arthur Vining Davis Foundations and the M.J. Murdock Charitable Trust.<\/p>\n<\/details>\n\n\n\n

After many years of steady decline, the share of Americans who identify as Christians shows signs of leveling off \u2013 at least temporarily \u2013 at slightly above six-in-ten, according to a massive new Pew Research Center survey of 36,908 U.S. adults.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Line<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The Religious Landscape Study (RLS) is the largest single survey the Center conducts, aiming to provide authoritative figures on the size of U.S. religious groups because the U.S. census does not collect that information.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We have conducted three of these landscape surveys over the past 17 years, with more than 35,000 randomly sampled respondents each time. That\u2019s enough to paint a statistical portrait of religion not only nationally, but also in all 50 states and the District of Columbia<\/a>, as well as in 34 large metro areas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This introductory essay walks through the big-picture trends: evidence both of a long-term decline in American religion and of relative stability in the last few years, since 2020 or so.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jump to an <\/em><\/strong>executive summary of key findings<\/em><\/strong><\/a>.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Search for <\/em><\/strong>data on religious groups<\/em><\/strong><\/a>.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The first RLS, fielded in 2007, found that 78% of U.S. adults identified as Christians of one sort or another. That number ticked steadily downward in our smaller surveys each year and was pegged at 71% in the second RLS, conducted in 2014.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The latest RLS, fielded over seven months in 2023-24, finds that 62% of U.S. adults identify as Christians. That is a decline of 9 percentage points since 2014 and a 16-point drop since 2007.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

But for the last five years, between 2019 and 2024, the Christian share of the adult population has been relatively stable, hovering between 60% and 64%. The 62% figure in the new Religious Landscape Study is smack in the middle of that recent range.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The largest subgroups of Christians in the United States are Protestants \u2013 now 40% of U.S. adults \u2013 and Catholics, now 19%. People who identify with all other Christian groups (including the Greek and Russian Orthodox Churches, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Jehovah\u2019s Witnesses and many others) total about 3% of U.S. adults.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Both Protestant and Catholic numbers are down significantly since 2007, though the Protestant share of the population has remained fairly level since 2019 and the Catholic share has been stable since 2014, with only small fluctuations in our annual surveys.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Meanwhile, the share of Americans who identify with a religion other than Christianity has been trending upward, though it is still in single digits.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Table<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Today, 1.7% of U.S. adults say they are Jewish when asked about their religion, while 1.2% of respondents in the new survey are Muslim, 1.1% are Buddhist, and 0.9% are Hindu.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Religiously unaffiliated adults \u2013 those who identify as atheists, agnostics or as \u201cnothing in particular\u201d when asked about their religion \u2013 account for 29% of the population in the new RLS. The size of the religiously unaffiliated population, which we sometimes call religious \u201cnones,\u201d has plateaued in recent years after a long period of sustained growth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rates of prayer, attendance at religious services also relatively stable<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

Other standard survey measures contribute to this emerging picture of stability:<\/p>\n\n\n\n