Pew study finds fluid religious life among Americans

Neela Banerjee in the New York Times: More than a quarter of adult Americans have left the faith of their childhood to join another religion or no religion, according to a survey of religious affiliation by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life. The report, titled “U.S. Religious Landscape Survey,” depicts a highly fluid and diverse national religious life. If shifts among Protestant denominations are included, then it appears that 44 percent of Americans have switched religious affiliations. The study shows, for example, that every religion is losing and gaining members, but that the Roman Catholic Church “has experienced the greatest net losses as a result of affiliation changes.” The survey also indicates that the group that had the greatest net gain was the unaffiliated. Sixteen percent of American adults say they are not part of any organized faith, which makes the unaffiliated the country’s fourth-largest “religious group.” | Read more... | More from the L.A. Times...

Related:

• Based on interviews with more than 35,000 Americans age 18 and older, the extensive survey by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life details the religious affiliation of the American public. Their online section complements the full report.
  
  
• Terry Mattingly at GetReligion looks at the media's coverage of the report: "In recent years, the pollsters and journalists over at the Pew Forum have been downloading waves of data about into the minds of religion-beat professionals from sea to shining sea and beyond. There are other groups doing research into some of these topics — religion and politics, for example — but no one has been creating as many headlines as the Pew Forum."
  
  
• Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, while not referencing the Pew report directly, commented on the large numbers of Catholics leaving the Church for Protestantism: "Unfortunately, sects represent a phenomenon that not only afflicts the Latin American continent but North America and Europe as well," he said. "The problem -- and I always say this to bishops and priests -- is a problem of bishops and priests being able to welcome and listen to people."

Graphic: New York Times