Americans continue to lose their religion as GOP pushes it
Add Axios as your preferred source to
see more of our stories on Google.
Americans increasingly are calling themselves "unaffiliated" with any religion — or rejecting religion altogether — at a time when influential Republicans are leaning into Christian nationalism to shape public policies, a new survey finds.
Why it matters: The survey found that 26% of Americans now consider themselves unaffiliated with a religion. That's up 5 percentage points from 2013, and reflects a widening gap between how citizens and lawmakers see religion's role in society.
- The GOP is dominated by white evangelicals who have successfully pushed to limit abortion, ban books and restrict some LGBTQ+ rights. But the general public — especially younger Americans — is rapidly moving away from religions that endorse such policies.
- Just a slim majority of Americans (53%) now say that religion is important in their lives, down from 72% in 2013, the survey by the nonpartisan Public Religion Research Institute says.
- The findings suggest that Republicans who focus on evangelical priorities — such as former President Trump, who's now hawking Bibles, and House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.), who flies a flag favored by Christian nationalists outside his office — are preaching to a loyal but dwindling audience.
The big picture: Among Christian groups, Catholics as a whole continue to lose more members than they gain — and are seeing the largest declines in affiliation of any religious group.
- In 2023, 18% of white Americans said they grew up as Catholics, but one-third of them said they no longer identify as members of their childhood faith.
- 12% of Hispanic Americans said they grew up as Catholics; one-third of them also said they no longer identify as such.
Yes, but: The percentage of Americans who identify as white evangelical Protestants appears to have stabilized after years of decline.
- Black Protestants and Jewish Americans have the highest retention rates of all religious groups.
Overall, the survey found that one in 10 Americans in 2023 reported having grown up without a religious identity.
- Another 18% of Americans said they became unaffiliated after growing up in a particular religious tradition.
The intrigue: The jump in unaffiliated Americans comes as many say they no longer believe in their initial religion's teachings — or disagree with a religion's stance against LGBTQ+ people in particular.
- Among unaffiliated Americans younger than 30, "60% cite the treatments of LGBTQ as a reason they stop going to church," PRRI CEO Melissa Deckman tells Axios.
- The rise of Christian nationalism and GOP state legislators pushing anti-LGBTQ+ laws also is leading young people to turn away from organized religion, she said.
- Members of Congress are more Christian — and more religious — than the American public by wide margins, according to an analysis of data reviewed by Axios last year.
Methodology: PRRI conducted the survey on Nov. 16 and Dec. 7, 2023. The poll is based on a representative sample of 5,627 adults (age 18 and older) living in all 50 states and the District of Columbia.
- Among those, 5,303 are part of Ipsos' Knowledge Panel® and an additional 324 were recruited by Ipsos using opt-in survey panels to increase the sample sizes in smaller states.
- The margin of sampling error is ±1.79 percentage points at the 95% confidence level, for results based on the entire sample.
