Muriel Kane at The Raw Story reports on a Gallup poll released on Christmas Eve with some new numbers about the shape of religion in the United States today:
Only 78% of Americans now identify as Christian, while 22% describe their religious preference as either “other” or “none.”
Most of these changes have occurred since 2000 and represent the first significant shift since a sharp decline in religious adherence during the 1970s. Over the last nine years, the number with no religious preference has grown from a level of around 8% to 13%. The number for whom religion is not very important has climbed from just over 10% to 19%. And the number who believe religion is out of date and has no answers for today’s problems has jumped from slightly more than 20% to 29%.
These changes do not appear to have affected the majority of Americans who still consider religion “very important” in their own lives. That figure remains at 56%—roughly the same as for the last 35 years—while 57% still say religion has answers to most of the world’s problems.
Explore the results further at Gallup.