Religion in the United States
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Religion is a significant part of the culture of the United States. The United States is one of the most religious developed nations in the world. According to a 44-nation survey by the Pew Global Attitudes Project, religion is more important to people in the US than to those in other industrialized nations[Among Wealthy Nations... U.S. stands alone in its embrace of religion]. Report by the Pew Global Attitudes Project. December 19, 2002, second to only Ireland. Gallup International indicates that 41% (2001[link]) of American citizens report they regularly attend religious services, compared to 15% of French citizens, 7% of UK citizens, and 25% of Israeli citizens.[[Citing sources citation needed]]
However, these numbers are somewhat suspect. As noted by ReligiousTolerance.org, "Church attendance data in the U.S. has been checked against actual values using two different techniques. The true figures show that only about 21% of Americans and 10% of Canadians actually go to church one or more times a week. Many Americans and Canadians tell pollsters that they have gone to church even though they have not. Whether this happens in other countries, with different cultures, is difficult to predict."[How many people go regularly to weekly religious services?], Religious Tolerance.org
The largest group of self-described religious participants in the United States are Catholics, followed by Baptists. The third largest religious preference is no religion. The First Amendment guarantees right to freedom of religion. It also ensures that the government does not act in the interest or disinterest of religion. Some scholars have argued that this "free market" of ideas forces American pastors to cut overhead and market faith in new and more effective ways. [link] Culture "wars" often have roots in religious differences, but major incidents of religious violence are rare.
Political influence of religion in the United States
Politicians frequently discuss their religion when campaigning and many churches and religious figures are highly politically active. However, to keep their status as tax-exempt organizations they must not officially endorse a candidate. Evangelical Christians exert a strong influence on political debate in the United States. There are Christians in both the Democratic Party and the Republican Party, but evangelical Christians tend to support the Republican party whereas more secular voters support the Democratic party.The considerable majority of presidents have had some affiliation with Protestant Christianity, several early holders of the office being Deists, with at least four Unitarians and a single Roman Catholic. Only three presidential candidates for major parties have been Catholics, all for the Democratic party. A contributing factor to Alfred E. Smith's defeat in the presidential election of 1928 was his Roman Catholic faith. In the 1960 election, John F. Kennedy faced accusations that as a Catholic president he would do as Pope John XXIII would tell him to do, a charge that Kennedy managed to subdue considerably. In 2004, John Kerry, a Catholic, was the Democratic party's candidate for the Presidency. There was discussion about whether Kerry's beliefs as a Catholic would be relevant to the national debate on abortion but there was no implication that his being a Catholic per se made him an undesirable candidate. There has never been a Jewish President or Vice-President. The only Jewish candidate for either of those offices was Joe Lieberman in the Gore-Lieberman campaign of 2000, during which Lieberman's Orthodox Judaic faith was not a salient issue. Jews constitute just 1.4% of the population.
Protestant candidates are not subjected to the same scrutiny as non-Protestants regarding their religious faith, though some critics express a concern that some Protestant candidates also would put their religious beliefs ahead of the interests of the nation. During the early part of the 21st century, more and more of the Protestant denominations in America (most specifically in the American South) have openly campaigned to yield more political power than its other counterparts openly campaigning for political reform to favor their causes. In the 2004 Presidential election, George W. Bush a Methodist, earned a slim but clear victory over John Kerry off the backbone of Bush supporters calling for a "moral values" based on religious belief (such as a ban on same sex marriage and abortion) than Kerry's call to strengthen national security policies and economic growth. So far many feel that neither attempts to inact those moral value policies have been strongly enforced.
(See the list of U.S. Presidential religious affiliations.)
Table of religious bodies in the United States
The table below represents selected data as reported to the U.S. Census Bureau. It only includes the voluntary self-reported membership of religious bodies with 60,000 or more. The definition of a church member is determined by each religious body. A growing sector of the population, currently 14%, does not identify itself as a member of any religion.([link] tables 67-69)
Religious affiliation
Self-Described Religious Identification of U.S. Adult Population: 1990 and 2001 [link]All figures after adjusting for refusals to reply, which jumped from 2.3% in 1990 to 5.4% in 2001
| 1990 | 2001 | Change in % point | Numerical growth in % terms | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Total Christian | 88.3% | 79.8% | -8.5% | +5.3% |
| Catholic | 26.8% | 25.9% | -0.9% | +10.6% |
| Other Christian | 61.4% | 54.0% | -7.5% | +0.8% |
| Baptist | 19.8% | 17.2% | -2.6% | -0.4% |
| Methodist | 8.3% | 7.2% | -1.1% | -0.2% |
| Christian - no denomination reported | 4.7% | 7.2% | +2.5% | +75.3% |
| Lutheran | 5.3% | 4.9% | -0.4% | +5.2% |
| Presbyterian | 2.9% | 2.8% | -0.1% | +12.3% |
| Protestant - no denomination reported | 10.0% | 2.4% | -7.7% | -73.0% |
| Pentecostal/Charismatic | 1.9% | 2.2% | +0.4% | +38.1% |
| Episcopalian/Anglican | 1.8% | 1.8% | -- | +13.4% |
| Mormon/Latter Day Saints | 1.5% | 1.4% | -0.1% | +12.1% |
| Churches of Christ | 1.0% | 1.3% | +0.3% | +46.6% |
| Congregational/United Church of Christ | 0.3% | 0.7% | +0.4% | +130.1% |
| Jehovah's Witnesses | 0.8% | 0.7% | -0.1% | -3.6% |
| Assemblies of God | 0.4% | 0.6% | +0.2% | +67.6% |
| Evangelical | 0.1% | 0.5% | +0.4% | +326.4% |
| Church of God | 0.3% | 0.5% | +0.2% | +77.8% |
| Seventh Day Adventist | 0.4% | 0.4% | -- | +8.4% |
| Eastern Orthodox | 0.3% | 0.3% | -- | +28.5% |
| Other Christian (less than 0.3% each) | 1.6% | 1.9% | +0.3% | +40.2% |
| Total other religions | 3.5% | 5.2% | +1.7%
| |
| Jewish | 1.8% | 1.4% | -0.4% | |
| Non-denominational | 0.1% | 1.3% | +1.2%
| |
| Muslim | 0.3% | 0.6% | +0.3%
| |
| Buddhist | 0.2% | 0.5% | +0.3%
| |
| Hindu | 0.1% | 0.4%
| ||
| Unitarian Universalist | 0.3% | 0.3% | --
| |
| Others (less than 0.07% each) | 0.6% | 0.7% | +0.1%
| |
| No Religion/Atheist/Agnostic | 8.4% | 15.0% | +6.6% | +105.7% |
The American Religious Identification Survey (ARIS) 2001 was based on a random digit-dialed telephone survey of 50,281 American residential households in the continental U.S.A (48 states). Respondents were asked to describe themselves in terms of religion with an open-ended question. Interviewers did not prompt or offer a suggested list of potential answers. The primary question of the interview was: What is your religion, if any? The religion of the spouse/partner was also asked. If the initial answer was 'Protestant' or 'Christian' further questions were asked to probe which particular denomination.
Key findings:[link] (Not adjusted for increase in refusals to reply)
- the proportion of the population that can be classified as Christian has declined from 86% in 1990 to 77% in 2001;
- although the number of adults who classify themselves in non-Christian religious groups has increased from about 5.8 million to about 7.7 million, the proportion of non-Christians has increased only by a very small amount - from 3.3 % to about 3.7 %;
- the greatest increase in absolute as well as in percentage terms has been among those adults who do not subscribe to any religious identification; their number has more than doubled from 14.3 million in 1990 to 29.4 million in 2001; their proportion has grown from just 8% of the total in 1990 to over 14% in 2001;
- there has also been a substantial increase in the number of adults who refused to reply to the question about their religious preference, from about four million or 2% in 1990 to more than eleven million or over 5% in 2001.
- Nearly 20% of adults who describe themselves as atheist or agnostic also report that either they themselves or someone else in their household is a member of a church, temple, synagogue, mosque or some other religious institution.
- On the other hand, nearly 40% of respondents who identified with a religion indicated that neither they themselves nor anyone else in their household belongs to a church or some other similar institution.
- Despite the growing diversity nationally, some religious groups clearly occupy a dominant demographic position in particular states. For instance, Catholics are the majority of the population in Massachusetts and Rhode Island as are Mormons in Utah and Baptists in Mississippi. Catholics comprise over 40% of Vermont, New Mexico, New York and New Jersey, while Baptists are over 40% in a number of southern states such as South Carolina, Tennessee, North Carolina, Alabama and Georgia.
- Historical traces of the Bible belt in the South and an irreligious West are still evident. Those with "no religion" constitute the largest group in Oregon, Washington, Idaho and Wyoming. In contrast, the percentage of adults who adhere to "no religion" is below 10% in North and South Dakota, the Carolinas, Alabama, Mississippi and Tennessee.
- Jews, Muslims, Buddhists and those with no religion continue to have a greater preference for the Democratic party over the Republican - much as they did in 1990. Evangelical or Born Again Christians and Mormons are the most apt to identify as Republicans. Buddhists and those with no religion are most likely to be political independents. In keeping with their theology, Jehovah's Witnesses disavow political involvement.
- As in 1990 so too in the 2001 study, the Buddhist and Muslim population appears to have the highest proportion of young adults under age thirty, and the lowest percentage of females. A number of the major Christian groups have aged since 1990, most notably the Catholics, Methodists, and Lutherans. Congregationalist/United Church of Christ and Presbyterian adherents show an older age structure with three times as many over age 65 as under age 35. Baptists also have fewer young adults than they had in 1990. Among Jews the ratio of the over-65 to those under-thirty has shifted from nearly even in 1990 to about 2:1 in the current study. It should be noted, again, that this survey has focused only upon adult adherents. The observations about age structure do not include the children who may be present in the household of adult adherents.
- ARIS2001 found that of all households that contained either a married or domestic partner couple, 22% reported a mixture of religious identification amongst the couple. At the low end there are the Mormon adults who are found in mixed religion families at 12% and such other groups as Baptists, those adhering to the Churches of Christ, Assemblies of God, the Evangelicals and those adhering to the Church of God (all at about 18%). At the high end we find the Episcopalians at 42% and Buddhists at 39% living in mixed religion families. In all, about 28 million American married or otherwise "coupled" adults live in a mixed religion household.
- Those who identify with one or another of the main religious groups are considerably more likely to be married than those who have no religion. Particularly the "no religion" group was far more likely to be either single, never married or single, living with a partner than any other group. Indeed, the "no religion" group shows the lowest incidence of marriage (just 19%) of all twenty-two groups. In sharp contrast, those identifying with the Assemblies of God or Evangelical/Born Again Christians show the highest proportions married, 73% and 74% respectively. The percent currently divorced or separated varies considerably less, from a low of six percent (Jehovah's Witnesses) to a high of fourteen percent (Pentecostals).
- The top three "gainers" in America's vast religious market place appear to be Evangelical Christians, those describing themselves as Non-Denominational Christians and those who profess no religion. Looking at patterns of religious change from this perspective, the evidence points as much to the rejection of faith as to the seeking of faith among American adults. Indeed, among those who previously had no religion, just 5% report current identification with one or another of the major religions.
- Women are more likely than men to describe their outlook as "religious." Older Americans are more likely than younger to describe their outlook as "religious." Black Americans are least likely to describe themselves as secular, Asian Americans are most likely to do so.
- 68% of those identifying themselves as Lutheran report church membership, while only 45% of those who describe themselves as Protestant (without a specific denominational identification) report church membership. Nearly 68% of those identifying with the Assemblies of God report church membership. Church membership is reported by 59% of Catholic adults. About 53% of adults who identify their religion as Jewish or Judaism report temple or synagogue membership. Among those calling themselves Muslim or Islamic, 62% report membership in a mosque.
See also
- United States religious history
- Buddhism in the United States
- Hinduism in the United States
- Islam in the United States
- Roman Catholicism in the United States
- List of U.S. states by percentage of population claiming no religion
References
External links
- [Map Gallery of Religion in the United States]
- http://www.adherents.com/rel_USA.html#religions
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