By Ilan Fuchs, Ph.D.
Faculty Member, Legal Studies
Last week, the Pew Research Center, a premier quantitative research center focusing on the U.S., published an article containing its findings on the changing religious landscape of the United States. Although this news did not make global headlines, unlike the death of Queen Elizabeth II, this research indicates that a religious revolution is occurring in the U.S.
According to the Pew Research Center article, it is likely that American society will become secular by 2050. It is hard to overstate the importance of this prediction; the secularization of America is a cultural and political paradigm shift, a shift that will change political and cultural discourse at their core. Because I am a scholar of the connection between religion, education and politics, it is a unique opportunity to see first-hand the cusp of a religious revolution.
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The US Is More Secular Today Than in the 1990s
It is no surprise the U.S. today is more secular than it was in the 1990s. The Pew Research Center article notes that in 2020, “about 64% of Americans, including children, were Christian. People who are religiously unaffiliated, sometimes called religious “nones,” accounted for 30% of the U.S. population. Adherents of all other religions – including Jews, Muslims, Hindus and Buddhists – totaled about 6%.”
The religiosity of the U.S. population has been a topic of study for many years. It is difficult to get into the rich history of the role of religion in U.S. history, but it’s sufficient to say that American society has included a strong sense of religious affiliation in both its public and private life.
For instance, in comparison to the high rates of secularization in Europe after the World War II, it was clear that the U.S. holds a strong religious identity. In Britain, the biggest group on the religious spectrum is the “nones.”
But according to the Pew Research Center article, our population’s participation in religion is changing: “Depending on whether religious switching continues at recent rates, speeds up or stops entirely, the projections show Christians of all ages shrinking from 64% to between a little more than half (54%) and just above one-third (35%) of all Americans by 2070. Over that same period, “nones” would rise from the current 30% to somewhere between 34% and 52% of the U.S. population.”
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Why Pew Research Center’s Work Is Significant
The importance of the Pew Research Center’s findings is the in-depth and broad quantitative work that their researchers do. Numbers often make the public feel that they are walking on steady ground, but the critical reading of quantitative findings is essential.
Future projection based on statistical models can have varying levels of predictability. The scholars who worked on this religious research made clear what statistical models they used.
Their research involved four different models based on different factors and ended with the scenario that they believe is the most likely to take place in the future. According to the article, “The “rising disaffiliation with limits” scenario (No. 2) best illustrates what would happen if recent generational trends in the U.S. continue, but only until they reach the boundary of what has been observed around the world, including in Western Europe. Overall, this scenario seems to most closely fit the patterns observed in recent years.”
What is the most likely scenario for our religious future in the U.S.? According to the article, we could have a totally different religious future. The Pew Research Center researchers note, “If the pace of switching before the age of 30 were to speed up initially but then hold steady, Christians would lose their majority status by 2050, when they would be 47% of the U.S. population (versus 42% for the unaffiliated). In 2070, “nones” would constitute a plurality of 48%, and Christians would account for 39% of Americans.”
Why Does a Different Religious Future Matter to the US?
It is difficult to explore all the outcomes of this scenario, where Christians would be in the minority and “nones” would be more dominant. But it has the potential to change Western society and values.
A society that is mostly unaffiliated with a religion – that does not align itself even nominally with a church – will have a totally different approach to questions of politics and public values. First, this type of society will be less tolerant of:
- Religion in public life
- Religiously motivated arguments (well beyond Roe v. Wade)
- Prayer in school
- Teaching about religion in schools
- Public support of secular projects managed by religious organizations
Second, U.S. culture, mainly popular culture, will be divorced from the use of religious language and symbolism. A more secular population will not relate to even religious terminology. Our popular culture is not only a venue for changing minds, but it is also a way to show common ground. Removing religion from it will remove it also from our society’s cultural story.
There is also scope for additional research. For example, as a scholar of comparative religion, I am curious to know why religious education in the U.S. in the last few decades has failed to maintain people’s religious identity. This type of question requires extensive research, and I presume we will see many graduate students in the coming decade focusing on that type of research.
However, it is hard to reliably predict the future. For instance, a statistician like those scholars at the Pew Research Center cannot predict a religious revival.
Who knows what will happen in the next 20 years as far as the religious landscape of America is concerned? But even if there is a religious revival of some sort, this research should interest any Americans who care about the future of this society, no matter where they personally fall on the religious spectrum.
An American intellectual and self-described atheist, Barbara Ehrenreich, once explained in her book, “Living with a Wild God,” that spirituality is essential. She noted that “…I think – as I have studied – and I have studied some of the Christian mystics in preparing to write this book. And I’m not a Christian, I’m not, you know – they describe, often, an experience not unlike mine. It’s not about good or evil… I just liked that concept.
“If you could get people away from thinking of God as this person-like creature who is moral. Morality is a human thing – and some animals I would say, too. But I’d get away from that completely. Think of something wild, something that we really don’t have the terms and the categories to understand.”
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