Christianity is decreasing at a rapid rate, according to a new study done by the Pew Research Center, but projections show religious practices around other parts of the world are rising.
In Pew Research Center telephone surveys conducted in 2018 and 2019, 65 percent of American adults described themselves as Christians when asked about their religion, down 12 percentage points over the past decade. Meanwhile, the religiously unaffiliated share of the population, consisting of people who describe their religious identity as atheist, agnostic or “nothing in particular,” now stands at 26 percent, up from 17 percent in 2009.
As of 2010 approximately one third of the global population was affiliated with Christianity, making it the largest religion in the world with Islam placing second. Within 40 years, the Pew Research Center projects, the Muslim population will narrow the margin and almost equal the Christian population.
As of today, over 2.2 million or 31 percent of the total global population identify with the Christian religion, making it the largest religion in the world, according to Pew-Templeton. However, surveys done in 2018 and 2019 show that Christianity is 12% lower in America than a decade ago.
Subsets of Christianity, including Catholicism and Protestantism, are rapidly decreasing as well.
The change in religious practice rates are the result of people switching faith, fertility rates and youth population sizes, according to Pew.
Another significant factor in the lower numbers for Christianity in America is people who refer to themselves as “religious nones.” Religious nones do not affiliate themselves with any sort of religion, and include agnostics and atheists.
Within the past decade, religious nones, agnostics and atheists have risen 9 percent, totaling to about 26 percent of Americans.