The percentage of people who call themselves Christians has been in free fall for over a decade but appears to have leveled off — at least for now, according to a major new study of religious beliefs in America.

The results don’t necessarily suggest a resurgence of Christianity but signal that a significant shift toward a more secular society in recent years has at the very least slowed, according to a new survey of nearly 37,000 Americans by the Pew Research Center.

The 2023-24 survey — the most comprehensive temperature check on religious attitudes in the United States — found that 62% of adults identify as Christians. That’s a 9-percentage-point decline since 2014, and a 16-point drop since 2007, across all regions and demographics.

“The big picture is that the long term decline ... is really across the board,” said Alan Cooperman, director of religion research at Pew Research Center. “This is a broad-based social change.”

But the survey also found that the movement away from Christianity has lost momentum. Since 2020, the number of people identifying as Christian has hovered between 60% and 64%.

“That is very stable,” said Gregory Smith, senior associate director of research at Pew Research Center.

The results of the Religious Landscape Study, conducted mostly online in a change from past years that relied on phone interviews, painted a broad portrait of religious America. The report, the third of its kind since 2007, is the largest single survey the Pew Research Center conducts. It provides authoritative data points on the size of religious groups in the U.S. since the U.S. Census Bureau does not collect information on religion.

The largest subgroups of Christians are Protestants — now 40% of U.S. adults — and Catholics, now 19%. Both groups are down significantly since 2007, but the number of Protestants has remained fairly level since 2019 and the Catholic share has been stable since 2014.

Other Christian groups (including the Greek and Russian Orthodox Churches, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Jehovah’s Witnesses and many others) make up about 3% of U.S. adults.

The study’s researchers offered some theories on the stabilization in the Christian faith. One reason could be the timing of the COVID pandemic, and heightened existential insecurity. Some researchers found that, in general, religion withers in good and steady times and prospers in hard times. If that theory is correct than one could expect that many people turned toward religion, if they already had a practice, during 2020.

“Not so much that COVID either took people who are not religious and made them religious, or took people who were religious and drove them out of religion. But that it sort of cemented — possibly, this is a theory — the level of religion that they had,” Cooperman said during a news conference.

At the same time, the religiously unaffiliated population (people who are “atheist, agnostic or nothing in particular” when it comes to religion) has plateaued after sustained growth in the last decade. They account for about 29% of the population.

“I am fascinated by the reported pause in the recent ‘secular surge,’ with the level of religious affiliation stabilizing after decades of decline,” said John Green, a professor of political science at the University of Akron. “This pattern is especially surprising given the disruptions of the pandemic.”

Green explains that politics could have played a role in the pause.

“A common explanation for the secular surge is that political controversies within religious communities contributed to disaffiliation,” he said. “If so, this pause may have come from shifts in politics, shifts in religion, or a bit of both.”

Other big takeaways include a widening of the political gulf and recent jump in the number of people who identify with a religion other than Christianity — though the number is still in single digits at 7%. Today, 1.7% of U.S. adults say they are Jewish when asked about their religion, while 1.2% of respondents are Muslim, 1.1% are Buddhist, and 0.9% are Hindu.

The survey found clear trends in political and religious beliefs. Generally speaking, Republicans called themselves highly religious. Democrats reported lower levels of engagement and belief. For example, 51% of liberals say they are religiously unaffiliated, compared to 13% of conservatives. And 37% of liberals call themselves Christians compared to a whopping 82% of conservatives.

However, Black Americans are an exception: At all levels of religiousness, most identify as Democrats or lean toward the Democratic Party.

There’s also a continued growth of nondenominational Christians. The study also shows that there are many people who are religiously observant but don’t necessarily identify with a particular denomination.

Researchers say that this could be in part because of the fact that people often choose their local congregation based on convenience rather than staying true to a strict religious doctrine. For example, someone might choose their church based on the daycare offerings or youth group.

Meanwhile, the survey found that the majority of Americans have some sort of spiritual outlook, even if they might not associated with a particular organized faith. For example, 86% of respondents agreed that people have a soul or a spirit that exists beyond their body.

“I think this is remarkable. Spirituality is not declining,” said Penny Edgell, professor of sociology at the University of Minnesota. “In fact, it’s high, it’s stable and in fact quite a few Americans have reported that their spirituality is becoming more important to them.”

Researchers in the report emphasized that the factors that have driven longer-term declines of religion are still in place. Namely, the fact that young people are far less religious than older people. Researchers pointed out that as older cohorts of highly religious people pass away, they will be replaced with those who are less religious than those before them.

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(This story was produced with financial support from Trish and Dan Bell and from donors comprising the South Florida Jewish and Muslim Communities, in partnership with Journalism Funding Partners. The Miami Herald maintains full editorial control of this work.)

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