The 2024 PRRI Census of Religion

Religion Stories Behind the Data

This past week, we released our latest annual update to the PRRI Census of American Religion, which provides a bird’s eye view of the nation’s religious picture based on interviews with a random sample of 40,000 Americans. Here’s my take on what our findings tell us about the state of American religion today.

The jury is still out on whether the religious “nones” are plateauing as part of the American religious landscape.

Our 2024 Census shows that 28.1% of Americans identify as religiously unaffiliated, which is a new peak in our data, rising from 27.4% last year. This finding complicates the narrative that, as The New York Times puts it, “America’s secularization is on pause for now.”

What we can say with more certainty is that the growth of the religiously unaffiliated is slowing down. As the figure below shows, there was a much sharper rise in the percentage of American “nones” from 2006 roughly through the early part of the global Covid pandemic. Whether we see continued slow, yet steady, growth in American nones, or whether their numbers plateau, will be something we monitor closely in the future.

(For more on why Americans leave organized religion, see our Religious Change in America report.)

The number of white Christians continues to decline, albeit more slowly in the past few years.

In 2008, when Barack Obama was elected President, about 54% of Americans identified as white and Christian. Today, our data show that roughly 4 in 10 Americans are white and Christian. Much like the story with the religiously unaffiliated, the declines in the three major groups of white Christians — evangelical Protestants, mainline or non-evangelical Protestants, and Catholics — have slowed over the past few years.

The larger decline of white Christians in the past few decades is linked to growing numbers of Americans who have become religiously unaffiliated, certainly, but also to demographic change in America, as Americans have become more racially and ethnically diverse. As demographer William Frey of Brookings chronicles, 79% of the US population in 1980 identified as white in the US Census; by the 2020 Census, that number fell to 58%.

As we witness the remarkable selection of the first American Pope, we don’t see any growth in the numbers of Catholics in the past decade.

Our 2024 Census finds that a little more than half of American Catholics are white (55%), 37% are Hispanic, and 8% are Asian, Black, or multiracial. The diversity of the Catholic church, in part, is linked to the fact that Catholics are more likely than other Americans to be immigrants or be children of immigrants.

A decade ago, 12% of Americans were white and Catholic — a finding that our latest Census largely replicates. Similarly, the percentage of Americans who are Hispanic Catholics has also largely stayed the same in the past decade, at about 8%. We haven’t seen any real growth in Catholic identity in the U.S. population in quite a while.

Our Religious Change in America survey found that compared with other major religious groups in America, Catholics continue to lose more members than they gain, though retention rates were somewhat higher among Hispanic Catholics than white Catholics. In fact, 11% of Americans can be classified as former Catholics. Whether an American Pope may help the American church grow its numbers in the future will be fascinating to watch.

Younger Americans are not finding religion and remain more likely than older Americans to identify as religiously unaffiliated.

A rash of news stories declares that Gen Z is finding religion, particularly as they hunger for more social connection in an age when many realize that phone-base connections have begun to ring hollow.

Yet we find that the group most likely to identify as religiously unaffiliated are Americans aged 18-29 — and increasingly so. The 2013 PRRI Census of American Religion found that 32% of young Americans classified themselves as a religious none; last year, we found that that number rose to 38%.

Notably, the decline in religious affiliation among the youngest Americans is largely a function of young women leaving religion. The PRRI Census of American Religion shows that in 2013, 35% of young men (ages 18-29) said they were religiously unaffiliated, which has largely gone unchanged in the past decade. Yet young women (ages 18-29) have increasingly shed religious labels over that same time period. In 2013, 29% of young women had no religious affiliation; by 2024, it was 40%. In contrast, young men’s affiliation with religion has not changed.

The political parties continue to look very different religiously – and offer clear insight into how ethno-religious divides shape our politics today.

One of my all-time favorite PRRI figures juxtaposes the religious make-up of the political parties compared with different age categories. As you can see below, the religious bases of the Republican and the Democratic Party could not be more different.

Today, roughly two-thirds of Republicans are white and Christian, with 3 in 10 Republicans identifying as white evangelical Protestants. Trump’s support among white evangelicals, in particular, shows no sign of abating, as our recent survey chronicling American attitudes 100 days into Trump’s presidency shows: 76% approve of the job Trump is doing as President — significantly higher than any other religious group in the United States.

In stark contrast, just 22% of Democrats are white and Christian. Instead, the Democratic Party draws significantly more support from Christians of color, religious minorities and the religiously unaffiliated — groups that we find consistently embrace political views separate from white Christians. While 38% of Democrats do not affiliate with any religion, it is important to note that a solid majority of Democrats are, in fact, people of faith.

This figure is most compelling in its portrayal of how the ethno-religious bases of both party are linked to the past and future of America. The religious and racial makeup of the GOP is firmly grounded demographically among the oldest American cohort, while the Democratic base looks more like the religion and racial makeup of the youngest group of Americans. While we can’t assume that demography is destiny for the Democratic Party, the above chart clearly demonstrates the challenges the GOP faces in expanding its base support of voters.