Critical Thinking Series: The Rise of the Nones: Declining Religious Affiliation and Participation in America & Western World

The religious landscape of the USA is and has been changing rapidly. In Pew Research Surveys conducted in the last few years: 63% of American adults described themselves as Christians — down 14 percentage points from a decade earlier. The percentage of people who described their religious identity as “atheist,” “agnostic” or “nothing in particular,” was 29% — up from 17% in 2009. Some mainline churches have lost 40 percent or more of their members. While enrollment in Catholic schools has been growing in much of the global south, the situation is different in developed countries. In the United States in particular, enrollment has been declining for most of the last 50 years. Why has this been happening and what are the implications?