What Percent of the Population Are Born Again

A parishioner sits in a pew at St. Paul's Methodist Church in Denver in 2016. (John Leyba/The Denver Post/Getty Images)

By Gregory A. Smith

Pew Research Center conducted this analysis as office of a continuing endeavour to track changes in the U.S. religious landscape, including shifts in Americans' religious affiliation and observance. To practice this, researchers looked at a variety of surveys conducted by the Eye since 2007.

The most recent data is from the Heart's 2020 and 2021 National Public Stance Reference Surveys (NPORS). These surveys were conducted online and by mail service amidst a nationally representative group of respondents recruited using address-based sampling, which ensures that nearly all U.S. adults accept a chance of choice. This year'due south study was conducted from May 29 to Aug. 25, 2021.

Estimates from 2007 and 2014 come from Pew Research Eye's Religious Landscape Studies, which surveyed roughly 35,000 U.S. adults via telephone each year. All other estimates from 2019 and earlier come from other random-digit-dial phone surveys, mostly the Center's political surveys. All data is weighted to exist representative of the U.Due south. adult population by gender, race, ethnicity, age, instruction and other categories.

For more, run into the methodology, which includes the questions used in this written report.

The secularizing shifts evident in American order then far in the 21st century show no signs of slowing. The latest Pew Enquiry Center survey of the religious composition of the United States finds the religiously unaffiliated share of the public is 6 percentage points higher than it was five years ago and 10 points higher than a decade agone.

Christians proceed to make upwards a majority of the U.Southward. populace, but their share of the developed population is 12 points lower in 2021 than information technology was in 2011. In add-on, the share of U.S. adults who say they pray on a daily ground has been trending downward, as has the share who say religion is "very important" in their lives.

Currently, about three-in-ten U.S. adults (29%) are religious "nones" – people who depict themselves every bit atheists, agnostics or "naught in particular" when asked about their religious identity. Self-identified Christians of all varieties (including Protestants, Catholics, members of the Church building of Jesus Christ of Latter-twenty-four hour period Saints, and Orthodox Christians) brand upward 63% of the adult population. Christians at present outnumber religious "nones" by a ratio of a little more than two-to-one. In 2007, when the Center began asking its current question nigh religious identity, Christians outnumbered "nones" past nearly five-to-one (78% vs. 16%).

The recent declines within Christianity are full-bodied among Protestants. Today, 40% of U.S. adults are Protestants, a grouping that is broadly defined to include nondenominational Christians and people who describe themselves as "simply Christian" forth with Baptists, Methodists, Lutherans, Presbyterians and members of many other denominational families. The Protestant share of the population is downwardly four percent points over the terminal five years and has dropped 10 points in x years.

By comparison, the Catholic share of the population, which had ticked downward between 2007 and 2014, has held relatively steady in recent years. As of 2021, 21% of U.S. adults describe themselves equally Catholic, identical to the Catholic share of the population in 2014.

Within Protestantism, evangelicals continue to outnumber those who are not evangelical. Currently, lx% of Protestants say "yes" when asked whether they call back of themselves equally a "born-again or evangelical Christian," while 40% say "no" or decline to answer the question.

This pattern exists among both White and Black Protestants. Amongst White Protestants, 58% at present say "yep" when asked whether they think of themselves equally born-once more or evangelical Christians, compared with 42% who say "no" (or turn down to answer the question). Among Black Protestants, evangelicals outnumber non-evangelicals by 2-to-ane (66% vs. 33%).

Overall, both evangelical and non-evangelical Protestants have seen their shares of the population pass up as the percentage of U.Southward. adults who identity with Protestantism has dropped. Today, 24% of U.S. adults depict themselves every bit built-in-again or evangelical Protestants, down six percentage points since 2007. During the same period, there as well has been a six-point decline in the share of adults who are Protestant but not born-again or evangelical (from 22% to 16%).

These are among the cardinal findings of the latest National Public Opinion Reference Survey (NPORS), conducted by Pew Research Center from May 29 to Aug. 25, 2021. NPORS is an annual survey (first washed in 2020) conducted online and on paper (past postal service) among a nationally representative group of respondents selected using address-based sampling from the U.South. Post'southward delivery sequence file. The Middle uses NPORS to produce criterion estimates for several characteristics of the U.S. population, including Americans' political and religious affiliations. Readers interested in boosted details about NPORS can find them in the May 2021 report "How Pew Enquiry Center Uses Its National Public Opinion Reference Survey (NPORS)."

The 2021 NPORS besides asked respondents how oft they pray and how important religion is in their lives. Today, fewer than half of U.S. adults (45%) say they pray on a daily basis. By contrast, nigh six-in-10 (58%) reported praying daily in the 2007 Religious Landscape Study, as did 55% in the 2014 Mural Written report. Roughly 1-third of U.S. adults (32%) now say they seldom or never pray, up from eighteen% who said this in 2007.

The long-term trend in the share of U.S. adults who say religion is an important part of their lives is a bit more difficult to measure precisely. Whereas indicators of religious identity and frequency of prayer produced by self-administered surveys (similar the NPORS) can be direct compared with estimates produced by interviewer-administered surveys (like the Center's earlier telephone surveys), self-administered surveys may produce slightly lower estimates of religion'due south importance compared with interviewer-administered surveys. (For additional discussion of whether and how religious measures from telephone surveys can exist compared with those from self-administered surveys, see "Measuring Religion in Pew Enquiry Middle's American Trends Panel.")

Still, the available information indicates that Americans are growing less religious by this measure, too. Random-digit-punch (RDD) phone surveys conducted in 2017 and 2019 found fewer U.S. adults maxim religion is "very important" in their lives compared with previous phone polls. And the 2021 NPORS finds that 41% of U.Southward. adults at present say religion is "very important" in their lives, four points lower than the 2020 NPORS and substantially lower than all of the Center'south before RDD readings on this question.

This analysis compares results from surveys conducted using different "modes" of data collection. Estimates from 2009-2019 are based on random-digit-dial (RDD) phone surveys, an interviewer-administered manner in which a alive person asks questions over the telephone. Estimates from 2020 and 2021 are based on surveys conducted online and past mail amid respondents recruited via address-based sampling, a self-administered mode in which the respondent answers questions in writing, either on paper or online.

Previous studies indicate that Pew Research Eye's estimates of religious identity and prayer frequency derived from self-administered surveys can be directly compared with estimates from interviewer-administered surveys. The case is a flake less clear with respect to estimates of religion's importance; self-administered surveys may produce slightly lower estimates of the share of people who say religion is an important office of their lives. Big reductions in the share of Americans who say religion is very important to them can be interpreted as indicators of standing decline in the country'due south religiosity, though straight comparisons should be interpreted with caution.

On the other manus, estimates of religious attendance derived from self-administered surveys are not comparable with those produced by telephone surveys. Self-administered surveys produce far lower estimates of the share of regular religious attenders than RDD surveys. Consequently, this report includes estimates of religious attendance only from the Center'due south recent self-administered surveys, without making comparisons to earlier RDD estimates.

For more details on comparison faith measures in interviewer-administered and self-administered surveys, run across the Center's 2021 report, "Measuring Organized religion in Pew Enquiry Center's American Trends Panel."

Other key findings from the 2021 NPORS include:

Roughly three-in-ten adults in the new survey (31%) say they nourish religious services at to the lowest degree one time or twice a month, including 25% who say they attend at least once a week and 7% who attend once or twice a month. These figures are similar to 2020, when 33% reported attending religious services at least once or twice a month.¹ (Unlike the data well-nigh religious identity, frequency of prayer and importance of religion, estimates of religious attendance from the NPORS – which is conducted online and on paper – are not comparable with estimates from the Middle's earlier phone polling. For a detailed analysis of how NPORS results can be compared with data from phone surveys, see the Middle's Jan 2021 report "Measuring Organized religion in Pew Enquiry Center's American Trends Panel.")
More six-in-x Blackness Protestants (63%) say they attend religious services at least once or twice a month, with monthly attendance peaking at 70% among Black evangelical Protestants. Fully 56% of White evangelical Protestants also say they attend religious services at least once a calendar month. Regular religious attendance is much less common amid U.S. Catholics (35% of whom say they attend monthly or more often) and White Protestants who are not born-again/evangelical (28%). And frequent religious attendance is almost unheard of among religious "nones," 97% of whom say they nourish a few times a year or less. (Although the NPORS includes respondents from many religious backgrounds, including Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists and others, the sample did non have enough interviews with members of these religious groups to study separately on their religious practices. However, Pew Research Center has conducted several surveys designed specifically to describe the attributes of these and other relatively pocket-size religious communities in the United States; see, for instance, "Jewish Americans in 2020" and "U.S. Muslims Concerned Most their Identify in Club, Only Continue to Believe in the American Dream.")
Eight-in-ten self-described born-again/evangelical Protestants (79%) say they pray every day, including 76% of White evangelicals and 81% of Black evangelicals. Similarly large shares of built-in-again/evangelical Protestants say organized religion is "very of import" in their lives. By comparison, far fewer Protestants who are not built-in-again/evangelical and Catholics say they pray daily and that organized religion is very important in their lives. Nigh religious "nones" say they seldom or never pray (71%) and that faith is not besides or not at all important in their lives (78%).
In addition to the 63% of U.S. adults who identify as Christians, the 2021 NPORS finds that 6% of adults identify with not-Christian faiths. This includes i% who draw themselves as Jewish, 1% who are Muslim, 1% who are Buddhist, i% who are Hindu and 2% who identify with a wide variety of other faiths. (While 1% of NPORS respondents place with Judaism equally a religion, a larger and more comprehensive Pew Research Center survey of U.S. Jews conducted in 2020 estimates that 1.seven% of U.S. adults identify as Jewish by faith.)
All the subgroups that together make upwards the religious "nones" take grown over time. In the 2021 NPORS, 4% of respondents depict themselves as atheists (up from 2% in 2011), and 5% describe themselves as agnostics (up from 3% a decade agone). One-in-five U.Due south. adults (xx%) now describe their religion as "nothing in particular," upward from 14% who said this 10 years ago.