Religious Landscape Survey

The Pew Forum released a big report on Monday based on a survey they did of the religious landscape in the U.S. Interesting facts that stood out to me:

About 10% of U.S. adults are ex-Catholics, whether they have moved to other traditions or the "unaffiliated" group. Catholics who leave the church, however, are replaced, in part by converts (2.6%), but even more so by immigrants, who are, as a group, more likely to be Catholic than the overall U.S. population.

The unaffiliated group is 16.1% of the adult population; twice the number (8%) who say they were unaffiliated as children. Still more fascinating is that half of those who were raised as unaffiliated are now affiliated (that's 4% of the population). So 3/4 of those who are unaffiliated have left some religious tradition. AND, not too surprising, 25% of those age 18-29 say that they are not affiliated with any particular religious tradition. This makes a lot of sense to me, given that I always feel like the people I know are, numerically, less religious than the statistics I've seen.

I do wonder, if this study were done longitudinally, if 18-29 year olds would always be less religiously affiliated than other age groups. It seems to me, anecdotally, that a lot of people return to church after a decade or so of absence when they have kids.

I find all kinds of demographic profiles interesting... but the incredible religious diversity in the U.S. is one of my favorite things about this country.