A years-long decline in the U.S. Christian population appears to have subsided, at least temporarily, according to a new survey.
The Pew Research Center’s latest Religious Landscape Study found that the share of U.S. adults who identify as Christian has remained relatively stable since 2019, hovering between 60 percent and 64 percent.
While that figure marks a 16-point drop from 2007, it also represents a slight bump from 2022.
The portion of the population that identifies with other religions has ticked up slightly since 2007, from 4.7 percent to 7.1 percent.
Meanwhile, the religiously unaffiliated share (29 percent) appears to have plateaued in recent years after a long period of sustained growth.
The survey marks the third in the Pew Research Center’s series of Religious Landscape studies.
The nonpartisan think tank started the project in 2007, surveying more than 35,000 people across all 50 states about their religious affiliations, beliefs, and practices, as well as their social and political views.
The second study was conducted in 2014.
To fill in the gaps between studies, the center incorporated annual data from the random-digit-dialing phone surveys it conducted until 2019 and the National Public Opinion Reference Survey it has administered since.
A breakdown of the survey’s Christian respondents shows that a plurality (40 percent) of everyone in the survey identified as Protestants. The second largest category was Catholics, at 19 percent, and 3 percent identified with other groups.
Of those who identified with other religions, 2 percent were Jewish, while Muslims, Buddhists, and Hindus represented 1 percent each.
As for the unaffiliated, 5 percent were atheists, 6 percent agnostics, and 19 percent identified as “nothing in particular.”
Another key finding of the survey was that a large majority of U.S. citizens ascribes to some spiritual beliefs.
For instance, 86 percent said they believed every person has a soul or spirit; 83 percent espoused a belief in God or a universal spirit; 79 percent said there was something spiritual beyond the natural world; and 70 percent said they believed in heaven, hell, or both.
Still, spiritual divisions were evident between demographic groups.
Women proved to be more religious than men when measured by such metrics as prayer frequency and belief in a higher power, and Republicans were more religious than Democrats.
Young adults also presented as far less religious than those of older generations—a fact that the study’s researchers noted could portend an eventual decline.
“It is inevitable that older generations will decline in size as their members gradually die,” the researchers wrote in their report. “We also know that the younger cohorts succeeding them are much less religious.
“This means that, for lasting stability to take hold in the U.S. religious landscape, something would need to change.”
That change could be on the horizon.
He has also vowed to create a Presidential Commission on Religious Liberty.
“We have to bring religion back,” he told lawmakers on Capitol Hill. “We have to bring it back much stronger. It’s one of the biggest problems that we’ve had over the last fairly long period of time.”
While the president’s Christian faith is not new, he has said that surviving an assassination attempt at a Pennsylvania rally in July 2024 reinforced his belief in God.
Reliving that moment at the prayer breakfast, he noted that if he had not turned his head at the last moment, the bullet that pierced the upper part of his right ear likely would have killed him.
“God did that,” Trump said of his miraculous survival, adding that the experience “changed something” in him.
“I believed in God, but I feel much more strongly about it,” he said.
