The Religious Bifurcation Splitting America’s Future

One of the largest cultural shifts in the last hundred years has occurred in the world of American religion. In the early 1970s, just one in twenty adults in the United States told survey administrators that they had no religious...

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One of the largest cultural shifts in the last hundred years has occurred in the world of American religion. In the early 1970s, just one in twenty adults in the United States told survey administrators that they had no religious affiliation. Over the next two decades, that number would imperceptibly creep up to 7 percent, but few outside the academic community paid much attention to the rise of the “nones.” However, around 1991, the slope of that line became impossible to ignore. 

Between 1991 and 1998, the share of Americans with no religious affiliation doubled from 7 percent to 14 percent. By 2012, nearly one in five respondents indicated that they were “nones” in the General Social Survey. The trend line continued its upward trajectory, and, by 2021, almost 30 percent of Americans claimed no religious affiliation. Among members of Generation Z (those born in 1996 or later), the percentage of “nones” now exceeds 40 percent. Thus, there’s ample reason to believe that the rise of the “nones” will continue for the next several decades.

Many believe that this data points to the conclusion that religion is receding in the United States and that we will soon become a country resembling Western European nations like Denmark or Sweden, where churches have become museums and faith has no place in the public square. However, a closer examination provides reason to reject this hypothesis. Just because a significant portion of Americans have left houses of worship over the last three decades does not mean that religion is fading in the United States. In fact, the opposite may be true.

Consider this simple fact. In 1972, 17 percent of all American adults were classified as evangelicals based on the answers they gave to a series of religious affiliation questions in the General Social Survey. By 2018, that same share had risen to 23 percent. In the early 1970s, there were approximately thirty-five million American evangelicals, and that number had surged to seventy-five million by the late 2010s. The “nones” are rising, but not at the expense of American evangelicalism. In reality, evangelicalism in the United States may never be stronger than it is right now.

In the 1970s, about 45 percent of evangelicals reported attending religious services nearly every week or more. According to data collected in 2021, that share has now risen to above 60 percent. So, not only have evangelicals grown in size by forty million over the last several decades, but the overall religious devotion of those evangelicals has also never been higher. We’ve seen other religious traditions, such as Black and mainline Protestants, hold steady when it comes to their religious attendance. A growing number of people are leaving religion behind, but, for those who remain attached to a religious tradition, devotion has never been stronger.

One outlier in the previous graph, however, is Roman Catholics. In the 1970s, about half of all Catholics reported attending Mass nearly every week or more. That percentage has plummeted over the last several decades. Currently, only a quarter of Catholics are weekly Mass attenders, which is the lowest percentage of any Christian group. In the 1970s, Catholics were easily the most religiously engaged. But there is emerging anecdotal evidence that suggests a resurgence in some types of Catholicism. In the last few years, there has been an explosion in parishes that offer the traditional Latin Mass, and reports indicate that the number of participants in this expression of the Catholic faith has grown rapidly, while attendance at contemporary Masses continues to wane.

This points to a reality that scholars of religion have been aware of for decades: demanding religious traditions tend to retain adherents and attract new members at higher rates than religious groups that do not require much from their followers. What this means is that groups with stringent rules about marriage, family, worship, and dress, such as Hasidic Judaism, are growing rapidly. Another rapidly expanding group is Pentecostal Christianity; certain sects prescribe that women maintain long hair and wear skirts. One potential explanation for the success of these groups is their insularity. Many adherents are at their house of worship on a daily basis, which affords members a tremendous opportunity to build social bonds with other members of the congregation. These groups thrive because members are taught to lean on each other for their needs and to reject larger society.

On the other hand, the religious traditions that have seen the most dramatic declines in the last several decades are the ones that do not create a clear separation between them and the rest of the world. In the late 1950s, over half of all Americans were members of a mainline Protestant church, e.g., United Methodist, Episcopalian, and the United Church of Christ. The leaders of these denominations once had tremendous influence on more than spiritual matters; they were able to shape culture and politics in their own image.

The collapse of the mainline, however, is unmistakable; just take a look at the membership records of the largest denominations. The Disciples of Christ has seen its numbers decline by 74 percent since 1987. For the Epsicopalians, the drop is 38 percent. It’s 43 percent for the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America. In total, the mainline has lost over ten million members in just the last three decades. Why has this happened? Some scholars claim that these denominations made religion too easy. They did not require members to set themselves apart from the world; instead, they encouraged them to treat their neighbors more generously and be better parents while neglecting to implore attenders to have their lives radically changed by their faith in Jesus Christ.

Thus, over the last thirty years, Americans who were marginally attached to religion have slowly slipped away from houses of worship and become part of the increasing number of “nones.” In essence, American religion has gone through a purifying process, much like a chef making a reduction on a stovetop. What began as a large pot of liquid with some spices and seasonings has reduced to half the volume but with a much more concentrated flavor. Those who were lukewarm about their attachment to religion have evaporated from the pot, leaving only the most devout believers with the strongest attachment to their faith.

In the end, what the United States will be left with in a decade or two is a tremendous amount of religious polarization. The share of Americans with no religious affiliation will likely reach 40 percent — the highest on record. But, on the religious side of the spectrum, there will be increasing numbers of evangelicals, traditional Catholics, Latter-day Saints, Orthodox Christians, and Muslims who have never been more devoted to their faith. This will inevitably make governing more difficult. The United States Constitution prescribes a system of governance that is predicated on compromise. Even in the best of times, securing an agreement among Congress and the president for a major policy change can be nearly impossible. 

The future of American society will be a constant state of conflict between a large, organized group of individuals who want to reshape the United States in alignment with their religious values and a growing number of Americans who pay no heed to religious texts or traditional values. Ultimately, the cultural shift that may put an end to the American experiment could be the growing phenomenon of religious polarization.

Ryan Burge is a statistician of American religion and a Baptist pastor.

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