In 1741, Jonathan Edwards, a young preacher, described the spiritual condition of American Christians as precarious, likening them to individuals standing “on slippery, declining ground, on the edge of a pit.” He observed that believers prioritized wealth, violated the Sabbath, questioned predestination, and believed good deeds alone could secure salvation. His vivid sermon, “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God,” vividly portrayed sinners dangling over hellfire like spiders over a flame. This terrifying imagery ignited the Great Awakening, a revival that reshaped Christian faith throughout the 18th century.
Were Edwards alive today, he might view the latest Pew Research Center analysis of U.S. religious trends as a continuation of the decline he once decried. The report matter-of-factly states that American Christians “keep leaving religion” and warns that if current trends persist, “Christians could make up less than half of the U.S. population within a few decades.”
The report, “Modeling the Future of Religion in America,” released in September 2022 as part of the Pew-Templeton Global Religious Futures Project, paints a stark picture. In the early 1990s, nine out of 10 American adults identified as Christian. Over the last three decades, however, “large numbers of Americans have left Christianity to join the growing ranks of U.S. adults who describe their religious identity as atheist, agnostic, or nothing in particular.”
For years, polls have chronicled America’s declining religiosity. Pew’s forward-looking analysis has heightened awareness of this shift. Christianity Today noted the significance of these findings, commenting, “If you’re trying to predict the future religious landscape in America, according to Pew, the question is not whether Christianity will decline—it’s how fast and how far.”
To explore potential futures, Pew researchers developed eight scenarios modeling how religion in the U.S. might evolve. These projections are not predictions but hypothetical outcomes based on varying assumptions about religious affiliation and switching. In every scenario, Christianity’s share of the U.S. population declines. Depending on whether religious switching continues, accelerates, or ceases entirely, Christians could comprise anywhere from 54% to 35% of Americans by 2070.
Unlike previous global projections, which covered regions like Eastern Europe and sub-Saharan Africa, this analysis focuses exclusively on the U.S. Alan Cooperman, Pew’s director of religion research, highlighted the unprecedented depth of this study: “What we’ve done this time is draw on the enormous amount of fine-grained data we have on the dynamics of religious change in the U.S.”
A key factor in these projections is the rate at which U.S. parents pass their religion to their children by age 13 and the rates of religious switching—particularly during ages 15 to 29, when disaffiliation commonly occurs. Pew’s research team modeled various scenarios to see what would happen if switching rates remained constant, accelerated, or hit certain limits.
One scenario envisions a world where no Americans switched religious identities after 2020. In this case, Christians would still form a slim majority (54%) of the U.S. population in 2070. More realistic scenarios, however, show sharper declines:
- Status Quo: If switching rates remain constant—31% of young adult Christians disaffiliate while 21% of “nones” convert to Christianity—Christians would make up 46% of Americans in 2070.
- Moderate Acceleration: If more Christians disaffiliate before age 30 and fewer “nones” convert—but switching is capped so that no more than 50% of Christians leave—Christians would constitute 39% of the population in 2070.
- Unlimited Switching: If switching rates continue rising without limits, Christians could shrink to 35% of Americans by 2070.
Researchers also explored four additional scenarios that modified factors like intergenerational religious transmission, fertility rates, immigration, and switching after age 30. These “experiments” provided insights but had minimal impact on the overarching pattern of Christianity’s decline.
David Voas, a demographer and sociologist at University College London, praised the report for its rigor. “The first thing you note is the thoroughness of the analysis,” he remarked. “They’ve used the most complete scenario-building you can imagine, trying out all the main variations we find remotely plausible about these things, from differential fertility to religious switching to migration.” Voas found the results compelling, noting they captured the most likely trajectories for America’s religious future.
Conrad Hackett, Pew’s associate director of research and senior demographer, acknowledged that previous projections underestimated the growth of the religiously unaffiliated, or “nones.” The earlier projections, included in the 2015 global report “The Future of World Religions: Population Growth Projections, 2010-2050,” could not deeply analyze individual countries like the U.S. Hackett explained, “It’s not feasible to do eight scenarios for every country when you’re studying nearly two hundred countries. But for the U.S., we had the data, and we knew it would be interesting.”
As expected, the 2022 analysis yielded significantly different projections. The 2015 report predicted that two-thirds of Americans would remain Christian in 2050. By contrast, the latest study suggests that under the most likely scenario, only 47% of Americans will identify as Christian by midcentury, dropping further to 39% by 2070.
Nearly three centuries after Edwards’ fiery sermon, these findings might leave him disheartened. Yet, Pew researchers caution against assuming inevitability in these trends. Social upheavals, such as armed conflicts, social movements, rising authoritarianism, natural disasters, or economic crises, could alter the trajectory of religious affiliation in unexpected ways.
While no new Great Awakening seems imminent, the authors leave open the possibility of unforeseen shifts. “New patterns of religious change could emerge at any time,” they write, acknowledging the unpredictable nature of societal transformations.
Ultimately, the report underscores the fluidity of American religious identity, shaped by individual choices, cultural dynamics, and broader historical forces. Whether the decline of Christianity accelerates or stabilizes, its trajectory will continue to reflect the complex interplay of faith, identity, and social change.