America’s Changing Religious Identity

Executive Summary

The American religious landscape is undergoing a dramatic transformation. White Christians, once the dominant religious group in the U.S., now account for fewer than half of all adults living in the country. Today, fewer than half of all states are majority white Christian. 

• White Christians now account for fewer than half of the public. 
• White evangelical Protestants are in decline—along with white mainline Protestants and white Catholics.
• America’s youngest religious groups are all non-Christian. 
• The Catholic Church is experiencing an ethnic transformation.
• There are 20 states in which no religious group comprises a greater share of residents than the religiously unaffiliated. 
• No state is less religiously diverse than Mississippi. 
• No state has a greater degree of religious diversity than New York.
• White Christians have become a minority in the Democratic Party. White evangelical Protestants remain the dominant religious force in the GOP.