The share of Americans who describe themselves as Christian has dropped 12 percentage points in the last decade, a precipitous decline across denominations led by a millennial generation that is far less likely than their parents or grandparents to spend Sundays in the pews.
A new poll conducted by the Pew Research Center finds 65 percent of American adults identified themselves as Christian in 2018 or 2019, down from 77 percent in 2009. At the same time, the share of adults who describe themselves as religiously unaffiliated grew from 17 percent to 26 percent.
The decline, as in so many other societal trends, is led by the millennial generation, just 49 percent of whom describe themselves as Christian. That’s a drop of 16 percentage points from a decade ago, when the oldest millennials were in their mid-20’s.
Just over a third of millennials say they attend religious services at least once a month.
Virtually every demographic has become less likely to identify as Christian in the last decade, the Pew data show. The drop is evident among both men and women, across racial lines, across regional and educational lines — and even across partisan lines. Democrats are now 17 percentage points less likely to call themselves Christian, and the share of Republicans who identify as such is down seven points.