PRRI Poll: More Americans Religiously Unaffiliated

(Dreamstime)

Americans increasingly say they are “unaffiliated” with any religion or are rejecting religion altogether, according to a new survey.

More than a quarter (26%) of Americans consider themselves unaffiliated with a religion, a 5-point increase from 2013, according to nonpartisan Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI) poll results released Thursday.

The survey found that nearly 1 in 5 (18%) Americans left a religious tradition to become religiously unaffiliated. Of those, 35% previously were Catholic and 35% were mainline/non-evangelical Protestant.

In 2016, approximately three in 10 people who left their religion cited negative teaching about or treatment of gay and lesbian people as an important factor in their choice to disaffiliate. In 2023, that number rose to 47%.

Among unaffiliated Americans younger than 30, “60% cite the treatments of LGBTQ as a reason they stop going to church,” PRRI CEO Melissa Deckman told Axios.

Deckman added that the rise of Christian nationalism and GOP state legislators pushing anti-LGBTQ+ laws also is leading young people to turn away from organized religion.

The numbers of both atheists and agnostics have doubled since 2013, increasing from 2% to 4% and from 2% to 5%, respectively.

Only 53% of Americans now say that religion is important in their lives, down from 72% in 2013.

That finding could be important to conservatives who have focused on pro-life initiatives and social issues.

Among Christian groups, Catholics are seeing the largest declines in affiliation of any religious group.

In 2023, 18% of white Americans said they grew up Catholic, but a third of them said they no longer identify as members of the church.

Among 12% of Hispanic Americans who said they were raised Catholic, a third said they no longer identify as such.

The reason given by 67% of religiously unaffiliated Americans for leaving their faith tradition is that they stopped believing in their religion’s teachings.

Interestingly, the percentage of Americans who identify as white evangelical Protestants appears to have stabilized after years of decline, the PRRI survey found.

The PRRI survey was conducted online Nov. 16-Dec. 7 among 5,627 adults.