Why some younger evangelicals are leaving the faith

The Conversation Logo

The extent to which the number of white evangelicals have declined in the United States has been laid bare in a new report by the Public Religion Research Institute’s  2020 Census on American Religion.

The institute’s study found that only 14% of Americans identify as white evangelical today. This is a drastic decline since 2006, when America’s religious landscape was composed of 23% white evangelicals, as the report notes.

Along with a decline in white evangelicalism, the data indicates a stabilized increase in the number of those who no longer identify as religious at all. Scholars of religion refer to this group as “nones,” and they make up about a quarter of the American population. These statistics are even more drastic when considering age. In short, older Americans are much more religious than younger Americans, while millennials are likely to not practice or identify with religion. Continue reading.