New data from the Pew Research Center revealed that Christians in the United States may become a minority by 2070 if conditions continue in the same direction.
The British Guardian newspaper said that the center conducted the research to predict how the religious landscape in the United States would change during the next fifty years, and asked several questions, including: “What if Christians continue to leave religion at the same rate observed in recent years?, What if the pace of religious transformation continues in The acceleration?, What if the shift stops but other demographic trends persist such as immigration, births and deaths at current rates?” The center modeled four hypothetical scenarios.
The first scenario, not altering the assumptions, assumes that Christians will retain their majority until 2070. But in this scenario, the Center projects that the proportion of Christians will continue to decline by 10 percentage points over the next 50 years, mainly because Christians are much older than others.
Scenario Two, Continuous Transformation, Christians will lose their majority but will remain the largest American religious group in 2070.
If the conversion among young Americans continues at recent rates, Christians will decline as a share of the population by a few percentage points per decade in 2070, 46% of Americans will identify as Christian, making Christianity pluralistic — the most common religious identity — but no longer A majority,” noting that it will not exceed the percentage of people who do not belong to a religion, as it is expected that their percentage will reach 41%.
The third scenario is an acceleration of religious conversion, with non-religious becoming the largest group in 2070 but not a majority, assuming that “brakes are applied” to keep Christians from falling below 50%.
“If the pace of change initially accelerates before age 30 and then remains steady, Christians will lose their majority status by 2050, when they will be 47 percent of the US population versus 42 percent non-religious,” the center said.
For the latter scenario, Christians will not be in the majority by 2045, assuming an acceleration of conversion rates before the 30th. As a result, by 2055, non-religious people will be the largest group in the country at 46%, ahead of Christians at 43%.
The center said: “While the scenarios presented in this report vary in the extent of religious affiliation they expect, they all show that Christians continue to shrink as a share of the US population, even under the counter-assumption that all conversion has come to a halt in 2020. “.
The center noted that in all scenarios, the number of non-Christians would grow twice, to represent 12% to 13% of the US population.