11 Facts and Charts from PRRI's 2023 Census of American Religion

White Christian America continues to shrink, while the ranks of the religiously unaffiliated swell.

Today, PRRI released its 2023 PRRI Census of American Religion, providing an updated analysis on religious trends in America, including new, comprehensive county-level estimates on religious affiliation and diversity in the United States.

Based on a massive 500,000 interviews, the new census report reveals the shifting dynamics of American religious affiliation across geography, race and ethnicity, age, and political affiliation. Because there is no measure of religious affiliation on any U.S. Census Bureau product, the PRRI Census of American Religion is the most comprehensive resource available on religious diversity in America.

Here are 10 facts from this groundbreaking new study:

1. The trends I first documented in my 2016 book, The End of White Christian America, continue unabated. White Christian America continues to shrink, while the ranks of the unaffiliated swell. Today, only 41% of the public identifies as white, non-Hispanic and Christian, down from 54% as recently as 2008. Notably, because of sharp declines over the past two decades, white evangelical Protestants are now the same size as white mainline/non-evangelical Protestants (both 13% of the population). The face of Catholicism is changing as well, with Hispanic Catholics now approaching the number of white Catholics (8% vs. 12%).

   

   Here are the trends over the last decade for the major white Christian groups and the religiously unaffiliated. Note the dramatic rise of religiously unaffiliated Americans that accompanies the decline of white Christian groups.

   

2. Every age group has become more religiously unaffiliated over the past decade, but the largest jumps have occurred among Americans ages 30-49.

   

3. There is a striking under-50/over-50 age gap in religious affiliation. Americans under the age of 50 are far more likely than their older counterparts to be religiously unaffiliated and are far less likely to identify as white and Christian.

   Compared with the median age of all Americans (48), white Catholics are the oldest group of religious Americans, with a median age of 58, followed by Jewish Americans and white mainline/non-evangelical Protestants, whose median age is 56.  The median age of white evangelical Protestants is 54.  The median age of most other minority faiths, including Muslims, Hindus, and Latter-day Saints, as well as the religiously unaffiliated, is much lower.

   

4. Despite the stereotype that “evangelical” affiliation implies “white,” white Americans are less likely than Black, Native American, or multiracial Americans to identify as born again or evangelical. Nearly four in ten Black Americans identify as born again or evangelical, but that theological affirmation doesn’t carry the same political implications it does for white Americans.

   

5. In terms of their religious composition, self-identified Democrats look like 18-year-old America, while Republicans look like 70-year-old America. Nearly seven in ten Republicans identify as white and Christian, in a country that is only 41% white and Christian. Only about a quarter of Democrats, by contrast, identify as white and Christian. (This is one of my favorite charts).

   

6. As the country has become more religiously diverse over the last few decades, the Republican Party has remained overwhelmingly a white Christian party, while the Democratic Party has become more reflective of the country. For example, only 12% of Republicans are religiously unaffiliated, compared to 27% of the country and 33% of Democrats. But before that line feeds the “Godless liberals” talking points, note that two-thirds of Democrats remain affiliated with a religious tradition. Democrats are just affiliated with a much wider variety of religious traditions than the more monolithic Republican Party.

   

7. Counties in the Deep South states remain the least religiously diverse places in the nation. To measure religious diversity in the United States, we calculate a composite index where a score of 1 signifies complete diversity — every religious group is of equal size — and a score of 0 indicates a complete lack of diversity and one religious group comprises the entire population of a given county. The average religious diversity score by county in the U.S. is 0.615.

Religious diversity is highest in major urban centers. The most religiously diverse 10 counties in America are all in 5 states (Maryland, New York, Pennsylvania, and Massachusetts on the East Coast; plus California on the West Coast). I’m proud to say that my current home county, Montgomery County, Maryland, tops this list with a score of 0.886). Of the 10 least religiously diverse counties in America, 6 are in my home state of Mississippi, two in Alabama, and one each in Arkansas, Georgia, and South Carolina. Check out the interactive maps below.

8. White evangelical Protestants are spread across the country but are particularly concentrated in counties in the Deep and Peripheral South and up through the Appalachian Mountains into West Virginia. Part of that lack of religious diversity in the South is the dominance of white evangelical Protestants. There are three counties in Tennessee—Johnson, Campbell, and Cocke—in which two thirds or more of the residents identify as white evangelical Protestant.

9. White mainline/non-evangelical Protestants are spread across the country but are particularly concentrated in counties in the upper Midwest. Vice presidential candidate Tim Walz, a member of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America, a mainline Protestant denomination, has put this religious group more on the political map recently. Of the 10 counties with the highest concentration of white mainline Protestants, 5 are in Walz’s home state of Minnesota.

10. The growing diversity with the Catholic church is reflected in the dispersal of white Catholics (12% of population) vs. Hispanic Catholics (8% of population) in the U.S. White Catholics are predominantly concentrated in the Northeast, the Midwest, and southern Louisiana, while Hispanic Catholics are predominantly concentrated in the Southwest and West, particularly in states that share a border with Mexico.

11. Religiously unaffiliated Americans are primarily concentrated in the Western region of the United States. However, 3 of the top 10 most religiously unaffiliated counties are in Vermont: Caledonia, Addison, and Windham.

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Related on #WhiteTooLong

And check out my in-depth take on these trends in my 2016 book, The End of White Christian America, winner of the Grawemeyer Award in Religion and a book The New York Times called “Quite possibly the most illuminating text for this election year” back in 2016.