Religion in America remains diverse and changing. In Pew Research Center’s 2023-24 Religious Landscape Study, 62% of U.S. adults identified as Christian, while 29% were religiously unaffiliated. At the same time, belief is broader than formal affiliation: 83% believed in God or a universal spirit, and 44% prayed at least once a day. These figures describe different dimensions of religious life, so they should not be treated as interchangeable.
Table of contents
- Religious affiliation in the United States
- Christian traditions and denominational patterns
- Religious unaffiliation and switching
- Beliefs, spirituality, and prayer
- Religious service attendance
- Age, party, and identity-group patterns
Religious affiliation in the United States
Christianity is the largest religious identity among U.S. adults. Pew’s 2023-24 Religious Landscape Study: Executive summary found that 62% of adults identified as Christian: 40% Protestant, 19% Catholic, and 3% belonging to another Christian tradition.
The religiously unaffiliated made up 29% of adults. Within that broad category, 5% identified as atheist, 6% as agnostic, and 19% described their religion as “nothing in particular.” These categories overlap in the sense that atheist and agnostic respondents are included in the larger unaffiliated total; they should not be added to the 29%.
Seven percent of U.S. adults belonged to a religion other than Christianity. Pew’s Religious identity in the United States reports that 1.7% identified as Jewish, 1.2% as Muslim, 1.1% as Buddhist, and 0.9% as Hindu in 2023-24. The remaining share of non-Christian affiliation includes other religious identities and classifications measured by the study.
The long-term direction is also clear in Pew’s comparison of Religious Landscape Studies. The Christian share declined from 78% of U.S. adults in 2007 to 62% in 2023-24. Over the same measurement points, the unaffiliated share rose from 16% to 29%, while the share identifying with religions other than Christianity increased from 4.7% to 7.1%.
Christian traditions and denominational patterns
The Christian population is not a single group. Protestant and Catholic identification both declined in Pew’s historical comparison. Protestants represented 51% of U.S. adults in 2007 and 40% in 2023-24; Catholics represented 24% in 2007 and 19% in 2023-24. These are shares of all U.S. adults, not percentages calculated only within Christianity.
Pew’s 2023-24 study recorded several additional Christian patterns. Members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints represented 2% of U.S. adults in each of the 2007, 2014, and 2023-24 studies. Orthodox Christians represented 1% in 2023-24, and fewer than 1% identified as Jehovah’s Witnesses.
Among Protestant traditions, evangelical Protestants accounted for 23% of U.S. adults in 2023-24, down from 26% in 2007. Mainline Protestants accounted for 11%, down from 18%, while historically Black Protestants accounted for 5%, down from 7%. The study’s categories are useful for showing broad patterns, but they do not describe every congregation or the beliefs of every person within a tradition.
The Religious identity in the United States report also identifies several denominational families and churches in 2023-24:
| Christian group | Share of U.S. adults |
|---|---|
| Baptists | 12% |
| Nondenominational Protestants | 7% |
| Southern Baptist Convention | 4% |
| United Methodist Church | 3% |
| National Baptist Convention, USA | 1% |
| Church of God in Christ | 1% |
Baptists were the largest Protestant denominational family at 12%. The denominational figures are nested within broader religious categories, so they should not be summed as though they were separate, non-overlapping population groups.
Religious unaffiliation and switching
Unaffiliation has grown across the three Pew Religious Landscape Studies. It rose from 16% of U.S. adults in 2007 to 23% in 2014 and 29% in 2023-24. The pattern is especially pronounced among Americans born in the 1980s: the unaffiliated share for this cohort rose from 26% in 2007 to 37% in 2023-24.
Religious identity is also fluid over the life course. Pew’s How Americans change, keep their religious identities over their lives found that 35% of U.S. adults reported a different religious identity from the one in which they were raised in 2023-24.
The same report separates movement into and out of unaffiliation. Some 12.6% of adults were raised without a religious affiliation, while 3.5% were raised unaffiliated but no longer identified that way. In the other direction, 20.2% were raised in a religion but identified as unaffiliated as adults. These figures describe respondents’ reported childhood and current identities; they do not measure every change in belief or practice.
Christian switching shows a similar imbalance in the supplied measures. In 2023-24, 21.9% of U.S. adults were raised Christian but no longer identified as Christian, while 3.6% identified as Christian after being raised in another religion or with no religion. Among adults raised Catholic, 43% no longer identified as Catholic, and 12.8% of all adults were former Catholics.
Beliefs, spirituality, and prayer
Formal affiliation does not capture the full range of religious or spiritual belief in the United States. Pew’s 2023-24 executive summary found that 86% of adults believed people have a soul or spirit in addition to their physical body. Eighty-three percent believed in God or a universal spirit, and 79% believed there is something spiritual beyond the natural world.
Beliefs about the afterlife were also common: 70% believed in heaven, hell, or both. These measures are broad and combine people who may understand spiritual ideas in very different ways. They should therefore be read as population-level belief indicators, not as a definition of a single American religious worldview.
Prayer remains a frequent practice for many adults. Forty-four percent said they prayed at least once a day in 2023-24. That percentage is lower than the shares expressing belief in God, a soul or spirit, or something beyond the natural world, illustrating why belief and practice should be reported separately.
People also described changes in their inner lives over time. Twenty-eight percent said they had become more religious over their lifetimes, while 29% said they had become less religious. A larger 43% said their spirituality had increased over their lifetimes. The wording distinguishes “religious” from “spirituality,” so these results should not be interpreted as a single trend line.
Religious service attendance
Attendance estimates depend on the question, time period, and survey source. Pew’s 2023-24 study found that 33% of U.S. adults attended religious services at least monthly. Gallup’s separate 2021-2023 aggregate found that 30% attended weekly or nearly weekly. Because “at least monthly” and “weekly or nearly weekly” are different thresholds, the two percentages are not direct substitutes.
Gallup’s longer comparison shows a decline in weekly or nearly weekly attendance. The measure was 42% in the 2000-2003 aggregate, 38% in 2011-2013, and 30% in 2021-2023. The result describes Gallup’s aggregate periods and should not be presented as a single-year estimate.
Gallup also reported differences among religious groups in its 2021-2023 aggregate:
| Group | Weekly or nearly weekly attendance |
|---|---|
| Latter-day Saint adults | 67% |
| Protestant adults | 44% |
| Muslim adults | 38% |
| Catholic adults | 33% |
| Jewish adults | 22% |
| Adults ages 18-29 | 22% |
These figures compare reported attendance within groups. They do not indicate why attendance differs, and the age figure is a population subgroup rather than a religious tradition.
Age, party, and identity-group patterns
The 2024 PRRI Census of American Religion shows meaningful differences by age. Fifty-four percent of Americans ages 18-29 identified as Christian, compared with 59% of those ages 30-49. Among adults ages 50-64, 46% identified as white Christian. Among those 65 and older, 57% identified as white Christian and 19% as Christian of color.
PRRI also reported unaffiliated shares of 38% among Americans ages 18-29, 34% among those ages 30-49, 22% among those ages 50-64, and 18% among those 65 and older. These age-group percentages come from PRRI’s 2024 census and use its classification system; they are not interchangeable with Pew’s 2023-24 estimates.
Political identity is associated with different reported religious profiles in the same PRRI source. Eighty-four percent of Republicans and 58% of Democrats identified as Christian. The figures describe the groups as measured by the survey and do not establish that party identification causes religious affiliation.
PRRI also found a difference by sexual orientation: 37% of LGBTQ Americans and 69% of straight Americans identified as Christian. Together, these figures show why a national average can conceal substantial variation by age, political identity, and social group. They also reinforce the importance of naming the source, classification, and measurement year whenever religion in America statistics are compared.