ARIS 2008 Report: Highlights

The ARIS 2008 survey was carried out

during February-November 2008 and

collected answers from 54,461 respondents

who were questioned in English or

Spanish.

The American population self-identifies as

predominantly Christian but Americans

are slowly becoming less Christian.

• 86% of American adults identified as

Christians in 1990 and 76% in 2008.

• The historic Mainline churches and

denominations have experienced

the steepest declines while the non-

denominational Christian identity

has been trending upward particularly

since 2001.

• The challenge to Christianity in

the U.S. does not come from other

religions but rather from a rejection of

all forms of organized religion.

34% of American adults considered

themselves “Born Again or Evangelical

Christians” in 2008.

The U. S. population continues to show

signs of becoming less religious, with

one out of every five Americans failing to

indicate a religious identity in 2008.

• The “Nones” (no stated religious

preference, atheist, or agnostic)

continue to grow, though at a much

slower pace than in the 1990s, from

8.2% in 1990, to 14.1% in 2001, to

15.0% in 2008.

• Asian Americans are substantially

more likely to indicate no religious

identity than other racial or ethnic

groups.

One sign of the lack of attachment of

Americans to religion is that 27% do not

expect a religious funeral at their death.

Based on their stated beliefs rather than

their religious identification in 2008,

70% of Americans believe in a personal

God, roughly 12% of Americans are

atheist (no God) or agnostic (unknowable

or unsure), and another 12% are deistic

(a higher power but no personal God).

America’s religious geography has been

transformed since 1990. Religious

switching along with Hispanic

immigration has significantly changed

the religious profile of some states and

regions. Between 1990 and 2008, the

Catholic population proportion of the

New England states fell from 50% to

36% and in New York it fell from 44%

to 37%, while it rose in California from

29% to 37% and in Texas from 23%

to 32%.

Overall the 1990-2008 ARIS time

series shows that changes in religious

self-identification in the first decade of

the 21st century have been moderate in

comparison to the 1990s, which was a

period of significant shifts in the religious

composition of the United States.