Almost three-quarters of people living in the United States identify as Christian according to the Public Religion Research Institute.
The Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI), which says they are a nonpartisan, independent research organization and is considered to be unbiased and highly factual, conducted a study of Americans, looking at their religious affiliations. In that study, they found Christianity was by far the most common religion identified.
They say 70 per cent, of all Americans identify as Christian.
Race
"The most substantial cultural and political divides are between white Christians and Christians of colour. More than four in ten Americans (44%) identify as white Christian," PRRI says in the study's summary. "Christians of colour include Hispanic Catholics (8%), Black Protestants (7%), Hispanic Protestants (4%), other Protestants of colour (4%), and other Catholics of colour (2%)
Over the past two years, between 2018 to 2020, there has been an increase in white Christians, breaking the previous downward trend. For BIPOC communities, Christianity is stable, moving only one percent in the past 14 years. One in four Americans is a BIPOC Christian.
"In 2020, around one in four Americans were Christians of colour (26%). This share is relatively similar compared to that in 2016 (25%) and has grown only slightly since 2006 (23%). Individual groups of Christians of colour, including Black Protestants, Hispanic Protestants, Hispanic Catholics, Black Catholics, Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) Christians, multiracial Christians, and Native American Christians, have shifted by single percentage points between 2006 and 2020."
Age
White Christians and young people are fueling the grown of the religiously unaffiliated population, which is at an all-time high in young cohorts. Young people 18-29 are also more likely to be religiously diverse.
(PRRI)In the study, PRRI looked at the median age of each person identifying in a religious group. White evangelical Protestant (56), White Catholic (54), and Unitarian/Universalists (53) were documented as having the oldest median ages of each religious group. The youngest were Muslim (33), Hindu (36( and Buddhist (36). The median age of Americans is 47.
Education Level
Some Christian groups are least likely out of all religious affiliations to attend post-secondary schooling, especially if BIPOC. Most Hispanic Catholics, Hispanic Protestants, and Black Protestants do not have a post-secondary education. Groups with the highest education levels are Hindu, Unitarian/Universalist, and Jewish.
Read the full study here.
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