Three in ten American adults are not affiliated with any specific religion, a figure that constitutes 29% of this population, according to a survey by the Pew Research Center.
The group, commonly known as the
nones
(referring to the fact that they have no religion) or the unaffiliated, increased six percentage points from five years ago and ten from a decade ago.
"Christians still make up the majority of the US population, but their share of the adult population is 12 points lower in 2021 than in 2011," says the poll released Tuesday.
Groups that do not identify with any religion are already concentrated in rural areas.Luis Alvarez / Getty Images
According to Elizabeth Drescher, an adjunct professor at Santa Clara University in California, quoted by The Associated Press news agency: "If the unaffiliated were a religion, they would be the largest religious group in America."
According to the expert,
this population group previously lived in urban and coastal areas, but now it is throughout the United States,
representing a diversity of ages, ethnicities and socioeconomic backgrounds.
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The recent declines of Christianity are concentrated in the Protestants.
The proportion of this group has dropped four percentage points in the last five years.
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On the other hand, the Catholic population has remained "relatively stable" in recent years.
This year 21% of American adults called themselves Catholic, which is identical to the percentage of the Catholic population in 2014.
The
nones
decide to leave their congregation due to ideological differences regarding gender, migration and other social issues, such as Nathalie Charles, 18, a young woman of Haitian origin who identifies as gay.
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"I didn't feel like that fitted my vision of what God is and what God can be," he told The Associated Press.
Charles now mixes various spiritual practices into his life after being an atheist and agnostic and says he feels no need to define himself on a specific one.
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A recent poll by
The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.
It ensures that 30% of Americans say they feel some connection to God or a higher power, and 19% say that religion has some importance to them even if they have no religious affiliation.
"There are people who really get involved, whether it's in a particular religious tradition that we recognize, or in multiple religious traditions," added Professor Drescher.
"They are not interested in belonging to those communities formally or identifying themselves as someone of that religion."
