How Religious Are We?

Ken AshfordGodstuffLeave a Comment

American Religious Identification Survey (ARIS) last took the religious pulse of America in 1990.  Last year, they did it again.

US Today has the findings in nice graph form, but here are some stand-out findings:

  • Despite growth and immigration that has added nearly 50 million adults to the U.S. population, almost all religious denominations have lost ground since the first ARIS survey in 1990.

  • The least religious states:

    1. Vermont
    1. New Hampshire
    1. Wyoming
    1. Washington
    1. Maine
    1. Oregon
    1. Nevada
    1. Idaho
    1. Delaware
    1. Massachusetts
    1. Colorado
    1. Montana
    1. Rhode Island
    1. DC
    1. California

    New England and the West dominate the list.

  • As for the most religious, it's the Bible Belt:

    1. Mississippi
    1. North Dakota
    1. Louisiana
    1. Arkansas
    1. Tennessee
    1. Georgia
    1. North Carolina
    1. South Carolina
    1. Kansas
    1. Oklahoma
    1. Alabama
    1. Minnesota
    1. Texas
    1. South Dakota
    1. Kentucky
  • The fastest growing religious group?  The "Nones" (atheists, agnostics).  They are at 15%

RELATED READING:  Michael Spencer of The Christian Science Monitor predicts an evangelical collapse within the next ten years (and a resurrection of a different kind of evangelicalism afterwards):

Millions of Evangelicals will quit. Thousands of ministries will end. Christian media will be reduced, if not eliminated. Many Christian schools will go into rapid decline. I'm convinced the grace and mission of God will reach to the ends of the earth. But the end of evangelicalism as we know it is close.