Pew Research poll shows one in three Americans are now religiously unaffiliated

The number of Americans who identify as Christian has decreased steadily in the last decade, according to a new poll published by Pew Research Center last week.

The poll showed that about thirty percent (63%) of Americans currently do not affiliate themselves with any religion, down from 75% a decade ago. The study found “the religiously unaffiliated share of the public is 6 percentage points higher than it was five years ago and 10 points higher than a decade ago,” and says the secular shift in the US “shows no signs of slowing.”

Self-identified Christians still make up the majority of the US population, but Pew points out their share of the adult populace is dwindling, with the number of adults who identify as Christian decreasing by 12 points since 2011.

About 29% of adults described themselves as religious “nones,” meaning “ people who describe themselves as atheists, agnostics or “nothing in particular” when asked about their religious identity.” That number has gone up since 2007 when Pew began asking this question, when the Christians (”including Protestants, Catholics, members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and Orthodox Christians”) outnumbered “nones” by almost 5 to 1.

The Pew poll follows a similar Gallup poll conducted in March this year, which showed US church membership had fallen below 50 percent for the first time ever. The Gallup poll also points to the rise in people who do not affiliate with any religion.