Docsity
Docsity

Prepare for your exams
Prepare for your exams

Study with the several resources on Docsity


Earn points to download
Earn points to download

Earn points by helping other students or get them with a premium plan


Guidelines and tips
Guidelines and tips

Religious Affiliation in America: Christians, Non-Christians and the Unaffiliated, Slides of Religion

An analysis of the results of an ABC News/Beliefnet poll on religious affiliation in America. The poll reveals that 83% of Americans identify as Christians, 13% have no religion, and 4% follow non-Christian religions. The document also breaks down the data by specific denominations, such as Baptists, Methodists, and Lutherans, and examines the differences between various demographic groups, including race, income, and education. The document also includes a methodology section.

What you will learn

  • How does religious affiliation vary among different demographic groups, such as race, income, and education?
  • What percentage of Americans identify as Christians, non-Christians, or have no religion?
  • Which Christian denominations are most prevalent in America?

Typology: Slides

2021/2022

Uploaded on 09/12/2022

mortimer
mortimer 🇺🇸

4.4

(5)

214 documents

1 / 6

Toggle sidebar

This page cannot be seen from the preview

Don't miss anything!

bg1
ABC NEWS/BELIEFNET POLL: RELIGIOUS AFFILIATION – 6/24/01
EMBARGOED FOR RELEASE AFTER Noon Wednesday, July 18, 2001
Religious Affiliation in America:
Many Answers, Mostly Christian
Ask Americans their religion and you’ll get an earful – 50 individual answers in an ABC
News/Beliefnet poll, ranging from agnostics to Zen Buddhists. The vast majority, though,
have something in common: Jesus Christ.
Eighty-three percent of Americans identify themselves as Christians. Most of the rest, 13
percent, have no religion. That leaves just four percent as adherents of all non-Christian
religions combined – Jews, Muslims, Buddhists and a smattering of individual mentions.
That’s quite different from the world at large: Fifty-two percent of the world’s population
is non-Christian, compared to four percent here; and one-third is Christian, compared to
83 percent here. (These are rough comparisons, because the world figures, reported by
the Encyclopedia Britannica, are for the full population, while the U.S. figures are among
adults only.)
United States World
83%
4%
13%
33%
52%
15%
0
0.1
0.2
0.3
0.4
0.5
0.6
0.7
0.8
0.9
Christians Non-Christian Religions No Religion
U.S.
World
ABC News/Beliefnet Poll:
Religion in the U.S. vs. the World
pf3
pf4
pf5

Partial preview of the text

Download Religious Affiliation in America: Christians, Non-Christians and the Unaffiliated and more Slides Religion in PDF only on Docsity!

ABC NEWS/BELIEFNET POLL: RELIGIOUS AFFILIATION – 6/24/

EMBARGOED FOR RELEASE AFTER Noon Wednesday, July 18, 2001

Religious Affiliation in America:

Many Answers, Mostly Christian

Ask Americans their religion and you’ll get an earful – 50 individual answers in an ABC

News/Beliefnet poll, ranging from agnostics to Zen Buddhists. The vast majority, though,

have something in common: Jesus Christ.

Eighty-three percent of Americans identify themselves as Christians. Most of the rest, 13

percent, have no religion. That leaves just four percent as adherents of all non-Christian

religions combined – Jews, Muslims, Buddhists and a smattering of individual mentions.

That’s quite different from the world at large: Fifty-two percent of the world’s population

is non-Christian, compared to four percent here; and one-third is Christian, compared to

83 percent here. (These are rough comparisons, because the world figures, reported by

the Encyclopedia Britannica, are for the full population, while the U.S. figures are among

adults only.)

United States World

83%

4%

13%

33%

52%

15%

0

Christians Non-Christian Religions No Religion

U.S. World

ABC News/Beliefnet Poll:

Religion in the U.S. vs. the World

Christians 83% 33 No religion 13 15 All non-Christian religions 4 52

This poll used an open-ended question to gauge religious affiliation: “What if anything is

your religion?” Most of the 50 affiliations cited are Christian denominations, ranging

from the Assembly of God to the United Church of Christ. Added up they show that 53

percent of Americans are Protestants, 22 percent Catholics and eight percent other

Christians, such as Mormons or Jehovah’s Witnesses.

PROTESTANT GROUPS – The largest group within the ranks of American Protestants

is unaffiliated: Nineteen percent of Americans say they’re Protestants, but don’t cite a

specific denomination. They account for more than a third of all Protestants.

Another 15 percent of Americans identify themselves as Baptists or Southern Baptists,

meaning this group accounts for nearly three in 10 Protestants. No other Protestant

denomination comes close in size.

Baptists are especially prevalent among black Americans: Nearly half of blacks, 48

percent, say they’re Baptists, making it far and away their No. 1 denomination (next are

nondenominational, at 15 percent of blacks, and Methodist, at eight percent of blacks).

Among whites, 22 percent are Catholics, another 22 percent are nonaffiliated Protestants

and 13 percent are Baptists.

ABC News/Beliefnet Poll:

Religion in the U.S.

Protestants 53%

Catholics 22%

No Religion 13%

Other Christians 8%

Non-Christians 4%

Evangelism soars particularly among blacks, and southerners: Two-thirds of blacks

describe themselves as evangelical or born-again Christians, double the share of whites

who do so. And 55 percent of Christians in the South say they’re born again, compared to

21 percent in the Northeast, 26 percent in the Midwest and 31 percent in the West.

Lower-income Christians also are more apt to be evangelicals. Among those with

household incomes under $35,000, 45 percent are evangelicals; among those with higher

incomes this declines to 31 percent.

INCOME, EDUCATION – More broadly, Protestants tend to have lower incomes than

Catholics: Forty-nine percent of evangelical Protestants have incomes under $50,000, as

do 43 percent of non-evangelical Protestants, compared to 36 percent of Catholics.

Income correlates with education. Thirty-six percent of Catholics are college graduates;

that declines to 23 percent of Protestants, and 17 percent of Baptists.

POLITICS – There’s an enormous political difference between evangelical and non-

evangelical Protestants on some issues. One is abortion: Sixty-two percent of evangelical

Protestants say it should be illegal in all or most cases; by contrast, 65 percent of non-

evangelical Protestants say abortion should be legal (as do 55 percent of Catholics). (See

7/2 analysis on abortion and 6/26 analysis on stem-cell research.)

34

68

55

21

26

31

37

47

14

62

37

(^46 )

31

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

Whites Blacks South North Midwest West All Christ. Prot. Cath. Baptists Nondenom. Prot.

Other Prot.

<$35K >$35K

ABC News/Beliefnet Poll:

Evangelical Christians

The difference narrows in terms of ideology more broadly. Forty-four percent of white

evangelical Protestants say they’re conservative on most political matters; that compares

to 33 percent of white non-evangelical Protestants and white Catholics alike. Blacks are

different in this regard; just 24 percent of blacks say they’re conservative politically. And

among people who have no religion, only 19 percent are conservatives.

There’s even less difference between evangelical and non-evangelical white Protestants

in political party identification: Forty percent of white evangelical Protestants identify

themselves as Republicans, as do 34 percent of white non-evangelical Protestants. By

contrast only five percent of blacks, and 11 percent of non-Christians, are Republicans.

METHODOLOGY - This ABC News/Beliefnet poll was conducted by telephone June

20-24, 2001, among a random national sample of 1,022 adults. The results have a three-

point error margin. Fieldwork by TNS Intersearch of Horsham, Pa.

Analysis by Gary Langer.

ABC News polls can be found at ABCNEWS.com on the Internet, at:

http://abcnews.go.com/sections/politics/PollVault/PollVault.html

Media contact: Todd Polkes, (212) 456-

Here are the full results (*= less than 0.5 percent):

  1. What if anything is your religion?

6/24/ Christian 83 None 13 Non-Christian 4

Christian includes: Catholic 22 Protestant 53 Other Christian 8

Protestant includes: No denomination 19 Baptist/Southern Baptist 15 Methodist/African Methodist/United Methodist 6 Lutheran 5 Pentecostal 2 Presbyterian 2 Episcopalian 1 Seventh-Day Adventist 1 Other mentions: Assembly of God, Charismatic, Church of Christ, Church of God in Christ, Congregational, Reformed, United Church of Christ

Other Christian includes: Christian, non-Protestant, no denomination 6 Jehovah's Witness 1