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Pew on Pew Switching (and/or Leaving)

Monday April 27, 2009   ~   4 Comments
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The folks at Pew released some new research worth your time.

They explained:

Americans change religious affiliation early and often. In total, about half of American adults have changed religious affiliation at least once during their lives. Most people who change their religion leave their childhood faith before age 24, and many of those who change religion do so more than once. These are among the key findings of a new survey conducted by the Pew Research Center's Forum on Religion & Public Life. The survey documents the fluidity of religious affiliation in the U.S. and describes in detail the patterns and reasons for change.


The reasons people give for changing their religion - or leaving religion altogether - differ widely depending on the origin and destination of the convert. The group that has grown the most in recent years due to religious change is the unaffiliated population. Two-thirds of former Catholics who have become unaffiliated and half of former Protestants who have become unaffiliated say they left their childhood faith because they stopped believing in its teachings, and roughly four-in-ten say they became unaffiliated because they do not believe in God or the teachings of most religions. Additionally, many people who left a religion to become unaffiliated say they did so in part because they think of religious people as hypocritical or judgmental, because religious organizations focus too much on rules or because religious leaders are too focused on power and money. Far fewer say they became unaffiliated because they believe that modern science proves that religion is just superstition.

Read the full report here.

Posted on April 27, 2009 at 12:56 PM   ~   4 Comments

Tagged with: religion, research

4 Comments

Do they differentiate between changing denomination and changing religion? Cause otherwise in my mind it is a worthless study.

My understanding is that The Lamb's Book of Life doesn't have a checkbox column for Baptist, Presbyterian etc. Religion/Faith is not a club membership; the only affiliation (as the study treats it) which counts on judgment day is affiliation with Christ himself via real "Koinonea". The study is academically interesting but essentially irrelevant IMO.

If the study made folks at Pew think about Jesus the Christ and life. then it was worth it or than that it was kinda irrelevant.

I have a questions posed to me by my very intelligent college granddaughter. She was baptized and raised a Baptist but college has made her question, not that God or a supreme being exists, but how do we know it is our god and not a god of another religion...She wants to explore other religions as Hindu etc and read up on their beliefs. How do I answer this or How would you answer this..She says the Bible has been translated too many times and churches are too ritualistic..I love your messages on Sunday.....and your weight loss is phenonomal..
Mary Lee

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