American Religious Identifcation Survey(ARIS 2008)
SUMMARY REPORTMarch 2009
Barry A. Kosmin and Ariela Keysar
Te ARIS 2008 survey was carried outduring February-November 2008 andcollected answers rom 54,461 respondents who were questioned in English orSpanish.
Te American population sel-identies aspredominantly Christian but Americansare slowly becoming less Christian.
•86%ofAmericanadultsidentiedasChristiansin1990and76%in2008.•ehistoricMainlinechurchesand
denominations have experiencedthe steepest declines while the non-denominational Christian identity has been trending upward particularly since 2001.
•echallengetoChristianityin
the U.S. does not come rom otherreligions but rather rom a rejection o all orms o organized religion.
34%ofAmericanadultsconsidered
themselves “Born Again or EvangelicalChristians” in 2008.
Te U. S. population continues to show signs o becoming less religious, withone out o every ve Americans ailing toindicate a religious identity in 2008.
•e“Nones”(nostatedreligious
preerence, atheist, or agnostic)continue to grow, though at a muchslower pace than in the 1990s, rom
8.2%in1990,to14.1%in2001,to15.0%in2008.•AsianAmericansaresubstantially
more likely to indicate no religiousidentity than other racial or ethnicgroups.
One sign o the lack o attachment o
Americanstoreligionisthat27%donot
expect a religious uneral at their death.Based on their stated belies rather thantheir religious identication in 2008,
70%ofAmericansbelieveinapersonalGod,roughly12%ofAmericansareatheist(noGod)oragnostic(unknowableorunsure),andanother12%aredeistic(ahigherpowerbutnopersonalGod).
America’s religious geography has beentransormed since 1990. Religiousswitching along with Hispanicimmigration has signicantly changedthe religious prole o some states andregions. Between 1990 and 2008, theCatholic population proportion o the
NewEnglandstatesfellfrom50%to36%andinNewYorkitfellfrom44%to37%,whileitroseinCaliforniafrom29%to37%andinTexasfrom23%
to32%.
Overall the 1990-2008 ARIS timeseries shows that changes in religioussel-identication in the rst decade o the 21st century have been moderate incomparison to the 1990s, which was aperiod o signicant shits in the religiouscomposition o the United States.
AMERICAN RELIGIOUS IDENIFICAION SURVEY (ARIS) 2008
Principal Investigators: Barry A. Kosmin and Ariela Keysar
Highlights
ARIS 2008
Contents
Research Design
................................................................................................................2
Part INational Statistics on Belonging, Belie and Behavior
A.Belonging
...........................................................................................................3
Table 1.
Religious Sel-Identifcation o the U.S. AdultPopulation 1990, 2001, 2008 .................................................................3 Table 2.Change in the Religious Sel-Identifcation o theU.S. Adult Population 1990-2008.............................................................4 Table 3.Sel-Identifcation o U.S. Adult Population byReligious Tradition 1990, 2001, 2008 .....................................................5
B.Belie
.................................................................................................................8Table 4.
Belies about God among U.S. Adult Population 2008 ...............................8 Table 5.Size and Composition o the Born-Again orEvangelical Christian Population 2008 .....................................................9
C.Behavior
...........................................................................................................10Table 6.
Lie Cycle Religious Rituals o the U.S. AdultPopulation 2008 ...................................................................................10
Part IIDemography o the Religious Traditions in 2008
Table 7.
Gender Composition o the Religious Traditions 2008..............................11 Table 8.Age Composition o the Religious Traditions 2008 ...................................12 Table 9.Marital Status o the Religious Traditions 2008 .......................................13
Part IIIReligious Identifcation and Social Change 1990-2008
A.Racial Composition
............................................................................................14
Table 10.
Composition o Racial and Ethnic Groups byReligious Tradition 1990, 2001, 2008 .................................................14
B.Education
.........................................................................................................16
Table 11.Percentage o College Graduates in the Populationover Age 25 by Religious Tradition 1990-2008 ......................................16
C.Geography and Religion
......................................................................................17
Table 12.Religious Sel-Identifcation o US Adult Population by Census Region,Census Division, and State by Percentage 1990 and 2008 ....................18
Appendix A.The Taxonomy o the Religious Traditions ...............................................23Appendix B.The Authors .........................................................................................24
© Copyright ISSSC 2009 Design by Jo Lynn Alcorn
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American Religious Identification Survey (ARIS 2008) Summary Report
ARIS 2008 is the third in a landmark series of large, nationally representative surveys of U.S. adults in the 48 contiguous states conducted by Kosmin and Ariela Keysar. Employing the same research methodology as the 1990…
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