A recent Religion News Service (RNS) analysis piece by Tobin Grant claims “7.5 million Americans lost their religion since 2012.” He bases his analysis off the 2014 General Social Survey (GSS) done by the National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago; the survey is funded by the National Science Foundation. He further elaborates that “When asked their religious preference, nearly 1 in 4 Americans now says ‘none.’” An examination of the numbers, however, brings both these claims into question. The GSS survey provides no raw population numbers, only the percentages of the religiously unaffiliated or “nones.” According to the survey, in 2014 that number stood at 21% of the population -much closer to one in five Americans than to “nearly 1 in 4 Americans.”
Similarly, the number “7.5 million” seems to be hyper-inflated as well. The GSS only surveys the adult population. The U.S. Census Bureau reports that, for 2013, adults accounted for 76.7% of the population. Given that they have not yet released that percentage for 2014, 76.7% will be used to determine the adult population of 2014. Thus, out of an adult population of 244,563,362, 51,358,306 were religiously non-affiliated (21%) of. In 2012, the adult population was 241,661,454 and the adult religiously non-affiliated population (20%) was 48,332,290. The increase in religiously non-affiliated adults between 2012 and 2014 was only 3,026,015 – less than half the increase reported. Unless RNS is working with different data, the math does not add up.
Also unreported by RNS are several of the important notes from the GSS surveyors. The surveyors note that 8% of religiously non-affiliated adults were raised without a religious preference. This means that, of the 3,026,015 person increase in religious non-affiliation between 2012 and 2014, only 2,783,934 people “lost their religion.” While this is certainly tragic, it is significantly better than the numbers provided. RNS also failed to report that GSS surveyors found that 40% of those who were raised without a religious affiliation had become affiliated by 2014.
Comment by RCPreader on April 2, 2015 at 6:38 pm
Two things to keep in mind here: First, the GSS data is not the best. Just because they spend a lot of our tax money doesn’t mean that they do a better job than independent foundations or private polling firms; not surprisingly, they do worse. I would trust other sources over the GSS on just about anything, and other sources show smaller declines in religious affiliation.
Second, though there is a decline in stated religious affiliation, surveys (I don’t know about the GSS, but better ones) have shown no significant decline in regular churchgoing. What’s happening is that people who are not religious no longer feel socially compelled to maintain a nominal religious affiliation. This could be a bad thing, a good thing, or both. But it is not quite “losing religion” for someone who never or very rarely goes to church to admit that they are no longer affiliated with a denomination.