HPI
WASHINGTON, DC, USA, April 27, 2009: A new study has found that few Americans cite recent scandals or disbelief in God as their reason for leaving Christianity. Instead, the vast majority of former Catholics and former Protestants who are now unaffiliated with any faith have “just gradually drifted away.”
The new analysis, called “Faith in Flux: Changes in Religious Affiliation in the U.S.,” was published by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life as a follow-up to a Pew study of 35,000 Americans last year. It reports that for both Catholicism and Protestantism, 71 percent of former parishioners said their decision to leave happened over time, unprompted by any one-time event. In answer to an open-ended question, less than 3 percent of former Catholics cited sexual scandals as the main reason they left the church.
Catholic researcher Mark Gray surmised, “This is about youth coming of age and not feeling connected to their faith.”