Trends

Check out this article in the NY Times about shifting religious affiliation in the U.S.

Americans Change Faiths at Rising Rate, Report Finds
By NEELA BANERJEE
More than a quarter of adult Americans have left the faith of their childhood to join another religion or no religion, a new survey of religious affiliation says. (source)

There are a couple of surprises, here. For one thing, Catholics are losing members:

The Catholic Church has lost more adherents than any other group: about one-third of respondents raised Catholic said they no longer identified as such. Based on the data, the survey showed, “this means that roughly 10 percent of all Americans are former Catholics.” (source)

Less surprising is the success of churches that are more adaptive to cultural change:

“The trend is toward more personal religion, and evangelicals offer that,” said Mr. Prothero, chairman of the religion department at Boston University, who explained that evangelical churches tailor many of their activities for youth. “Those losing out are offering impersonal religion and those winning are offering a smaller scale: mega-churches succeed not because they are mega but because they have smaller ministries inside.” (source)

We are experiencing similar trends here in Canada, though the patterns are a bit different. In general, Canadians more likely to be "unaffiliated" than their cousins south of the 49th Parallel.

-t