In the age of Donald Trump as the savior of several denominations of Christian faith, a new study found that--while these groups are loud--they may no longer be a true majority.
Gallup published a poll that found only 50% of Americans confirmed that they belonged to a church, synagogue or mosque. This number is down from a peak of 76% in 1948.
Gallup, a self-identified "global analytics and advice firm", found between the 1930s and the late 1990s, religion held steady at around 70%.
"The decline in church membership is consistent with larger societal trends in declining church attendance and an increasing proportion of Americans with no religious preference."
The downturn and rapid deceleration in Church membership comes from a couple of things.
For one, the people who identify with no specific religion has gone up. For another, the amount of people who do identify specifically have not identified a church to which they belong.
"Church membership has dropped among all generational groups over the past two decades, with declines of roughly 10 percentage points among traditionalists, baby boomers and Generation X."
More millennials than any other generation in particular do not align with a specific religion.
Church attendance has dropped more among Catholics than any other denomination of Christianity. With the rise of the destructive religious right, churches face eroding confidence in their institutions.
Simply put, people--in particular, millennials--very strongly distrust the church and are choosing to step away from it as a result.
Between the Catholic Church scandals, pastors claiming gay people like Presidential hopeful Pete Buttigieg are an "abomination," children witnessing divorce and entering into mixed-religion marriages, the sense of community no longer seems to hold an allure.
The numbers may keep dropping with Generation Z, who in this moment are by and large too young to poll and get a complete set of data from.
But stay tuned to see how Americans' relationships with organized religion will continue to change.
