It will come as no surprise to anyone paying even a little bit of attention to the news that the latest numbers on Americans’ religious participation are down. Again.
The long, steep rise in the “nones,” Americans who don’t profess any spiritual beliefs, has been one of the big shifts in American politics and culture in the past 20 years. In 2007, Pew Research found that just 16 percent of adults said they were atheists, agnostics, or believed in “nothing in particular.” By 2022, that category had almost doubled to include nearly a third of all adults.
The number actually ticked down to 28 percent last year, the most notable one-year decline since Pew started tracking the group. A 4-point dip could be just polling noise or, maybe, the start of something.
But even if more Americans are opening up spiritually, the believers are increasingly hiding their lights under their bushels.
Chris Stirewalt is a contributing writer for The Dispatch, the politics editor for The Hill and NewsNation, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, co-host of the Ink Stained Wretches podcast, and author of Broken News, a book on media and politics.
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