The ranks of people identifying themselves as Protestants is down, with schisms among the faithful and a diversifying nation cited as likely reasons.
By SHARON TUBBS
Published August 29, 2004
Protestants may no longer be the religious majority in America, according to a recent study from the University of Chicago's National Opinion Research Center.
The number of Protestants dipped to 52 percent of the population from 1993 to 2002, from the average 63 percent majority that they held from 1972 to 1993. The percentage could decline further this year.
"Since colonial times the United States has been a Protestant nation," wrote Tom W. Smith and Seokho Kim, the study's co-authors. "But perhaps as early as this year, the country will for the first time no longer have a Protestant majority."
The study defined Protestantism to include all post-Reformation Christian denominations. That definition encompasses the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and some followers of New Age spirituality, whose beliefs differ fundamentally from other Protestant faiths. The study excluded some people who might traditionally have been considered Protestant. For example, those who identified themselves as interdenominational or nondenominational, but did not also say they were Christian or Protestant, weren't counted as Protestants.
However, the study points out that even if those groups and a few other questionable cases were counted as Protestants, the changes would be slight. The number of Protestants would be 63.4 percent in 1993 and 55.9 percent in 2002.
On its own, the notion that Protestants are no longer in the majority lacks that bombshell effect. It's no secret that fewer people go to church nowadays - except after a disaster like Sept. 11 when they temporarily fill sanctuaries. And today, fewer people know what Protestantism really means.
But not too long ago, Protestants held a significant and seemingly secure foothold in the nation. In 1960, the presidential candidacy of John F. Kennedy, a Roman Catholic, was seen by some as a threat to the country's Protestant power base.
Forty years later, the Democratic presidential nominee again is Catholic. Yet, some Americans regard John Kerry's Silver Star as a bigger deal than his Catholic baptism. But what effect does the decline in Protestantism have on America?
In short, "probably none," said David Roozen, director of the Hartford Seminary Institute for Religion Research in Connecticut. "It's not like we're going to wake up tomorrow and the country's going to be different."
Scholars don't suggest a dramatic shift toward a non-Christian nation. In 2002, about three-quarters of Americans still identified with Protestantism or Catholicism, the two major branches of Christianity.
And Protestants continued to outnumber any other faith or nonfaith group. That same year, Catholics equaled 25.5 percent; people who identified with no religious group about 14 percent; Jews 1.5 percent; and those in "other" faiths about 7 percent.
So the study, Roozen said, "is an interesting symbolic illustration of the growing diversity of America."
What's more interesting are the reasons for the decline.
A major factor, scholars say, is the growing fracture within Protestantism. Today, there is no single Protestant voice or force in America.
Once, Protestants united under the notion of "individual conscience," or the ability to connect with God without a priest or other intermediary, separating them from Roman Catholics.
But these days, there is "more variation within Protestantism than (there is between) Protestants and other categories," said Alexander Sharp, executive director of Protestants for the Common Good, an organization in Chicago that encourages Christians to be active in public policy issues.
On one hand, you have evangelicals and charismatics who take the Bible literally and consider it inerrant. "Mainline" Protestants, such as Lutherans, Methodists and Episcopalians, often don't accept evangelical views and tend to be more liberal.
Conservatives wouldn't budge on issues of homosexuality or the inerrancy of Scripture. Meanwhile, liberal Protestants began to relax or change their traditional doctrine, encouraging "fluidity" in Protestantism, John Corrigan, the Edwin Scott Gaustad professor of religion and history at Florida State University in Tallahassee. For instance, "You could be a Presbyterian, but still think that there was a lot of Lutheranism that you were interested in," he said.
Such mingling tended to loosen people's commitment to their faith, he said. Once there was a "de-emphasis on doctrinal boundaries," Corrigan said, it was only a matter of time before Protestantism would lose its definition.
At that point, scholars said, Protestants loosely affiliated with a particular denomination might then also intermingle other faith traditions, like Buddhism, no longer subscribing to their traditional beliefs.
In many ways, the liberal vs. conservative debate has usurped Protestant vs. Catholic in importance, Roozen said.
If you find a liberal Protestant fighting with a conservative Protestant, he said, who cares that they're both Protestants?
The two factions of Protestantism began to face off in the 1960s and '70s, scholars said. The conflict may be partly responsible for the decrease in Protestantism today.
Mainline Protestants were slow to adopt new styles of worship that appealed to baby boomers and Generation X-ers. "It almost refused to change its worship," Roozen said.
For instance, contemporary praise music emerged during the 1960s and gradually grew popular in evangelical congregations. Nearly 40 years later, the more flamboyant worship style has only begun to move into some mainline churches, Roozen said.
Now, some scholars have a tough time defining "Protestantism."
What is it?
"That's a good question," Corrigan said. "Increasingly," he said, "Protestant is coming to mean evangelical Protestant."
Evangelicals began moving to the forefront of Protestantism in the 1970s when economic gains gave them money to build churches and bankroll radio and TV programs, Corrigan said. No longer were evangelicals "just Okies who moved to California," he said. Their doctrine seeped into mainstream America and never stopped. Now, they are key players in the political arena. Conservative Protestantism continues to grow, filling megachurches nationwide, while membership for liberal denominations steadily decreases.
Still, on the whole, the term Protestant has less influence than it did when John Kennedy lived in the White House.
"The notion of being a Protestant as a separate category is probably less meaningful to people," Sharp said. What's important, he said, is the "central message of the Christian faith."
The study might "prompt us all to come together and explore what we can do together," Sharp said.
Eddie Gibbs, professor of church growth at Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, Calif., said the study should be a wakeup call to Protestants. "It really means they need to define who they are."
Smith, the study's co-author, said one reason Protestants are losing their majority status is poor retention rates. In the 1970s, about 90 percent of people raised in Protestant households became Protestant adults. Now it's about 83 percent, he said.
Fewer people in their late teens and 20s call themselves Protestants, he said. "They're losing out among the youngest generation of adults."
People who stopped identifying with Protestantism were likely raised in families with only "nominal" affiliation. They didn't go to church every Sunday.
"They have this sense that they're still Christians, but have no ties to anything," Smith said. They have low levels of church attendance and may eventually identify with a non-Christian category.
The number of people who don't align themselves with any religion rose from 9 percent in 1993 to nearly 14 percent in 2002, signifying that some Americans are fed up with organized religion, scholars say.
At the same time, there is an increasing interest in spirituality, be it New Age or Buddhism or interdenominational worship.
Another factor for the decrease is immigration from Latin American countries that are predominantly Catholic. The percentage of Roman Catholics fluctuated between 23 percent in 1993 to 25.5 percent in 2002.
"For those Protestants who still think that they are in charge of things," Roozen said, "this study is a check to them that this world has changed."
