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America's Shifting Religious Landscape: White Christians Now the Minority

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The percentage of Americans who identify as white and Christian has dropped below 50 percent.

That's according to a study by the Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI).

Christians are still a large majority in the U.S., but now white Christians only make up 43 percent of the population.

Four decades ago, about 80 percent of Americans were white Christians.

The change comes from immigration and because more and more people are rejecting organized religion altogether.

About one-quarter of Americans don't identify with any faith group.

And while white mainline denominations are shrinking, the percentage of white evangelical Americans has declined as well.

About 17 percent of Americans now identify as white evangelical, compared to 23 percent a decade ago, according to the survey.

Membership in the conservative Southern Baptist Convention, the largest U.S. Protestant group, dropped to 15.2 million last year, its lowest number since 1990, according to an analysis by the New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary.

Previous surveys had found that the Protestant majority that shaped the nation's history had dropped below 50 percent sometime around 2008.

But the new PRRI poll includes a more in-depth focus on race and religion. Previously, growth among Latino Christians, and stability in the numbers of African-American Christians, had partly obscured the decline among white Christians.

CBN News began reporting on this trend last year. You can see that report below:

 

    

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