Conveniently, Pew asked people what group they were raised in and what they are a member of now[4]. The Pew table[4] give percentages of each group. I used their reported group sizes to convert the numbers to percent of total population and grouped the smaller ones together, giving this transition chart:
| Where did you go? | Where Did You Come From? | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Catholic | Evangelical | Mainline | Hist. Black | Other | Unaffiliated | |
| Catholic | 18.7 | 0.6 | 0.6 | 0.2 | 0.2 | 0.4 |
| Evangelical | 3.3 | 15.5 | 3.6 | 0.8 | 0.5 | 1.8 |
| Mainline | 1.8 | 2.9 | 8.5 | 0.1 | 0.4 | 0.9 |
| Hist. Black | 0.3 | 0.4 | 0.1 | 5.1 | 0.1 | 0.4 |
| Unaffiliated | 6.4 | 3.6 | 4.8 | 0.9 | 2.3 | 4.8 |
For example, 18.7% of the US population were raised Catholic as a child and are still Catholic as adults, and 3.3% were raised Catholic and are now Evangelical Protestants.
Here's a more colorful and graphical way to see the data. For each pair of bars, the left bar answers the "Where did you go to?" question, and the right bar answers the "Where did you come from?" question. In other words, each left bar is a stacked plot of the corresponding table column and each right bar is a table row. Some things that quickly pop out in this view:- The Historically Black denominations are sort-of in a group by themselves. There's not a lot of flow either in or out of that category.
- About the only way people become Catholic is to be born Catholic. There's a lot of outflow (mostly to Un's and to Protestants), but very little inflow. That's not an encouraging situation for the long-term future of the Catholic church in the US. This set of data largely predates Pope Francis - it will be interesting to see how he influences these trends.
- Evangelical Protestants are the only religious group that's growing (a little). That's mainly the result of a large net inflow of Catholics, which more than makes up for the net outflow to Unaffiliated. That could become a long-term problem if society runs out of disaffected Catholics.
- There's a nearly-balanced flow between Evangelical and Mainline protestants.
- the Mainline groups show a net loss: unlike the Evangelicals, the Catholic inflow doesn't make up for the Unaffiliated outflow.
- The big winner is the Unaffiliated group: dramatic growth due to a net inflow from all groups.
Links
- www.pewforum.org
- www.pewforum.org/files/2015/05/RLS-08-26-full-report.pdf
- www.pewforum.org/files/2015/11/201.11.03_RLS_II_full_report.pdf
- Table on p. 43 of [2], titled "Most 'nones' were raised in a religion"
- A commonly-asked question in other situations as well: www.youtube.com/watch?v=liVyZ4IzRLM
- www.patheos.com/Topics/Religion-in-America.html
