Religious Affliation Underestimated in U.S., Study Shows
New Research Challenges Previous Religious Demographic Data
By Michelle Boorstein
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, September 11, 2006

In the ever-intensifying push by politicians, journalists and marketers to analyze Americans' religiousness down to its last molecule, did 10 million people get misplaced?

That's the argument posited by sociologists at Baylor University, who released research today saying that the past 15 years of polling overestimated the percentage of Americans who say they have no religious affiliation.

The unaffiliated-- people who check "none" or "no religion" when asked their affiliation--have been closely eyeballed since 1990, when major surveys showed they doubled, from 7 percent of the U.S. population to 14 percent, reflecting, sociologists say, increasing secularization that is occurring at the same time American society is becoming more religious. the rest