Americans changing their religious affiliations at unprecedented rates

by Michael Paulson
April 27, 2009

Americans are changing their religious affiliations at unprecedented rates, but Catholics are much more likely to cite concerns about their religion as a reason for leaving than are Protestants, who more often cite changing life circumstances.

The churn within American religion -- about half of American adults have changed their faith affiliation at some point -- was one of the key findings of a major study released last year by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life; today, the Pew Forum is releasing a new study that attempts to explore the reasons why Americans change denominations or religions, or, increasingly, drop out of institutional religion altogether.

Among the most striking findings are that most people who change their religious affiliation leave the denomination in which they were raised by age 24, and many change religious affiliation more than once. And the study found that the growing population of unaffiliated Americans are more disenchanted with institutionalized religion than with the idea of God. the rest