New Survey Reveals Americans are Switching Religious Affiliations

The results of a new survey released Monday (February 25) reveals that Americans are switching religious affiliation in ever-greater numbers or abandoning ties to organized denominations altogether, and Protestants are on the cusp of becoming a minority, the Los Angeles Times reported.

Barely 51 percent of Americans are Protestants, and among 18- to 29-year-olds, just 43 percent identify with this branch of Christianity, according to the study by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life. Protestants have always held a majority status in the United States, the Times said.

At the same time, more than four in 10 adults -- 44 percent -- have switched religious affiliations or abandoned ties to a specific religion, according to the survey, which provides one of the most detailed looks at U.S. religious affiliation. The Census Bureau stopped asking questions about religion in the late 1950s, according to the Times.

To read the complete Los Angeles Times story, click here.

To see the U.S. Religious Landscape Survey, click here.