How unreligious is America? The Census can't tell us
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By Peter Macdiarmid, Getty Images
Every 10 years, we learn a lot more about America by the numbers. The Census data paint pictures of many aspects of our lives -- except the spiritual dimension. The Census doesn't ask religion. It's a church/state thing.
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So we don't actually know how many Catholics, Methodists, Presbyterians or Muslims we have here. How many in the historically black churches? In the non-denominational megachurches dotting the landscape?
Or how many "Nones" -- no religious identification.
That's a term popularized by the American Religious Identification Survey, which has tracked 18 years of data by asking more than 50,000 people "What is your religion, if any?" in three surveys. The Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life and Baylor University have also done major surveys but not repeated them to track changes. So it is only by ARIS that we know the number of Nones in the USA has nearly doubled to about 15% in the past two decades.
In Britain, the religion question is a hot topic as its Census nears. According to University of Cambridge historian Stephen Thompson:
The status of organized religion is a hotly debated topic in this year's Census, which contains a voluntary question about belief for only the second time. However, unlike in 1753 and 1801, it is the non-religious, especially the British Humanist Association, who are most concerned by the implications of census-taking.The BHA argues that the 2001 Census, which showed that 72% of the population in England and Wales described themselves as Christian, produced "inaccurate and misleading data." It is leading an advertising campaign under the slogan: "Not religious? In this year's Census, say so."
THINK ABOUT IT: Should faith be counted? How and for what purpose?
