A new survey from the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life reports that the U.S., once a stronghold of Protestantism, is on the verge of becoming a minority Protestant country. The number of Americans who report being members of Protestant denominations now stands at barely 51%.
Moreover, the Protestant population is characterized by significant internal diversity and fragmentation, with hundreds of different denominations loosely grouped around three fairly distinct church traditions: evangelical (26.3% of the overall adult population), mainline (18.1%) and historically Black (6.9%). Mainline churches include such established denominations as Congregationalists, Episcopalians, Lutherans, Methodists, northern Baptists and Presbyterians; historically black churches include such bodies as the African Methodist Episcopal Church and the National Baptist Convention.
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U.S. Protestants lose ground to other faiths
A new survey from the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life reports that the U.S., once a stronghold of Protestantism, is on the verge of becoming a minority Protestant country. The number of Americans who report being members of Protestant denominations now stands at barely 51%.
Moreover, the Protestant population is characterized by significant internal diversity and fragmentation, with hundreds of different denominations loosely grouped around three fairly distinct church traditions: evangelical (26.3% of the overall adult population), mainline (18.1%) and historically Black (6.9%). Mainline churches include such established denominations as Congregationalists, Episcopalians, Lutherans, Methodists, northern Baptists and Presbyterians; historically black churches include such bodies as the African Methodist Episcopal Church and the National Baptist Convention.
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