Rising 'Nones' Show Americans Losing Their Religion

By Abigail Robertson

CBN News Producer

Wednesday, March 18, 2015

A shocking 7.5 million people have left religion since 2012, a new survey released last week shows.

The so called "Great Decline" of religion continued into last year, the 2014 General Social Survey showed.

Each year, the National Science Foundation releases a multi-million dollar study that monitors societal change in the adult population of the United States. The NSF researches things like life satisfaction, race relations, crime and punishment, and religion.

For the past decade, this study has shown a steady decrease in the number of religious Americans.

Three sections of this survey show the growing trend of nonreligious Americans.

1. More Americans say their religious preference is "none"

Nearly 1 in 4 Americans say their religious preference is "none." This has increased almost 20 percent since the 1990s, when the percentage of Americans who affiliated as nonreligious was in the single digits.

In comparison, around 24 percent of Americans affiliate as Catholic, the largest religious denomination in the United States. If the trend keeps increasing, in a few years the largest religion in the United States could be no religion at all.

2. Less Americans Attend Church

The number of Americans never attending church or other worship services each weekend is at an all time high. More than a third of Americans say they never attend a worship service.

3. Less Americans Pray

Only 17 percent of Americans say they never pray compared to the almost 35 percent who say they never attend a worship service and the 23 percent who affiliate as nonreligious.

Even though people aren't attending worship services or affiliating with religion, most of the country still believes in the power of prayer.

CBN News reporter Efrem Graham spoke with Dr. Corne Bekker, with Regent University, about what the church can do to stop this growing trend of nonreligious Americans.

"We need to put the scriptures back at the center of absolutely everything we do," Bekker said. "We need to give people real hope. The church needs to be a place of hope."

Click play to watch Dr. Bekker's full interview.

CBN Interview