INTERFAITH ALLIANCE STATE OF BELIEF

RADIO MAY 16, 2015

RUSH TRANSCRIPT: GREG SMITH
Click here for audio
[REV. DR. C. WELTON GADDY, HOST]: This week, the respected
Pew Research Center for Religion & Public Life released its latest
comprehensive report titled Americas Changing Religious
Landscape. For years now, weve seen multiple studies, especially
from Pew and the highly-respected Public Religion Research Institute,
identify a consistent trend of growing disaffiliation among people of
faith in this country. Thats where the nickname nones originated: its
shorthand for the religiously unaffiliated, a group that is consistently
found to be growing especially among younger Americans. Right
now, Im very pleased to be joined by Dr. Gregory A. Smith, Associate
Director of Pew Research Center for Religion & Public Life.
Hes been with us before, Dr. Smith, welcome back to State of Belief
Radio!
[GREGORY A. SMITH, Ph.D., GUEST]: Thank you for having me.
Good to be with you.
[WG]: I guess we ought to begin with you, if you will, just briefly
summarizing what you were asking in this survey.
[GS]: Well, this is the second big religious landscape study that weve
conducted. We did the first one in 2007, and then this second one in
2014. These are massive surveys with more than 35,000 people from
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all around the country, and theyre designed to really provide a

precise accounting of the size of all of the religious groups that make
up the United States population. What we find in this survey is that
the religiously unaffiliated continue to grow at a very rapid pace.
People who describe themselves as Atheist or as Agnostic or as
having no particular religion now account for more than one in five
adults in the United States. And while theyve been growing, the
Christian share of the population has continued to decline.
[WG]: I think its predictable at least it is from my perspective in
dealing with various religions across the board for several years its
one thing to say that the nones have been growing in percentage,
and thats certainly true; I could almost anticipate the reaction to
saying that Christianity is declining as a defensive reaction in which
they say, Surely you have something wrong. And Im saying that as
a Christian pastor myself. Are you getting negative feedback on that
finding?
[GS]: Im not so sure that weve been getting negative feedback. I do
think that on the one hand, we have seen some people say that part
of whats happening here is that people who are nominally religious
people who might have once identified as Protestant or Catholic or as
a member of another faith, but who in fact were not particularly
religiously observant that those people are increasingly describing
themselves as religiously unaffiliated. And weve published other
work that suggests that that is, indeed, part of whats happening. But I
dont think that thats all thats happening.
One of the things that this study shows is that as the religiously
unaffiliated are growing, they are also becoming more secular. And
what I mean by that is that the share of religiously unaffiliated people
who describe themselves as Atheist or Agnostic, or who say that
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religion just doesnt matter very much in their lives they are growing.
So its not just that the unaffiliated are growing; theyre also becoming
more secular at the same time.
[WG]: I know that when you did the first of these massive polls that
we noted the growing presence of the nones, so-called. And every
year since then, whoever has been doing the polling with a few
exceptions have found that number growing. Were you at all
surprised at the growth of that percentage of the people who claim to
be more secular and not as related to religion?
[GS]: What I do find a little surprising is the pace with which the
religiously unaffiliated continue to grow. This study shows that 23% of
American adults now say they have no religion thats up almost
seven points since we first did this study in 2007. Thats very rapid
growth. The survey also suggests that the religiously unaffiliated are
now more numerous than mainline Protestants and even than
Catholics and that is a change; that assuredly was not the case
when we first did this study in 2007. So those elements of the findings
were very striking to me.
[WG]: Dr. Smith, Pew is looking purely at data singularly at data.
Youre not trying to explain why this happened, right?
[GS]: Were not trying to explain it in the sense that we dont take
positions on these things; we dont look at these trends as either
positive or negative developments; we dont attempt to offer strategies
for the way these things might be addressed; we dont even suggest
that these developments should be addressed. So we are looking
strictly at the data. However, the data do offer some clues about some
very important factors that undergird these trends.

One of the most important ones is generational replacement. A big

part of what you have happening is that there is an older generation
in the United States among whom the vast majority identify with
Christianity and relatively few say they have no religion. Part of
whats happening is as that older generation passes away, it is being
replaced by a new generation of young adults that is far less
connected to Christianity and far more religiously unaffiliated than
their parents or grandparents generation ever were. So thats a big
part of whats happening that we can see very clearly in the data.
[WG]: Do you see regional differences in the observation you just
made?
[GS]: Yes and no. On the one hand, there are regional differences in
the religious composition of different places in the United States: we
know that the South, for example, is home to more Evangelical
Protestants than any other region; we know that the Western region of
the United States is home to more religiously unaffiliated people than
other regions are. That said, one of the things thats really striking in
these data is that these trends are occurring everywhere - the South,
the Northeast, the Midwest, the West all of these places have seen
growing shares who identify with no religion, and shrinking shares
who identify with Christianity. To be sure, theyre starting from
different places along the spectrum; but the trends are all in the same
direction.
[WG]: The generational divide: how distinct is that? When we talk
about a new generation, what kind of age group are we taking about?
[GS]: Well the way weve done it is weve broken the population up
into five generational categories. The Greatest Generation includes
people who were born before the year 1928: among that group, 86%
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identify as Christians, and just 8% say they have no religion. We then

have the Silent Generation, the famous Baby Boomer Generation,
Generation X, and then the youngest generational cohort we look at
is the Millennial Generation people born since 1981. If you look at
that group, 56% of Millennials describe themselves as Christians
thats a 30-point gap between people in the Greatest Generation and
Millennials. So 56% of Millennials identify themselves as Christians;
35% of Millennials say they have no religion.
[WG]: Youve done two of the really massive surveys at Pew, but for
years youve been doing polling about religion and where people fit
on the religious spectrum, isnt that correct?
[GS]: Yes, that is correct. At the Pew Research Center, we study a lot
of different topics: public opinion at it relates to politics; we study
social demographic trends in the United States and all around the
world; we study the state of journalism. But religion is a key part of
what we do.
Its also worth pointing out that we are a strictly non-partisan, nonadvocacy organization meaning that we dont take positions on
political issues or social issues. We also dont take positions on
religious issues. Its not our place to describe these trends that weve
been talking about in either positive or negative terms; rather, we
really see our role and our mission as that of trying to provide good,
solid, up-to-date information that interested observers can use
whether they be policymakers and political leaders or religious
leaders, or just interested parties of any kind can use to inform their
own thinking about important issues of the day.
[WG]: Im glad you said that, because I want people to understand
why you all are so good at this, and why your numbers are so
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trustworthy. This is something youve been about for a long time. In all
of your polling, religion has some influence as it does all across
America and the data that you have documented in this survey is
consistent and complimentary to data that you found in other surveys
about other subjects that involve religion.
[GS]: It certainly is, and thats very nice of you to say. We do try to
pay close attention to religion because we know that its an important
factor helping to shape peoples worldview; helping to shape the way
people approach their everyday lives; helping to shape the way
people think about politics. So we do pay close attention to these
issues. Even when were working on other projects that might not
explicitly focus on religion, we still always try to always be cognizant
of it.
[WG]: Are there any other surprises that we may overlook because
were so attracted to these headlines?
[GS]: One of the other sets of findings that really jumped out at me
relates to religious switching. We talked about the importance of
generational replacement in driving some of the trends that we
observe; but another key factor behind whats going on is religious
switching. The survey finds that about 4 in 10 American adults
identify with a religion today thats different than the religion in which
they were raised. And that includes people who have switched from
one religion to another; but it also includes people who have switched
from a religion to now having no religion. And in fact, the religiouslyunaffiliated part of the reason theyre growing so rapidly is
because they make more gains through religious switching than does
any other group. In fact, almost one in five American adults one in
five American adults are people who say they were raised in a
religion, mostly Protestantism or Catholicism but other religions as
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well and who now have no religion. So those religious switching

figures are another key piece of the puzzle we shouldnt leave out.
[WG]: Dr. Smith, I know that we are changing, religiously, in this
nation. I cant help but wonder if some of the changes we see in
polling come from the public having a greater sense of freedom abut
being honest about where they are in religion and on the religion
landscape. I dont know whether this is true or not, but I heard at one
time in the past that one of the questions that usually had been asked
was probably not always answered honestly, and that is, How many
times do you go to a house of worship during the week? And people
seem to not be free to be honest about that. Im wondering if were
not just being far more honest about our relationship to religion than
we have in the past?
[GS]: Part of whats happening may be that saying you have no
religion identifying as an Atheist or as an Agnostic or someone
whos just not particularly religious that may not have the same
stigma attached to it that perhaps it once did. Weve done other
research that shows that much of the growth of the religiouslyunaffiliated population has occurred among people who say they
seldom or never attend religious services. Now that might seem
obvious: of course people who dont attend religious services would
be more likely to be religiously-unaffiliated than people who regularly
attend religious services. But the thing thats interesting at least in
this previous research we did is that while the religiously-unaffiliated
were growing among people who say they seldom or never attend
religious services, the number of people who seldom or never attend
religious services actually wasnt changing very much. What was
changing was mostly how they described themselves, rather than
how they behaved.

I do think that thats an element of whats happening here. Is it the

whole story? Im not so sure about that, because we cant overlook
these generational divides; we cant overlook the fact that young
people coming of age today look pretty different than their elders; we
also cant overlook the fact that the religiously-unaffiliated are
becoming substantially more secular over time. So the fact that
peoples self-identities might be being brought into line to match their
beliefs and practices might be part of the story, but I dont think we
should conclude that its the whole story.
[WG]: Yeah, thats very helpful. I want to be sure our listeners are told
how they can read Americas Changing Religious Landscape, the
report by that name. Whats the best way for listeners to look at the
data?
[GS]: Go to our website, www.pewresearch.org, and they can find the
whole report there. I should point out, too, that the report is very
detailed, very complex it runs upward of 200 pages in length and
its got a tremendous amount of detail in it, so if your listeners are
interested in learning about particular denominations or particular
demographic groups, weve tried to be very comprehensive. You can
also find a new interactive database on that website, where you can
explore the data thats most of interest to you.
[WG]: Dr. Smith, Ive looked, this last week, at a lot of other polling
data, and I found that the recent Baylor University symposium took
direct aim at respected religion research organizations, including Pew,
in claiming that reports of any move away from religion in America is
simply not true. And that bothers me, because on the landscape,
theres so much consistency and then heres one saying, I think, A
pox on all of those polls. Do you have a comment or an observation
about that?
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[GS]: Well, I wouldnt want to comment on the research or the point of

view of other organizations - we generally try to avoid doing that. I
would just offer a few thoughts, though.
One thing is that in this report, even though we are documenting that
theres been a large decline in the percentage of the US population
that identifies with Christianity, we also shouldnt lose sight of the fact
that the United States remains a majority Christian nation. You know,
seven in ten US adults continue to identify themselves as Christians
thats a big majority. We shouldnt lose sight of that.
We also shouldnt lose sight of the fact that the United States remains
home to more Christians than any other country on the planet! Those
are very important points that we shouldnt lose sight of.
Weve also recently done some demographic analysis, where weve
looked very closely at factors like fertility rates and mortality and
religious switching to try to provide a projection for the future of
religion not just in the United States, but all around the world. And
one of the things that research shows is that the religiouslyunaffiliated population even though its growing in the United States
and Europe and in some other places is actually projected to
decline as a share of the global population, looking ahead over the
next few decades. So those are things that are very important to keep
in mind as we think about these topics and try to put them in context.
With all of that said, however, I do not think that the growth of the
religiously-unaffiliated population is an insignificant finding, is an
insignificant trend in the context of American religion. I do think it
suggests that there are important changes that are underway; I think
there are other measures that reflect much the same thing. And while
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we should keep our eye on the big picture, on the other hand I dont
think we should understate the importance of these trends that were
seeing.
[WG]: Dr. Gregory A. Smith is Associate Director of Research at the
Pew Research Center. The brand-new report Americas Changing
Religious Landscape: Christians Decline Sharply as Share of
Population; Unaffiliated and Other Faiths Continue to Grow has just
been released, and I urge you I urge you to take a look at this
online at pewforum.org.
Dr. Smith is an author of numerous Pew Religion surveys, as well as
of the book Politics in the Parish: The Political Influence of Catholic
Priests.
Dr. Smith, I hope it has come across clearly that I am so grateful for
Pew for doing this kind of work, and so impressed by the way you do
it. And youve always been good about coming on and talking to us
about the data, and I thank you so much for being with us once again
on State of Belief Radio!
[GS]: Well, thats very kind of you to say. We work hard to try to
provide good information that, hopefully, people will find useful, and
its always a pleasure to be with you.

Gregory A. Smith, Ph.D.

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Gregory A. Smith is associate director of research at the Pew

Research Center. He helps to coordinate the centers domestic
polling on religion. Smith also writes reports and provides information
to news media and others about religion and public opinion, religion
and American politics, and the political views of Catholics. Smith
holds a doctorate in government from the University of Virginia, where
he was a fellow at the Center on Religion and Democracy. He is an
author of the 2007 U.S. Religious Landscape Survey, the 2010 U.S.
Religious Knowledge Survey, the 2007 and 2011 Pew Research
Center surveys of Muslim Americans, the 2012 Mormons in America
report, and the 2012 report Nones on the Rise. He also wrote
Politics in the Parish: The Political Influence of Catholic Priests
(Georgetown University Press, 2008). Smith has been interviewed as
an analyst by a variety of broadcast media, including ABC, CBS,
CNN, C-SPAN, MSNBC and National Public Radio, and by the New
York Times, Washington Post and USA Today, among other print
media.

Rev. Dr. C. Welton Gaddy

Author of more than 20 books, including First Freedom First: A
Citizens Guide to Protecting Religious Liberty and the Separation of
Church and State, the Rev. Dr. C. Welton Gaddy led the national nonpartisan grassroots and educational organization Interfaith Alliance
for 16 years, retiring in 2014. Dr. Gaddy continues his work with the
Alliance as President Emeritus and Senior Advisor. He serves as
Pastor for Preaching and Worship at Northminster (Baptist) Church in
Monroe, Louisiana.

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In addition to being a prolific writer, Dr. Gaddy hosts the weekly State
of Belief radio program, where he explores the role of religion in the
life of the nation by illustrating the vast diversity of beliefs in America,
while exposing and critiquing both the political manipulation of religion
for partisan purposes and the religious manipulation of government
for sectarian purposes.
Dr. Gaddy provides regular commentary to the national media on
issues relating to religion and politics. He has appeared on MSNBCs
The Rachel Maddow Show and Hardball, NBCs Nightly News and
Dateline, PBSs Religion and Ethics Newsweekly and The Newshour
with Jim Lehrer, C-SPANs Washington Journal, ABCs World News,
and CNNs American Morning. Former host of Morally Speaking on
NBC affiliate KTVE in Monroe, Louisiana, Dr. Gaddy is a regular
contributor to mainstream and religious news outlets.
While ministering to churches with a message of inclusion, Dr. Gaddy
emerged as a leader among progressive and moderate Baptists.
Among his many leadership roles, he is a past president of the
Alliance of Baptists and has been a 20-year member of the
Commission of Christian Ethics of the Baptist World Alliance. His past
leadership roles include serving as a member of the General Council
of the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship, President of Americans United
for Separation of Church and State, Chair of the Pastoral Leadership
Commission of the Baptist World Alliance and member of the World
Economic Forums Council of 100. Rev. Gaddy currently serves on
the White House task force on the reform of the Office of Faith Based
and Neighborhood Partnerships.
Prior to the fundamentalist takeover of the Southern Baptist
Convention (SBC), Dr. Gaddy served in many SBC leadership roles
including as a member of the conventions Executive Committee from

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1980-84 and Director of Christian Citizenship Development of the

Christian Life Commission from 1973-77.
Dr. Gaddy received his undergraduate degree from Union University
in Jackson, Tennessee and his doctoral degree and divinity training
from the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville,
Kentucky.

State of Belief Radio

State of Belief is based on the proposition that religion has a positive
and healing role to play in the life of the nation. The show explains
and explores that role by illustrating the vast diversity of beliefs in
America the most religiously diverse country in the world while
exposing and critiquing both the political manipulation of religion for
partisan purposes and the religious manipulation of government for
sectarian purposes.
Each week, the Rev. Dr. C. Welton Gaddy offers listeners critical
analysis of the news of religion and politics, and seeks to provide
listeners with an understanding and appreciation of religious liberty.
Rev. Gaddy tackles politics with the firm belief that the best way to
secure freedom for religion in America is to secure freedom from
religion. State of Belief illustrates how the Religious Right is wrong
wrong for America and bad for religion.
Through interviews with celebrities and newsmakers and field reports
from around the country, State of Belief explores the intersection of
religion with politics, culture, media, and activism, and promotes

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diverse religious voices in a religiously pluralistic world.

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