Are young Americans losing their religion? There is at least the perception that many Americans are increasingly uncomfortable with organized religion. Contemporary survey research would seem to support this widely held notion. For example, in 1988, the General Social Survey recorded 8 percent of U.S. adults as having no religious affiliation (those marking "no religion" on surveys). Yet by 2004, less than two decades later, the percentage of GSS respondents reporting no religious affiliation increased to 14.4 percent. It is a fact that Americans, and especially the young, are significantly more likely today to mark "no religion," when filling out surveys. Is it reasonable, therefore, to assume that young Americans are losing their religion?

Reputable surveys of American religion have for decades asked American respondents about their religious identity or affiliation. The GSS and a host of other social surveys provide respondents with a long list of denominations (close to 40) from which respondents can indicate an affiliation. In addition to this long list of denominational categories, three additional categories are typically included: "no religion"; "other (please specify)"; and "don't know." It is a matter of fact that the number of Americans who mark "no religion" has increased in the last several decades. What are we to make of this increase? Are we to surmise that it is due to a falling away from the faith? Could it indicate a rise in secularism or even atheism? A closer examination is quite revealing.

Asking Americans to select their religious family or denomination from a list has become increasingly problematic over the years as more and more Americans are losing a strong denominational identity. The rising number of non-denominational congregations and congregations that minimize their denominational ties compounds the problem. The declining importance of denomination, however, does not mean that religion itself is on the wane, despite dubious reports to the contrary. Rather, Americans are simply more likely to connect with religion at the local level. Consider the case of Saddleback Church, a popular Southern California megachurch. Do the people who attend Saddleback realize that they are denominationally Southern Baptist? They know that they attend Saddleback with Pastor Rick Warren, but they may not know of the ties to the Southern Baptist denomination. There are many similar examples one could mention to make this point: Americans are not losing their religion, even if they are increasingly losing their denominational identity.

In addition to presenting the standard list of denominations, the Baylor Religion Survey asks respondents to give the name and address of their place of worship. Not surprisingly, a non-significant number of Americans who indicated "no religion" actually provide the name and address of a church they attend. Further, a significant number of those choosing "no religion," who only affiliate with a congregation as opposed to a denomination, attend evangelical churches. My Baylor colleagues in a series of publications document that researchers have previously over-counted the religiously unaffiliated by approximately 10 million Americans.

Along the same lines, Hout and Fischer (2002) have shown that some individuals who express no religious preference actually hold conventional religious beliefs but choose not to affiliate with churches. This finding substantiates that "unaffiliated" and "non-religious" are not interchangeable research categories and should not, therefore, be categorized together or treated as one and the same.

Decades of survey research consistently confirm that a very high percentage of Americans (young and old alike) believe in God, regularly pray, consider themselves to be religious, and indicate religion is important in their lives. Even more telling is the fact that hundreds of published studies document the influential role of religion and religious commitment in increasing prosocial behavior (e.g., hope, purpose, meaning, and educational attainment). At the same time, an impressive and mounting body of evidence confirms that increasing religiosity is linked to decreases in an array of deleterious outcomes (e.g., depression, suicide, hypertension, mortality, crime, delinquency, alcohol/drug abuse). Researchers now regularly write about the protective effects of religion and the salutary influence of religiousness in coping as well as resiliency.

Over the last several decades, thousands of peer-reviewed journal articles have consistently documented the link between increasing spirituality and physical as well as social health (see Koenig, Larson, and McCullough, 2001). In fact, the accumulation of evidence has been so compelling that a majority of medical schools now offer courses on spirituality and health as part of the regular curriculum. In addition, we know that religious beliefs and commitments tend to be positively associated with other public goods like volunteerism and civic engagement. Robert Putnam has acknowledged that a substantial percent of social capital is a result of America's vast spiritual capital.

We do not have empirical evidence that the increase in religious "nones" is associated with a falling away from the faith. Rather, people have confused unrelated findings and drawn conclusions for which there is no empirical basis.

Byron Johnson is Distinguished Professor of Social Sciences, director of the Institute for Studies of Religion, and director of the Program on Prosocial Behavior, all at Baylor University. He is the author of More God, Less Crime: Why Faith Matters and How It Could Matter More, published in May by the Templeton Press.

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