While Christianity has been collapsing across Europe for the past half-century, with recent data indicating that a mere 18% of those who identify as Christian still attend church services regularly, the United States of America has traditionally been considered a far more Christian country. The electoral power wielded by the so-called Religious Right as well as the piety of many of America’s founders, settlers, and pioneers has infused America’s image with a religiosity that has defined the Shining City on a Hill for generations.
But a General Social Survey now indicates that for the first time in American history, atheists are the largest group in the nation at 23.1%, surpassing both evangelicals and Catholics as the largest portion of the population. Nonbelievers have increased a staggering 266% over the past thirty years, while mainline Protestant churches, which have largely embraced the Sexual Revolution and abandoned Christian orthodoxy entirely, have collapsed from 62.5% in 1982 to just 10.8% of the American population today.
