Last spring’s Pew Report on “America’s Changing Religious Landscape” has garnered widespread media attention, much of it to proclaim that Christianity is dying. The news wasn’t all bad for believers; for example, as Catholics in the Northeast and the Midwest have declined, the percentages of Catholics in California and in the Southern part of the country have increased — creating what Pew has called a “new geographic center for Catholicism.” And while Mainline Protestant denominations continue to suffer steep declines in membership, there have been substantial increases in the number of those who describe themselves as “Evangelical Christians.” Today, Evangelicals make up a clear majority (55 percent) of all US Protestants—up from 51 percent in 2007.

Still, we cannot deny that there have been significant increases in the number of the unaffiliated — those without membership in any religion. While all age cohorts (including even the Greatest Generation — those born before 1928) have contributed to the growth of the unaffiliated, the greatest increase is seen among Millennials (those born between 1981 and 1996), who showed an increase of 10 percentage points (up from 25 percent in 2007 to 35 percent in 2014). But turning away from age groups — interestingly, those who identify themselves as gay, lesbian, or bisexual are the most likely group to identify as unaffiliated.

Read the article “The Pew Report and the LGBT “Nones”” on catholicworldreport.com.