Summarize this content to 2000 words in 6 paragraphs The proportion of non-religious people in America is growing in almost all states—Newsweek has made a map showing where this is happening fastest.Pew Research Center conducted its first Religious Landscape Study in 10 years, surveying more than 35,000 Americans in all 50 states.Why It MattersThere has been a “long period of sustained growth” in religiously unaffiliated adults, the center’s researchers said.These people, who identify as atheists, agnostics or as “nothing in particular” when asked about their religion, account for 29 percent of the population nationally, according to the new Religious Landscape Study.The U.S. is a historically Christian country in which the majority of people (62 percent) call themselves Christians—this has dropped from 78 percent in 2007 but the decline shows signs of slowing, authors of the study said.But “we can’t know for sure whether these short-term signs of stabilization will prove to be a lasting change in the country’s religious trajectory,” co-author Gregory Smith said.Pew found a huge age gap, with young adults overwhelmingly less religious than their elders—some 46 percent of the youngest Americans identify as Christian compared to 80 percent of the oldest adults.”These kinds of generational differences are a big part of what’s driven the long-term declines in American religion,” Smith said. “As older cohorts of highly religious, older people have passed away, they have been replaced by new cohorts of young adults who are less religious than their parents and grandparents.”What To KnowSome 36,908 U.S. adults were surveyed in English and Spanish between July 17, 2024 and March 4, 2025.These results showed that New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Utah, Wisconsin, Missouri, Montana and Pennsylvania are the top seven states that have seen the largest growth in the proportion of people who say they are religiously unaffiliated in the last two decades.
In the most recent study, 48 percent of New Hampshire respondents said they were not affiliated with organized religion—this is up from 27 percent who said the same in 2007. Similarly, Massachusetts saw a 20 percent jump from 17 percent in 2007 to 37 percent in 2023-24.Meanwhile, both Utah and Wisconsin saw an 18 percent increase in religiously unaffiliated people—from 16 percent to 34 percent.There was a 17 percent rise in Missouri (from 16 percent to 33 percent), Montana (from 22 percent to 39 percent) and Pennsylvania (from 13 percent to 30 percent).There is no data from 2007 for Alaska, Delaware, Hawaii, North Dakota, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Vermont and Wyoming because the sample sizes from that year were not significant enough, a Pew Research Center spokesperson told Newsweek.These states are all among those with the lowest growth in people who say they are not religiously affiliated—but this is between 2017 and 2024.If one is only looking at states where there is data for 2007, the following places have seen the smallest increase in religiously unaffiliated people the last 17 years: Nebraska and Arkansas (5 percent), South Carolina (6 percent), and New Mexico and Connecticut (9 percent).The Religious Landscape Study disclaims a margin of sampling error of 0.8 percentage points in general and 1.4 percentage points for religiously unaffiliated people. Pew Research Center also stressed to Newsweek that these margins of sampling error are “much larger” at state level, meaning “small differences are not statistically significant.”What People Are SayingMichele Margolis, a University of Pennsylvania political scientist, who has studied religious changes, told The Associated Press that while young adults often move away from religion, it is “more likely to become important when you get married and have kids.”What Happens NextWhile the proportion of religiously unaffiliated adults has “plateaued in recent years after a long period of sustained growth,” Smith said, “something would need to change” to stop the long-term decline of religion in America.
Map shows US states where religion is disappearing fastest.
Map shows US states where religion is disappearing fastest.
Newsweek/Flourish
