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September 14, 2012
Americans Underestimate Number of Protestants By More Than 50%
Survey suggests Americans overstate size of religious minorities.
(RNS) The typical American underestimates how many Protestants there are in the U.S., and vastly overestimates the number of religious minorities such as Mormons, Muslims, and atheist/agnostics, according to a new study.
Grey Matter Research and Consulting asked 747 U.S. adults to guess what proportion of the American population belongs to each of eight major religious groups: Protestant, Catholic, Jewish, Mormon, Muslim, atheist/agnostic, believe in God or a higher power but have no particular religious preference, and any other religious group.
The average response was that 24 percent of Americans are Catholic, 20 percent are Protestant, 19 percent are unaffiliated, 8 percent are Jewish, 9 percent are atheist or agnostic, 7 percent are Muslim, 7 percent are Mormon and 5 percent identify with all other religious groups.
Respondents were correct on Catholics -- 24 percent of the country is Catholic. But according to the 2008 U.S. Religious Landscape Survey from the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life, 51 percent are Protestant, 12 percent are unaffiliated, 2 percent are Jewish, 4 percent are Atheist/Agnostic, less than 1 percent are Muslim, 2 percent are Mormon and 4 percent identify with all other religious groups.
While Protestants make up more than half of the American population, Ron Sellers, president of Grey Matter Research, said there are several reasons why there is such a gross underestimation of their numbers.
“Protestant is an umbrella word that people don’t think of,” he said, noting that people are much more likely to identify with individual Protestant groups, such as Baptist, Methodist or Lutheran, rather than with the Protestant tradition as a whole.
Sellers also mentioned that with Mitt Romney running for president as a Mormon and the current emphasis on Islamic-American relations, “smaller faith groups also may be getting disproportionate media coverage.”
Respondents under the age of 35 were even more likely than older participants to underestimate the Protestant population. Dan Cox, research director for the Washington-based Public Religion Research Institute, said that may be because young people tend to have more friends who are religiously unaffiliated.
"The religiously unaffiliated and non-Christian groups are increasing, but we aren’t close to 30 percent of Americans identifying as unaffiliated or agnostic," he said. "We are becoming more religiously diverse -- that is entirely true -- but we’re a long way from any of these numbers.”
Comments
I fail to see how 747 can be an accurate sampling of what americans believe about anything let alone religion. Also the research is 4 years old so I'm sure that is different now. Protestant is such a broad term and I believe you are including religions that real protestants consider cults. Also I don't see where you show the relevance of the research.
Posted By: Judi Mott | September 14, 2012 9:59 PM
Judi's comment is particularly relevant in that the article gives Romney's presidential bid as one of the factors that could influence the percentage of Mormons. How did Romney's presidential bid affect a survey done in 2008?
Probably not the best use of those "slow news day" articles from the bottom drawer. This one should have hit the recycle bin -- it's "best before" date expired a couple of years ago.
Posted By: JP | September 17, 2012 2:23 PM
The results of a presumably recent survey were compared with actual numbers from a few years ago. I don't think the numbers would've changed that radically in the last few years, although I'm not sure.
I'm not a statistician, but a carefully chosen group of 747 can be statistiacally significant with a margin of error. And a much larger group can be meaningless.
Posted By: darrell | September 17, 2012 3:51 PM
Scientific polls like this are generally correct. There is a margin of error built in. Of course when you bring science and religion together for anything the religious will dispute the facts because facts are only relevant to the religious when they agree. You wont hear too many religious say "really, wow I was way off on that". There was a time you might hear that from a religious person but not anymore. Uncomfortable facts are now religious persecution. But also- I don't care what subject you ask us Americans the results are always disturbing. We don't know much about anything anymore. But Christians have at least made it easy on themselves. They don't have know anything anymore because science is now religious persecution.
Posted By: Marty | September 23, 2012 12:00 PM
Wow, Marty, I am disappointed by your brass generalizations. As a devout Christian who was educated at a secular university, I do not view science (and never have) as a form of religious persecution, nor do I disregard facts as irrelevant to my understanding of reality. In fact, I would argue that your comments are more descriptive of a particular subset of Christianity unique to the United States than of the religion as a whole.
Posted By: Amanda | September 23, 2012 11:47 PM
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