Rise of the Religious “Nones”

For the first time, “no religion” (23.1%) has edged out Catholic (23.0%) and evangelical (22.5%) as the most common religious identity among Americans. To be sure, those who identify with some religion collectively outnumber the nones, but the speedy growth of the unaffiliated—up over 3X since 1991—suggests that they won’t remain absent from political l…