The American Religious Landscape Facts, Trends, and the Future

At its founding, the United States was an overwhelmingly Protestant country. However, over the last 250 years, it has become increasingly diverse with tens of millions of Catholics, millions of Latter-day Saints, Muslims, Hindus, and Jews, alongside a rapidly increasing share of Americans who claim no religious affiliation at all.

The American Religious Landscape uses an in-depth statistical analysis of large datasets to answer foundational questions about this diversity, such as: How many Hindus are there in the US? Which state has the highest concentration of Muslims? Are atheists more highly educated than the general population? How many Roman Catholics attend Mass weekly? It focuses on the overall size, geographic distribution, and demographic composition of twelve different religious groups in short and accessible chapters that, taken together, serve as a basic introduction to the state of religion in America. Through dozens of charts, graphs, and maps--designed for readability and clarity--readers will be left with a solid understanding of the contours of contemporary American religion and what it could look like in the future.

Ryan P. Burge is Associate Professor of political science at Eastern Illinois University. He is the author of The Great Dechurching and The Big Church Sort.