The US Christian population has declined for years. A new survey shows that drop leveling off

WASHINGTON — The number of Americans who identify as Christian has declined steadily for years, but that drop shows signs of slowing, according to a new survey Wednesday from the Pew Research Center. “As older cohorts of highly religious, older people have passed away, they have been replaced by new cohorts of young adults who are less religious than their parents and grandparents.” Michele Margolis, a University of Pennsylvania political scientist not affiliated with the Pew survey, has studied how religious involvement changes over a lifetime. Smith at Pew said “something would need to change” to stop the long-term decline of American religion, whether that’s adults becoming more religious with age or new generations becoming more religious than their parents. The Pew survey tracks many religious traditions It’s been nearly 10 years since the last Religious Landscape Study, which tracks religious data that the U.S. census does not. The two largest Protestant denominations in the Pew survey remain the Southern Baptist Convention and the United Methodist Church – though both have lost many members since the first Religious Landscape Study in 2007.