Christianity In The United States
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Christianity is the most popular religion in the United States, with around 73% of polled Americans identifying themselves as Christian in 2012. This is down from 86% in 1990, and slightly lower than 78.6% in 2001. About 62% of those polled claim to be members of a church congregation. In the mid-1990s the United States had the largest Christian population on earth, with 224 million Christians.
Protestant denominations accounted for 51.3%, while Roman Catholicism, at 23.9%, was the largest individual denomination. A Pew study categorizes white evangelicals, 26.3% of the population, as the country's largest religious cohort; another study estimates evangelicals of all races at 30–35%. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormon) is the fourth largest church in the United States, and the largest church originating in the US.
Christianity was introduced to the Americas as it was first colonized by Europeans beginning in the 16th and 17th centuries. Today most Christian churches are Mainline Protestant, Evangelical, or Roman Catholic.
Read more about Christianity In The United States: Major Denominational Families, History
Famous quotes containing the words united states, christianity, united and/or states:
“Yesterday, December 7, 1941Ma date that will live in infamy—the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan.”
—Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882–1945)
“But, with whatever exception, it is still true that tradition characterizes the preaching of this country; that it comes out of the memory, and not out of the soul; that it aims at what is usual, and not at what is necessary and eternal; that thus historical Christianity destroys the power of preaching, by withdrawing it from the exploration of the moral nature of man; where the sublime is, where are the resources of astonishment and power.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“In the United States all business not transacted over the telephone is accomplished in conjunction with alcohol or food, often under conditions of advanced intoxication. This is a fact of the utmost importance for the visitor of limited funds ... for it means that the most expensive restaurants are, with rare exceptions, the worst.”
—John Kenneth Galbraith (b. 1908)
“Perhaps anxious politicians may prove that only seventeen white men and five negroes were concerned in the late enterprise; but their very anxiety to prove this might suggest to themselves that all is not told. Why do they still dodge the truth? They are so anxious because of a dim consciousness of the fact, which they do not distinctly face, that at least a million of the free inhabitants of the United States would have rejoiced if it had succeeded. They at most only criticise the tactics.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)