In 2002, Mike Hout and I identified a new trend in Americans’ relationship with religion. Around 1990, the percentage of respondents to the General Social Survey (GSS) who, when asked their “religious preference,” picked the “no religion” option starting rising, doubling from about 7 percent, where it had been for many years, to 14 percent by 2000.
That finding and our efforts to explain it stirred interest among scholars and leaders of American religion. [cont.]
Claude Fischer, UC Berkeley