America is a Christian nation, according to an ABCNews/Beliefnet poll that asked, “What if anything is your religion?”
In a random national sampling of 1,022 adults, 83 percent identified themselves as Christians, in telephone interviews conducted June 20-24, 2001.
“Most of the rest, 13 percent, have no religion,” wrote ABCNews analyst Gary Langer. “That leaves just 4 percent as adherents of all non-Christian religions combined–Jews, Muslims, Buddhists and a smattering of individual mentions.”
Writing on ABCNews.com, Langer noted that only 33 percent of the world’s population is Christian.
Langer wrote that “53 percent of Americans are Protestants, 22 percent Catholics and 8 percent other Christians, such as Mormons or Jehovah’s Witnesses.”
The poll found that 15 percent of Americans identified themselves as Baptists.
“Nearly half of blacks, 48 percent, say they’re Baptists,” Langer wrote. Among white Americans, 13 percent identify themselves as Baptists.
Methodists comprise 6 percent of Americans, while Lutherans make up 5 percent.
Among American Christians, 37 percent identify themselves as born-again (or evangelical). In the South, 55 percent of Christians describe themselves as born-again, “compared to 21 percent in the Northeast, 26 percent in the Midwest and 31 percent in the West,” Langer wrote.
The ABCNews/Beliefnet poll found that Protestants have lower economic and educational levels than Catholics. While 36 percent of Catholics have college degrees, only 17 percent of Baptists do.