Rhetoric Race and Religion
Hispanics living in the United States are now increasingly evangelical Protestants or religiously unaffiliated as the number of Catholics among them declines, according to a national survey conducted by the Public Religion Research Institute.
While Catholic affiliation has dropped by 16 percentage points (a reported 69 percent Catholic identification among Hispanics during childhood compared to only 53 percent identifying the same as adults today), evangelical Protestant affiliation has increased by six percentage points in the same period to 13 percent today. In the same amount of time, the percentage of religiously unaffiliated Hispanics has also increased by seven percentage points to 12 percent. Reported in the Hispanic Values Survey, the findings show a significant shift in the religious landscape of Hispanic Americans.
“The rise of religiously unaffiliated Hispanics is critically important for understanding the changing composition and political profile of Hispanics in America,” said Dr. Robert P. Jones, the CEO of Public Religion Research Institute, in a statement. “Many pundits have argued that evangelical growth will lead to a conservative shift among Hispanics over time, but the rival emergence of religiously unaffiliated Hispanics, who are liberal on a range of issues, serves as an important counterweight.”
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