WASHINGTON (BP)—Christians are projected to comprise less than half of the U.S. population by 2070 in a Pew Research study of how current trends might play out among believers and non-believers in the coming decades.

In the best-case scenario of how trends might continue to unfold, which Pew presents as the most unlikely and most optimistic possibility, Pew projects the Christian share of the U.S. population to shrink from a current 64 percent to between 54 percent and 35 percent by 2070.

In the scenario Pew described as most likely, Christians would comprise 39 percent of Americans by 2070, losing their majority status as early as 2050 at 47 percent of the national population.

“Nones,” or the religiously unaffiliated, would constitute the largest share of Americans at 47 percent in 2050, under the scenario Pew said is the most likely of four considered.

Among factual trends Pew considered in its hypothetical scenarios of the future of religion in America are the pace at which adults switch to a religion other than that of their childhood, and various demographic trends including migration, births and deaths.

“None of the scenarios in this report demonstrate what would happen if switching into Christianity increased. This is not because a religious revival in the U.S. is impossible,” Pew postured in the study released Sept. 13. “New patterns of religious change could emerge at any time. Armed conflicts, social movements, rising authoritarianism, natural disasters or worsening economic conditions are just a few of the circumstances that sometimes trigger sudden social – and religious – upheavals.

“However, our projections are not designed to model the consequences of dramatic events, which might affect various facets of life as we know it, including religious identity and practice. Instead, these projections describe the potential consequences of dynamics currently shaping the religious landscape.”

The trend-based scenarios Pew hypothesized are:

1. What if the rate of switching remains steady among 15- to 29-year-olds, the ages most susceptible? Based on trends, in each new generation 31 percent of people raised Christian would become religiously unaffiliated while 21 percent of those who grew up with no religion would become Christian. The result? Christians would retain their plurality but lose their majority, first dipping below 50 percent in 2060 and sitting at 46 percent by 2070. “Nones” would register at 41 percent or below by 2070.
2. What if switching became more common, seeing progressively larger shares of Christians leave the faith by age 30, but leveled off to prevent the share of Christianity from falling below the neighborhood of 50 percent? This scenario, which Pew deemed most plausible, would result in Christians falling to 47 percent of the population by 2050, compared to 42 percent of the population that would describe themselves as unaffiliated. By 2070, “nones” would constitute a plurality of the population at 48 percent. The plausibility is based on how switching has played out in 79 other countries where, amid switching, the percentage of Christians “has not been known to fall below about 50 percent,” Pew said.
3. What if switching continues to increase unabated in popularity, pushing Christianity below the neighborhood of 50 percent? If so, Pew said, Christians would fall from the majority by 2045. By 2055, Christians would comprise 43 percent of the population, ranking behind “nones” at 46 percent. By 2070, 52 percent of Americans would be considered “nones,” while 35 percent would be Christian.
4. Finally, in the scenario Pew describes as most unrealistic among the four considered, what if switching ceases altogether? Only in this case would Christians retain their majority as late as 2070, ranking at 54 percent of the population. Still, the majority ranking would represent a 10 percentage point decrease from today.

“While the change in affiliation rates in the United States is largely due to people voluntarily leaving religion behind, switching is not the only driver of religious composition change worldwide,” Pew said. “For example, differences in fertility rates explain most of the recent religious change in India, while migration has altered the religious composition of many European countries in the last century. Forced conversions, mass expulsions, wars and genocides also have caused changes in religious composition throughout history.

“Moreover, the scenarios in this report are limited to religious identity and do not project how religious beliefs and practices might change in the coming decades.”

Progressively since 1990, a larger share of adults who were raised Christian no longer describe themselves as such. In the early 1990s, nearly 90 percent of U.S. adults described themselves as Christian, a percentage that has fallen to 64 percent. About 30 percent of U.S. adults said they have no religion today. The remaining six percent of the population reflects several faiths including Jews, Muslims, Buddhists and Hindus.

Scenario 2 “best illustrates what would happen if recent generational trends in the U.S. continue, but only until they reach the boundary of what has been observed around the world, including in Western Europe,” Pew said of the possibilities. “Overall, this scenario seems to most closely fit the patterns observed in recent years.”

This article originally appeared on Baptist Press.

DUNCANSVILLE, Pa. (BP)—Doug Pilot remembers the crater. He remembers the blackened trees and hearing that there was nothing left bigger than a phone book.

Pilot, pastor of New Hope Baptist Church, was serving as the director of missions for Conemaugh Valley Baptist Association on Sept. 11, 2001. He was about to leave for a meeting with church planters in Harrisburg when his wife, Jeanne, called him back to the house.

A plane had just hit the World Trade Center. Pilot went back inside the watch the coverage. That’s when both saw the second plane hit the South Tower.

“I told her we were being attacked, so she decided to go with me to Harrisburg,” he said.

On the way, news came that another plane had crashed, this one in a field near Somerset.

“We had church planters down there and I immediately wanted to check on them,” Pilot said. “I tried calling them, but the lines were tied up. So I called Harrisburg and told them we were going to Somerset.”

On the way, they learned the plane actually went down in Shanksville, about 5 miles from Somerset. News also broke over the radio that yet another plane had hit the Pentagon.

“We got to Somerset and found out they were OK. That’s also around the time Baptist Press called and asked if I could be eyes and ears for them on the scene,” he said.

Pilot would be on the scene as a reporter, but also for his expertise in crisis management. At the time, he was a chaplain for local emergency management personnel as well as The Laurel Highlands Critical Incident Stress Management Team.

The crash site was in a reclaimed coal mining area and only about three miles from where he stood.

Nearing the site, Pilot identified himself to state troopers related to his training, gaining access both in that role and as a reporter. Eventually he was sent with others to the local fire department that was serving as a staging area. Soon thereafter he was directed back to the work site near the crater.

“It smoked for days,” he said. “The trees on the far side of the crater were blackened from the fire. They were saying they couldn’t find a piece of the plane bigger than a phone book.”

FBI investigators testified that the initial crater only went about 15 feet deep, though the black boxes would later be found at 25 feet. A misty smoke hung in the air from the jet fuel that had set the woods on fire.

Pilot stood on a slight rise that went above the crater, but not high enough where he could see the bottom of it. The day was clear and warm, he said. A Pennsylvania state trooper helicopter patrolled above, tasked with identifying onlookers trying to get near the site.

“When you drove in there were state troopers posted about every 75 feet. They were trying to keep people out of the crash area, but some still slipped in and they were using the helicopter to help find them and get them out of there.”

A sense of shock and disbelief permeated the scene. It came from asking how an entire passenger jet could hit the ground with such force that no identifiable part of it remained. It came knowing that similar states of incredulity prevailed in New York and Washington, D.C.

Pilot would spend about seven hours there that day, leaving close to sundown.

“We all talked about who could have done it,” he said. “We talked about the other places that got hit. We heard about the passengers on 93 revolting and the guy (Todd Beamer) saying ‘Let’s roll.’”

He also remembers the full churches in the weeks afterward. All of it – the shock of the moment and temporary seeking of God’s face – reminded him of something else. It was when, as a high school senior, he was going to lunch and heard President John F. Kennedy had been shot.

“We reassured people that God was still on the throne,” he said on the days after 9/11. “There was a time for grieving and shock. We had been attacked on our own soil.”

He also remembers how rumors flew of other attacks. On the way to Somerset, he and Jeanne had been directed around Johnstown, Pa., because of rumors that attackers were to hit it next.

Pilot has visited the Flight 93 Memorial, dedicated one day before the 10th anniversary on Sept. 10, 2011, several times.

He encourages others to stop by it for fear that lessons learned in the aftermath of 9/11 have been forgotten.

You have to work to remember, sometimes. His personal connection notwithstanding, the upcoming anniversary had slipped up on Pilot. Life commands your attention and in his case, it was caring for Jeanne after she recently had a cyst removed from her back.

“I’ll bring it up now,” he said. “This thing is kind of reliving itself for me.”

This article originally appeared on Baptist Press.