I'm not sure if this was seen here earlier, but I found it interesting.

"In total, about half of American adults have changed religious affiliation at least once during their lives." 

"Changing affiliation" includes to and from "not affiliated".

Interesting things (to me) that the numbers say

 - Only just over half of people who moved to a religious affiliation (whether from nonaffiliation or an existing religion) said they felt called to do so.

 - The largest reason by far (80%) indicated that a reason for moving was that they preferred the worship services.

 - 40% of those leaving religion for non-affiliation claim loss of belief in God.

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PineHall  - Shallow Consumerism   |2010-02-08 23:18:19 IMHO, I think people choosing based on worship services shows how we as a society have become very consumer and entertainment oriented. What a church teaches must be less important than how good one feels at the worship service. It is a sad commentary on American culture. I do wonder if many of these people are really Moralistic Therapeutic Deists. I think the MTDs would be the type of people where an attractive worship service (therapeutic) would be important.

Entity  - Catholic / Orthodox / theology?   |2010-02-09 15:00:33 First, why is a major branch of Christianity - the Orthodox Church - missing completely? Second, where is the data on why people became Catholic from Protestant? Third, where does theology fit into why they chose the new denomination? That didn't seem to be rated. It is the only thing I could see taking me to a different church. (Although bad worship services could get me to switch parishes.)

PineHall   |2010-02-09 22:04:58 Good questions, though I think theology was indirectly addressed in several questions. I have not looked the full report, but I too noticed the missing Orthodox church and Protestants becoming Catholics. To lump the Orthodox church with Catholics would be a mistake but I could see them doing that. Surveys like a few nice big categories.

emperorbma   |2010-02-10 09:36:06 There's a word for this: pigeonholing.

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