Religious affiliation is shifting in Arizona
The big picture: "This is a broad-based social change," Alan Cooperman, the director of religion research at the nonpartisan think tank, told Axios.
"We've had rising shares of people who don't identify with any religion — so-called nones — and declining shares who identify as Christian, in all parts of the country, in all parts of the population, by ethnicity and race, among both men and women, and among people at all levels of the educational spectrum."
By the numbers: 58% of Arizona adults identify as Christian, according to Pew's Religious Landscape Study that surveyed more than 35,000 Americans about religious and social beliefs from 2023 to 2024.
That's down from 67% in 2014 and 71% in 2007.
Meanwhile, the state's religiously unaffiliated population increased from 22% (2007) to 31% (2023-2024) and those practicing a non-Christian religion rose from 4% to 10%.
The intrigue: While many people are moving away from organized religion, some are embracing spirituality.
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