[ti:Study: Record Low Numbers of White, Christian Americans]
[by:www.21voa.com]
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[00:00.00]The number of Americans who identify as white and Christian
[00:07.47]now represents less than 50 percent of the United States population.
[00:15.35]A new study says immigrants have driven the decrease
[00:20.76]along with a growing number of Americans who reject organized religion.
[00:28.55]The Public Religion Research Institute, or PRRI, did the study.
[00:36.64]It questioned more than 100,000 people between January 2016 and January 2017.
[00:47.62]It found that Christianity overall remains a large majority.
[00:54.28]Nearly 70 percent of Americans identify themselves as Christian.
[01:01.38]However, white Christians -- once dominant
[01:05.98]-- now make up only 43 percent of the national population.
[01:12.04]Forty years ago, about 80 percent of Americans were white Christians.
[01:19.33]Today, about 25 percent of Americans
[01:23.59]do not identify with a single religion, the study found.
[01:29.18]About 17 percent of Americans now identify
[01:34.19]as white evangelical Christians, compared to 23 percent 10 years ago.
[01:42.11]In the 2016 presidential election, Donald Trump, a Republican,
[01:48.93]received 80 percent of the votes of white evangelicals.
[01:54.41]The PRRI study found that more than one-third of all Republicans
[02:00.84]say they are white evangelicals.
[02:04.55]And nearly 75 percent of Republicans identify themselves as white Christians.
[02:12.85]By comparison, about eight percent of Democrats call themselves white evangelicals.
[02:21.97]Almost 30 percent of Democrats identify as white Christians.
[02:28.47]And 40 percent of Democrats say they have no religious affiliation.
[02:35.32]The latest PRRI study also provided state-by-state details.
[02:42.55]It found that New York is the state with the greatest religious diversity.
[02:49.11]The southern state of Mississippi has the least religious diversity.
[02:55.36]The northeastern U.S. has long been where most of American Catholics live,
[03:02.88]and the northeastern state of Rhode Island remains the most Catholic state in the country.
[03:10.72]However, the Catholic population in the country is shifting, PRRI reports.
[03:18.13]A majority of Catholics in the U.S. now live in the south or west.
[03:24.90]The change comes from an increase in Latin American immigrants settling in those areas.
[03:32.97]I'm Ashley Thompson.
[03:35.11]更多听力请访问21VOA.COM