In 2020, 72% of American adults described their faith as “Christianity.” In 2025, only 66% said the same. That 8% drop translates to a decline of 15 million adults over 5 years. That’s 15 million fewer self-identifying Christians.

During the same amount of time, other major faiths have been adding numbers. Judaism grew its numbers by 21%, Islam did so by 12%, and Buddhism expanded by 56%. Now, these other faiths are still only a small part of the total population (3%, 2%, and 1% respectively), but their growth rates are still startling when compared to Christianity’s metrics.

To be fair, Christianity’s declining popularity doesn’t automatically mean there are fewer born-again people in America. Merely describing your faith to be Christianity does not mean you are saved. Many people who were never saved may now no longer adopt the label they formerly did. A genuinely saved believer can never lose his salvation, but many can nominally confess and then fall away (1 John 2:19), so this certainly seems a plausible explanation.

Nonetheless, this development should disturb us. We want all men to come to repentance, so Christianity should constantly be taking numbers from idolatrous religions, not the other way around. When we fail at this, the societal consequences are disastrous.

As Christianity gets less popular and idolatrous religions begin to rise, God’s Word will become less of a foundation for our culture. Even if many of those “falling away” from Christianity were merely nominal Christians, that still gives Christianity less sway in broader society. You can at least appeal to the authority of the Bible to a nominal Christian. You can’t do it in the same way with a Buddhist. Based on these statistics, we can expect to see more influence from Buddha and less influence from Jesus in our culture. That won’t be a pretty sight.

While Christianity is not merely a cultural phenomenon, we should earnestly care about the cultural effects of our religion. God’s truth should permeate every aspect of culture from the inside out—family, government, media, etc. So when Christianity becomes less popular—even if it only means fewer nominal Christians around—our “national conscience” will be less disturbed by perversions of God’s truth. If Christianity keeps declining and Islam keeps rising, who’s to say we won’t eventually see polygamy accepted? 

On the other hand, there is a blessing wrapped up in this decline in Christianity’s popularity: it will force the real Christians to stand up.

I live in an area of the country that is notoriously progressive, liberal, and unchurched. Many conservative Christians here have chosen to move to other locations that are more conservative and family-friendly. But I’ve heard the same comment from more than one family that’s made this choice: “Man, we’re having such a hard time finding a solid church here.” Sometimes, leaving an area that is more hostile to Christianity yields an unfortunate trade-off: church climate for political climate.

Ironically, in areas where Christianity has more influence in society, some people assume they are Christians just because they live there. “I was born in America, I go to church, and I live a moral life—I’m a Christian, right?” When Christianity permeates the culture, identification with Christ can often become merely cultural. Even though it doesn’t have to be this way, it’s still a temptation to constantly guard against.

So if Christianity continues to become less popular in America, it will be harder to claim you are a Christian because you were born here. It will be harder to live a God-fearing Christian life. It will expose the dividing lines between churches led by real shepherds and those led by hired hands who abandon the sheep to trouble. It will force the real Christians to mean what they say. And maybe it’ll be a time of reinvigoration for an American church that has had it pretty easy, all things considered.

So don’t get me wrong—I’m not happy that Christianity is becoming less popular. God’s truth is supposed to take over the world. We should work to reverse this trend and fill the pews with more and more people on the road to heaven. But I also think we can see a blessing wrapped up in our nation’s disappointing spiritual trajectory. Paradoxically, in those periods where God’s church seems on the retreat, the strong are forced to get stronger. Perhaps God will use this as a wake-up call: Will the real Christians please stand up?