Poll: Percentage of Christians in US slips

Three-quarters of American adults identify as Christian, down 5 percent from 2008, according to a new survey released on Thursday.

{mosads}The Gallup poll also found that roughly 20 percent of Americans have no formal religion, which is up 5 percent from 2008.

“The general trends in the data over this eight-year period are clear: As the percentage of American identifying with a Christian religion has decreased, the percentage with no formal religious identification has increased,” Gallup editor-in-chief Frank Newport wrote.

Five percent of American adults identify as non-Christian, which has been constant since 2008.

Religious affiliation is lowest among young Americans. While rates of Christianity among those 50 and older are above 80 percent, only 62 percent of those 18 to 24 say they are Christian, compared to 31 percent who say they have no religion.

Half of all Americans identify as Protestant or another non-Catholic Christian religion, while 24 percent identify as Catholic and 2 percent as Mormon.

The annual survey was made up of more than 174,000 interviews in 2015. It has a margin of error of 1 percent.