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Interfaith households increase in U.S.

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A recent Pew study found that 21 percent of millennials are raised in interfaith homes.

The 21 percent is made up of nine percent who are raised by two people who are both religious, but claim different religions.

Six percent were raised by one Protestant and one Catholic, while three percent were raised by some other combination.

The study also found that 12 percent were raised by one person who was religiously affiliated and another who was not.

This has changed since the past generations. The Silent/Greatest Generation had only 13 percent of their generation raised by people of different religions, the Baby boomers had 19 percent and generation X had 20.

The millennials have increased this even further with 27 percent being raised by two people of different religions.

Dual religious households and households with one religious parents and one not affiliated have gone up equally. Both doubling between the greatest generation and the millennials.

One pattern Pew has seen is that Americans who were raised by at least one religiously unaffiliated parent are more likely to remain religiously unaffiliated.

However, when a person is raised solely in Catholicism or Protestantism they are more likely to remain in that religion.

The religion of the mother is seen as the most important. According to Pew, 4 out of ten people believe the faith of their mother to be the most influential.  Nearly two-thirds of those who were raised in a singularly religious household said that their mother’s faith was the most important to them.

Forty-four percent identified shared religious beliefs.

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