Where those who leave go
Pew Religious Landscape Study, 2023–24 (published February 2025). Of those raised Catholic: 57 percent still Catholic, 24 percent unaffiliated, 14 percent Protestant. Of those raised Protestant: 44 percent in the same Protestant family, 26 percent in a different Protestant family, 22 percent unaffiliated. Of those raised Latter-day Saint (Pew, September 2026): 54 percent still Latter-day Saint, 28 percent unaffiliated, 11 percent Protestant.
Barna Group, "Ex-Christians Aren't the Only Ones Deconstructing Faith" (October 2024; fielded November 2023; 2,003 U.S. adults). Forty-two percent of adults, and 37 percent of Christians, say they have "deconstructed the faith of their youth." Among ex-Christians who deconstructed, about two in five each moved toward atheism or agnosticism, or toward having no faith.
Limits. No study found here compares young adults raised in tightly binding churches with those raised in loosely binding ones. Pew does not publish 2023–24 retention for evangelical, mainline or historically Black Protestants separately.
Judgment: the data do not show that a strict church or a loose one produces faithful adults. They show that the faith is most often kept by those who saw it practiced at home and handed on with warmth, and that those who leave a church of their upbringing go to no church at least as often as to a looser one.
Politics, and leaving
Lifeway Research, "Most Teenagers Drop Out of Church When They Become Young Adults" (published January 2019; fielded September and October 2017; 2,002 U.S. adults aged 23 to 30 who had attended a Protestant church regularly in high school). Sixty-six percent said they had dropped out for at least a year between ages 18 and 22. Of those, 25 percent said they disagreed with the church's political or social stances, and 32 percent said church members seemed judgmental or hypocritical.
Pew Research Center, "Why Do Some Americans Leave Their Religion While Others Stay?" (published December 2025; fielded May 2025; 8,937 U.S. adults). Among those who had left the religion they were raised in, 34 percent said the religion's social or political teachings were a very or extremely important reason, and 32 percent said the same of scandals involving clergy or religious leaders.
Limits. The Lifeway study is Protestant only and asks about dropping out, not changing churches. The Pew study asks about leaving a religion, not a congregation. Neither says which political stances, and neither shows a trend over time.
The dechurched
Jim Davis and Michael Graham with Ryan P. Burge, The Great Dechurching (Zondervan, 2023). As reported by the publisher, an interview with the authors, and published reviews, the book's survey estimates that about 40 million American adults, roughly 15 percent, have stopped attending church over the past twenty-five years. The authors describe most as having drifted away for ordinary reasons, such as moving or busyness, and about 10 million as having left with real harm, a group they call "dechurch casualties."
Limits. The survey is not peer-reviewed academic research, and its figures are estimates. It does not measure how many people were abused, or how they recovered.
Judgment: most church changes in America follow a move. The decision this book is mostly about, leaving a church you could still attend, is the smaller share and the one the research says least about. No study found here measures whether staying or leaving served people well. The conviction of this book that staying is often right does not rest on these numbers. It rests on Christ's prayer in John 17 and on what His apostles wrote to the churches.
