Of all the changes to identity and belonging, the century’s second decade has been particularly marked by a religious sea change.

Now, at the end of the decade, only 42 percent of Americans identify as white and Christian, representing a drop of 11 percentage points.

But this is only part of the story. The simultaneous development in the religious landscape — the one that is turbocharging these trends — is the exodus of young people from white Christian churches and into the ranks of “the nones,” the growing number of Americans who claim no religious affiliation.

As recently as the 1990s, the percentage of religiously unaffiliated Americans was in single digits. That number increased to 19 percent by 2010 and rose another 7 percentage points over the last decade to 26 percent today.

As white Christian millennials were coming of age, the rise of the Christian Right meant that the public faces of Christianity, and even religion overall, were a cadre of white male religious leaders who were almost exclusively supporting conservative Republican political candidates and who had opposing LGBTQ rights at the top of their agenda.

These commitments were an exceptionally challenging fit for a cosmopolitan cohort that leans progressive and for whom affirming LGBTQ rights is a near-consensus issue. For example, among Americans under the age of 30, only 18 percent identify as conservative while 75 percent support same-sex marriage.

[nbcnews.com]