The Geography of Non-Denominational Christianity, The Daily Yonder
Non-denominational Christians are on the rise nationwide. Does that hold true in rural America, too?
Non-denominational Christianity is growing nationwide, but rural areas still have lower rates compared to their urban and suburban counterparts. In this edition of the Rural Index, I’m exploring the spatiality of non-denominational Christians using data from the 2020 US Religion Census.
Amid an overall decline in religious affiliation nationwide, the share of Americans who identify as non-denominational Christians is actually on the rise. In 1972, only about 3% of Americans identified as non-denominational Christians, according to the General Social Survey. In 2024, the latest year of available data, that number rose to 14% of Americans, representing about 40 million people.
In an interview with CBS News, social scientist and data expert Ryan Burge said it’s possible that non-denominational Christians could soon outgrow Roman Catholics, becoming “the largest religious tradition in America.” In a 2023 post, Burge wrote that the rise of non-denominational Christians is the second biggest story in American religious trends right now. (The first biggest story is what Burge calls the rise of the nones, or the religiously unaffiliated.)
According to Burge, the common refrain about non-denominational churches is that they are essentially Southern Baptists without the associated institutional baggage. In fact, this is exactly how I’ve described the non-denominational congregation I grew up in. But Burge’s analysis of data from the General Social Survey suggests that the two groups hold different views about the interpretation of the Bible.
“It’s pretty apparent to me that Southern Baptists are more likely to take a literal view of the Bible than non-denominationals,” Burge wrote. “Based on the General Social Survey, nearly two-thirds of Southern Baptists can be categorized as biblical literalists, while this view is held by just 44% of non-denominationals.”
Non-denominationals and Southern Baptists are seemingly politically aligned, however. According to Burge’s analysis, Trump won 76% of the non-denominational vote and 72% of the Southern Baptist vote in 2020.
These trends are obviously more complex on the ground. And theological beliefs vary from church to church. But I hope these figures help you get a generalized view of non-denominational Christianity.
According to the 2020 US Religion Census, non-denominational churches make up more than 44,000 congregations ranging from small house churches to megachurches and networks of independent churches. The US Religion Census is a county-level, once-per-decade dataset that reports the number of congregations and adherents in American faith groups.
The following map shows the county-level adherence rate, measured by the number of non-denominational adherents divided by the 2020 population. In the census, the term ‘adherents’ refers to individuals who regularly attend a specific congregation.
