(NewsNation) — New polling data from Gallup shows that nearly half of Americans now identify as religious, while a third say they are spiritual but not religious.
While the number of Americans who had some spiritual or religious beliefs still exceeded those who did not, the percent of Americans who identified as neither spiritual nor religious is 18%, twice as many as in 1999, when the question was introduced.
Among the 82% of Americans who do hold some sort of belief system, 47% said they were religious, 33% said they were spiritual but not religious and just 2% identified as both spiritual and religious.
Over the past few decades, Gallup data on religious identity has shown an increase in those who identify as other, a category that includes all beliefs that are not Christianity, Judaism or Mormonism, with the share reaching 6% in 2022.
Spiritual but not religious is a category that can encompass many belief systems, including those who continue to hold values from traditional religion but have moved away from traditional institutions.
It’s also a category that can include those who explore different paths and seek inspiration and meaning outside of organized faith. Those can include mindfulness practices like yoga, non-traditional like reading tarot cards or non-religious activities like art or music.
The biggest factors impacting belief were partisanship and age. Younger Americans were more likely to be neither religious nor spiritual, with 26% saying they were neither as compared to the 57% of Americans age 65 and older who identified as religious.
Republicans were more likely to identify as religious at 61%, with just 28% identifying as spiritual. Democrats were nearly equally likely to be either, with 41% identifying as spiritual and 37% as religious. Democrats were also more likely to answer neither, with 21% identifying no belief system compared to 8% of Republicans.