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Christianity is the most popular religion in the United States, with 70.6% of polled American adults identifying themselves as Christian in 2014. This is down from 86% in 1990, lower than 78.6% in 2001, and slightly lower than 73% in 2012. About 62% of those polled claim to be members of a church congregation.〔 online at (Google Books ).〕 The United States has the largest Christian population in the world, with nearly 247 million Christians, although other countries have higher percentages of Christians among their populations. All Protestant denominations accounted for 51.3%, while Roman Catholicism by itself, at 23.9%, was the largest individual denomination. A 2008 Pew study categorizes white evangelicals, 26.3% of the population, as the country's largest religious cohort;〔Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life. (''U.S. Religious Landscape Survey: Religious Affiliation: Diverse and Dynamic'' ). February 2008, pp. 5, 12. Accessed February 8, 2011.〕 another study in 2004 estimates evangelicals of all races at 30–35%. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church) is the fourth largest church in the United States, and the largest church originating in the U.S.〔(Mitt Romney's Mormon roots in northern England ) retrieved 16 June 2012〕〔(Mormonism beginnings ) retrieved 15 June 2012〕 Christianity was introduced to the Americas as it was first colonized by Europeans beginning in the 16th and 17th centuries. Immigration further increased Christian numbers. Today most Christian churches in the United States are Mainline Protestant, Evangelical, or Roman Catholic.〔God's Continent: Christianity, Islam, and Europe's Religious Crisis, p 284, Philip Jenkins - 2007〕 ==Major denominational families== Christian denominations in the United States are usually divided in three large groups, Evangelical Protestantism, Mainline Protestantism and Roman Catholicism. There are also Christian denominations that do not fall within either of these groups, such as Eastern Orthodoxy, but they are much smaller. A 2004 survey of the United States identified the percentages of these groups as 26.3% (Evangelical), 22% (Roman Catholics), and 16% (Mainline Protestant).〔 In a Statistical Abstract of the United States, based on a 2001 study of the self-described religious identification of the adult population, the percentages for these same groups are 28.6% (Evangelical), 24.5% (Roman Catholics), and 13.9% (Mainline Protestant).〔The figures for this 2007 abstract are based on surveies for 1990 and 2001 from the Graduate School and University Center at the City University of New York. 〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Christianity in the United States」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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