The number of Americans professing no religious ties is growing, but President Trump reemphasized at the National Prayer Breakfast that faith is key to being an American.
“Faith is central to American life and to liberty,” he said in a speech Thursday morning.
“As long as we open our hearts to God’s grace, America will be free, the land of the free, the home of the brave and the light to all nations.”
The National Prayer Breakfast is a massive ecumenical gathering that draws thousands of people from around the world, The Washington Post’s Sarah Pulliam Bailey reported, especially from the United States’ white evangelical community, which continues to give Trump high approval marks. This year’s event included as many as 60 representatives from Russia’s religious and political communities, according to CNN, more than three times the number that attended last year’s event.
And although Trump rarely attends church himself, the emphasis on the role of God in his vision of America is something with which a growing number of citizens disagree.
According to the Pew Research Center:
“The share of Americans who identify as atheists has roughly doubled in the past several years. Pew Research Center’s 2014 Religious Landscape Study found that 3.1% of American adults say they are atheists when asked about their religious identity, up from 1.6% in a similarly large survey in 2007. An additional 4.0% of Americans call themselves agnostics, up from 2.4% in 2007.”
Read the full story at The Washington Post
