More and more Americans are finding religion to be a simple issue to resolve; they want nothing to do with it.

The American Religious Identification Survey by Trinity College has found that fewer Americans call themselves Christians today than at any point in the last 20 years. All the while, more people than ever say they have no religion.

The 2008 survey, found that 76 percent of U.S. adults identify themselves as Christians, in contrast to a previous 1990 survey, which found 86 percent of adults to be Christian. Also, the percentage of people who do not identify themselves with any religion has risen. Those identified as “none” in the study included those with no stated religious preference, or self-identified as atheist or agnostic, which, all together, were evaluated to be 15 percent of the U.S. population.

The survey was conducted in 2008 in which more than 54,000 people nationwide were interviewed about their religious identification. The results were released on March 9 after analyzing the data collected from February to November of last year. The survey had previously been conducted in 1990 and 2001, and the results were compared to the newest study.

In contrast to the shrinking percentage of Christians, the survey found that the actual number of Christians is growing, though the rest of the country’s population has grown at a faster rate. According to the survey, the U.S adult population grew by 53 million people in the 18 years between 1990 and 2008.

In 1990, the survey found that 8.2 percent of Americans did not claim a religion, a number that rose to 14.1 percent by 2001. The change from 2001 to 2008 showed a slower growth rate, though there were fewer years between surveys.

“These things ebb and flow, we are at what seems to be the focal point of the reaction against a highly visible and politically active Christian presence in the country,” said David Horner, associate professor of biblical and theological studies at Biola.

One reason for the shift could be the increasing number of alternatives to Christianity in the United States, with many other religions present in the country. However, none of these non-Christian religious groups have as large a percentage of the population as atheism or agnosticism, according to the survey.

“The increasing secularization, diversity of religious options, and postmodern philosophies are making inroads on people’s faith commitments. North America is a free market religious economy. No religion had a monopoly on people’s faith choices,” said Gary McIntosh, professor of Christian ministry and leadership.

The survey not only found increasing diversity outside of Christianity, but within it as well. Non-denominational Christians were found to have significantly risen within the past two decades. The 1990 survey estimated there to be 194,000 non-denominational Christians in the United States, while the 2008 survey found more than 8 million.

The rise in the identification with non-denominational Christianity also comes with an increase in the use of the terms “evangelical” and “born again” when identifying religion. In the newest survey, the terms were used by 34 percent of American adults to describe themselves.

“This may be good in some ways. ‘Christian’ is a word that is often misunderstood. To be Christian may be simply mean to not be Muslim or Hindu or Buddhist,” said David Talley, chair of biblical studies at Biola.

Christians need to be more precise in telling people what they believe so as to avoid association with areas of religion of which that they are not part, Talley said.

The last few years have seen the church in America find its largest areas of change to be within its denomination, rather than in its overall growth, according to the survey. But this does not apply to the church as a whole, with the largest areas of growth in Christianity found outside the States, in places like Africa, which Horner points out are “exploding in growth.”

“The church will be growing until Christ returns, which will be after the gospel has gone to all the nations. Nothing or no one will be able to stop the forward movement of the gospel,” said Talley said. “No study will be able to fully comprehend or assess the work that God is doing in this world.”