What’s the religious makeup of North Texas? Here are three charts that help explain

Dallas-Fort Worth residents are more likely than U.S. adults as a whole to say religion is “very important” in their lives. 

That’s according to the Pew Religious Landscape Study, a survey of America’s religious identity that was published late last year. The survey is conducted roughly every 10 years; the most recent data is for 2023-24. 

Greg Smith, a senior associate director of research at the Pew Research Center, has led three renditions of this survey. The United States Census Bureau does not collect information about religion, he said, and Pew’s survey has become the authoritative resource on the religious composition of the United States.

Here’s what to know about the religious identity of North Texas. 

The majority of adults in D-FW identify as Christian, and evangelical protestants make up the largest Christian demographic. The 2023-24 survey found 6% of adults identify with the Southern Baptist Convention, the largest protestant denomination in the U.S. Nine percent of adults identify as nondenominational under the evangelical protestant umbrella. 

Pew Research categorizes D-FW by the federal Office of Management and Budget’s definition. That includes several North Texas counties and the cities of Dallas, Fort Worth, Arlington, Plano, Irving, Denton, Richardson and Grapevine. 

In 2023-24, historically Black protestant adults made up about 7% of D-FW adults and 5% of adults in Texas. Catholics made up about 14% of adults in D-FW but 20% of adults in Texas, the survey said. Mainline protestant adults made up about 11% of the population in D-FW, about the same as the rest of the state. 

The share of Hindu adults has seen significant growth in D-FW. Over about 10 years, the survey said, the percentage of adults in D-FW who identify as Hindu grew from less than one percent to 3 percent. 

Related: Five things to know about religious life in Dallas-Fort Worth

Pankaj Kumar, a member of Hindus of D-FW, said technology jobs, affordable housing and the agreeable climate of North Texas have fueled immigration to the region. The number of temples in North Texas has tripled, Kumar said, and cultural celebrations have grown and community groups have multiplied. 

“I have witnessed how Hindu Americans have flourished in the Metroplex with this growth,” he said. 

Notably, almost one-third of adults in D-FW are not religiously affiliated. Robert Hunt, a professor of Christian mission and interreligious relations at the Perkins School of Theology at SMU, said religious affiliation is dropping among Generation Z in particular. 

“It’s not that we’re going to feel that we’re in a less religious or more secular society, but that we’re going to feel more strongly that we’re in a religiously diverse society,” he said. 

That feeling is already having an impact on how North Texas residents think about themselves, Hunt said. 

Debates on South Asian immigration, Hindus and Muslims – and even outright opposition – became prominent in the Frisco mayoral race. 

Related: Damm: Dangerous rhetoric looms in Frisco’s mayor race

At the same time, religious affiliation is also dropping among young people across all religions, Hunt said. While prominent churches across North Texas and the U.S. report growth in membership, Hunt said the growth does not reverse the overall trend. 

Pew Research last conducted its national Religious Landscape Study in 2014. According to the survey that chronicled the makeup of D-FW in 2023-2024, the share of adults who identify as Christian dropped by 15 percentage points. 

In 2007, Pew found that 84% of adults identified as Christian in all of Texas compared to 67% in 2023-2024. For adults who do not identify as being religious, D-FW outpaced the rest of the U.S according to the survey. The number of adults identifying as non-religious grew 10 percentage points from the 2014 survey. 

“If you look back over the last several decades, there is clear evidence that we’ve been in a period of religious decline in the United States,” Smith, the Pew researcher, said. 

However, Smith said the decline of Christian Americans and the growth of adults identifying as non-religious appears to have plateaued over the past five or six years. Dallas-Fort Worth’s religious makeup has been consistent with these national trends, Smith said. 

Historically, Smith said, young adults in the United States have been less religious than older adults. According to Smith, this is still true today, and a driving force of the long-term religious decline. 

“We don’t see a lot of evidence to suggest that it has changed, certainly not in the national data, but it’s something we’ll be keeping an eye on,” Smith said. 

This doesn’t mean that young people are not attending services in some particular congregations or cities, but nationally, there isn’t much evidence of an increase in religious participation among young adults, Smith said. 

Nic Burleson is the D-FW church planting strategist for Texas Baptists, the largest Baptist denomination in Texas. He helps start new congregations with resources, coaching and planning. 

Burleson said Texas Baptists helped start around 40 to 50 churches in the region last year, particularly in northern Dallas suburbs, north and west Fort Worth suburbs, Kaufman County and other areas that have seen explosive population growth in recent years. 

And young people are getting involved. Burleson said the churches seeing significant growth are the ones reaching Generation Z. 

“It’ll be interesting to see what the next wave of surveys say: Has the tide turned and now it is growing or has it just leveled off?” he said. “But there are definitely some positive things happening specifically with Gen Z.” 

Even as more adults said they were not religious, the majority of adults in D-FW believe in God or a universal spirit, the survey said. 

While 54% of U.S. adults reported an absolutely certain belief in God or a universal spirit, 62% of D-FW adults reported an absolutely certain belief. And while only 38% of adults in the U.S. say religion is “very important” in their lives, 48% of D-FW adults reported the same. 

Related: How James Talarico’s Christian faith shaped his politics and his Senate campaign

At the same time, only about a third of D-FW adults attend religious services weekly, the survey said. 
 
Smith attributed that discrepancy to how people integrate religion into their daily lives in a variety of ways – not just attending a house of worship.

“What you’re seeing there is the complexity of religious belief and practice and identity,” Smith said. “There are lots of people who identify with a religion, they describe themselves as Christian or Jewish or Muslim or another faith, but in practice they don’t actually do very many religious things.”