As we all know the United States was founded on religious freedom. The religious landscape of the United States has been shaped by this idea throughout the centuries, taking many different forms and leaving us today with the rising and falling tides of religious affiliation. Most interesting is the ever-increasing percent of the population of the United States accepting religion yet denying affiliation with a recognized church or structured religious association.

Reading an overview of today’s religious landscape show that the United States, as it has been historically, is made up of a majority Protestant population with a falling 70.6 % followed by a rising 22.8% unaffiliated. Many would argue that religious freedom meant, and may still mean, the freedom to practice any protestant religion. As seen in the religious makeup of the representatives in national government the unaffiliated population in the United States is under represented, according to one set of data based on people verbally associating themselves with a religious organization. This is problematic because due to developing correlations between political parties and certain religious groups people with differing political views from those associated with their religious groups affiliation may prefer to respond “none” to a pollster as a way of distancing themselves from connected political views, but in practice still follow any given religion. Overall this phenomenon is increasing the difficulty to quantify the religious landscape in the United States. So person to person what does “religiously unaffiliated” mean. Unaffiliated with religion all together or the developing political context of religion.