German ‘Self-Identified’ Protestants on Decline, Survey Says
(Evangelical Focus) — Although Germany is the birthplace of Martin Luther and the Protestant Reformation, since the middle of the 20th century, the country has seen a dramatic shift away from Protestantism.
The decline has been bigger than the one that has taken place among Catholics. Over the next 60 years, the share of “self-identified” Protestants fell 30 percentage points, while the share of Catholics dropped 7 points.
Meanwhile, there has been a rising share of the religiously unaffiliated, who accounted for 30% of Germans in 2010, up from fewer than 4% in 1950. A recent Pew research also showed that the share of Muslims in Germany has been growing, due in large part to immigration.
According to a research made by the scholars of religion and sociology at the University of Münster in Germany Detlef Pollack and Olaf Müller, in 2013, “the nationwide decline in German Protestants is also apparent when looking separately at East and West Germany (which reunified in 1990).”
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