The U.S. is undergoing its fastest religious shift in modern history, marked by a rapid increase in the religiously unaffiliated and numerous church closures nationwide. Why it matters: The great unchurching of America comes as identity and reality are increasingly shaped by non-institutional spiritual sources — YouTube mystics, TikTok tarot , digital skeptics , folk saints and AI-generated prayer bots . It's a tectonic transformation that has profound implications for race, civic identity, political persuasion and the ability to govern a fracturing moral landscape. By the numbers: Nearly three in 10 American adults today identify as religiously unaffiliated — a 33% jump since 2013, according to the nonpartisan Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI) . That's quicker than almost any major religious shift in modern U.S. history, and it's happening across racial groups, an Axios analysis found. About four in ten Americans ages 18 to 29 identify as religiously unaffiliated (38%), an inc