'Mixed Religion' as Identity: Who Are These People?

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/susan-katz-miller/mixed-religion-as-identity-who-are-these-people_b_2294159.html

Susan Katz Miller
Author, interfaith blogger: On Being Both
Posted: 12/13/2012 1:25 pm

This week, we learned of 23,000 people in England and Wales classified as having "Mixed Religion." This news comes from the United Kingdom's Office on National Statistics, which just released new numbers on religious identity from the 2011 government census. Most of the news reports have focused on the finding that from 2001 to 2011, the percentage of Christians in England and Wales fell from 72 percent to 59 percent. Meanwhile, the number claiming no religion almost doubled to 25 percent, paralleling the rise of the "religious nones" in the U.S. The numbers of Muslims grew most quickly, to almost 5 percent, and the percentage of Hindus, Sikhs and Pagans all increased as well.

But as someone who was born into an interfaith family and raised my children with two religions, my eye was drawn to the new evidence of people claiming more than one religion in their lives. Who are these "Mixed Religion" folks? How many of them are born Christians or Jews who find Paganism or Buddhism equally compelling? How many of them are in long-term relationships and find themselves practicing their spouse or partner's religion as well as their own? And how many of them are adults raised with more than one religion in interfaith families?

Here in the United States, the government's Bureau of the Census collected information on identity from religious organizations from 1906 to 1936, but then stopped. As a matter of separation of church and state, I understand that we do not want to ask about religious identity on the Census. The question about religion was added to the U.K. Census in 2001. Answering the religion question on the Census is optional, but only about 7 percent declined to answer.

For statistics on religious identity in America, the best source may be the Pew Forum's U.S. Religious Landscape Survey. In the 2009 report "Many Americans Mix Multiple Faiths," Pew researchers found that, even beyond weddings and funerals, almost a quarter of Americans sometimes attend services of a faith other than "their own." But the Pew researchers did not directly address the idea of "Mixed Religion" as a primary identity.

more at link