Historic.

America loses Protestant majority.

NEW YORK- For the first time in its history, the United States does not have a Protestant majority, according to a new study. One reason: The number of Americans with no religious affiliation is on the rise.

The percentage of Protestant adults in the U.S. has reached a low of 48 percent, the first time that Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life has reported with certainty that the number has fallen below 50 percent. The drop has long been anticipated and comes at a time when no Protestants are on the U.S. Supreme Court and the Republicans have their first presidential ticket with no Protestant nominees.

Among the reasons for the change are the growth in nondenominational Christians who can no longer be categorized as Protestant, and a spike in the number of American adults who say they have no religion. The Pew study, released Tuesday, found that about 20 percent of Americans say they have no religious affiliation, an increase from 15 percent in the last five years.

This is actually a big deal, because Protestantism carries with it a particular set of cultural values and tropes that have formed what we understand the American identity and American democracy to be. Many of those values and tropes have been incorporated into a general set of "American attitudes," such that it can honestly be said that in America even the Catholics are Protestants, but, nonetheless, the implication is that the core set of values that make America what it is may not be "refreshed" from the original source.

That may be something that we all come to regret at some point.