The share of Americans who claim no particular religion doubled from 7% to 14% in the 1990s, as sociologists Michael Hout and Claude Fischer reported in an influential 2002 article based on the General Social Survey. A decade later, the Pew Research Center found that one-in-five U.S. adults (and fully a third of those ages 18-30) have no religious affiliation. On Aug. 8, 2013, the Pew Research Center brought together some of the leading experts in survey research on religion in the U.S. for a round-table discussion with journalists, scholars and other stakeholders on the rise of the religious “nones” and other important trends in American religion.

The cover of the August 12 edition of Time magazine is meant to be provocative. A trim young man and a matching woman — possibly in their late 20s to early 30s — lie alone on a beach, arms linked, wearing bathing suits, shades, and no visible wedding rings. But the controversial part is the accompanying text: “The Childfree Life: When having it all means not having children.” “The birthrate in the U.S. is the lowest in recorded American history,” reports Lauren Sandler of Time.

Regardless of their views about the legality of abortion, most Americans think that having an abortion is a moral issue. By contrast, the public is much less likely to see other issues involving human embryos – such as stem cell research or in vitro fertilization – as a matter of morality.

Barna Group’s most recent survey compares Americans’ descriptions of themselves from the early 2000s until now, illuminating how much American life has changed in the past decade, and how Americans see themselves moving forward into the future.

Reza Aslan’s best-selling book, “Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth,” belongs to that genre of works devoted to unearthing the “real historical Jesus.” In Aslan’s retelling, Jesus made no claims to divinity, nor did he interpret his life and death as the crowning act of God’s redemptive mission on earth. Rather, he writes, Jesus was “a zealous revolutionary, swept up, as all Jews of the era were, in the religious and political turmoil of first-century Palestine.”