From Mormons in Salt Lake City to Catholics in Boston the latest religion survey from Pew has everyone wondering what it all may mean—to politics, to American society, to churches.

I sat in on a press conference call yesterday by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life, during which the research group released an extensive survey (the most questions—40—to the largest sample group—35,000 adults—ever) called: U.S. Religious Landscape Survey. I think I may have learned more from the nature of questions from news reporters around the country, and world (one guy from The Economist in London) than from the results of the survey. That's also because I haven't yet had time to really delve into the survey.

See what patterns you notice in the headlines following the survey release:

Denver Post — Americans restless in search for God
USA Today — Americans freely change, or drop, their religions
The New York Times — Americans Change Faiths at Rising Rate, Report Finds; also ran in The Birmingham News with the headline: 44% in US have switched religious groups
Chicago Sun-Times — Losing our religion
Boston Globe — US religious identity is rapidly changing
Los Angeles Times — Americans loosening their church loyalties
Orlando Sentinel — Hispanics strengthen Catholic Church
The Salt Lake Tribune — Religious diversity explodes

Six of these headlines proclaim changes of some sort and three talk about loss. This is the truth revealed in the survey, but not the essence or the news of the information. Salt Lake I think hit that on the head with their story headline proclaiming more diversity in religion.

But this is really overstating something that isn't really news, either. That is, America has always been the land of diversity and of religious change. So it would follow that as the population increases so would the diversity. In particular the influx of immigrants in the last 40 years or so has impacted that significantly, bringing more Catholics as well as more Muslims, Buddhists and Hindus. However, while you may not guess it by a stroll through any international airport in the U.S., or a Sunday walk through New York or Seattle, two of the nation's least churched areas, the United States remains solidly Christian at 78 percent.

Despite immigration trends, Protestants (51.3 percent) continue to dominate Catholics (23.9 percent).

Evangelicals (26.3 percent) continue to edge out mainline Protestant groups (18.1 percent), prompting Pew Forum Director Luis Lugo to suggest a name change.

"American Protestantism has shifted in the direction of evangelical Christians," he said during the press conference. "Evangelicalism is becoming the mainline. We may have to revisit our labels here."

And people continue to lose their religion. Some 16.1 percent of Americans now consider themselves unaffiliated with any religious group—making them the third largest group within the United States after Protestants and Catholics. These are not primarily atheists or agnostics; 12.1 percent simply claim "nothing in particular" as their religious tradition.

Largest Evangelical group remains Southern Baptist (6.7 percent) —no surprise there—followed by non-denominational groups (3.4 percent), and Pentecostals (3.4 percent)—another group being significantly impacted by Hispanic immigration.

The largest Protestant group of any variety are the Evangelical Baptists (10.8 percent), followed by historically Black churches (6.9 percent).

Types of Protestants categorized by the survey: 80
Types of Catholics: 1
Types of other Religions: 37 — including "Spiritual but not religious." Is that the same as "It's about a relationship, not a religion?"