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One of America’s great promises is freedom of religion – and freedom to change religions. According to a new survey by the Pew Research Center's Forum on Religion & Public Life, Americans are frequently doing the latter.

Specifically, the study finds that Americans change their religious affiliation early and often, and the reasons they give for changing – or leaving religion altogether – differ widely depending on the origin and destination of the convert.

For example, most people who change their religion leave their childhood faith before age 24, and many of those who change religion do so more than once, according to the study. What’s more, many people who have left a religion to become unaffiliated, the group that has grown the most from religious switching, say they did so in part because they stopped believing in the teachings of their childhood faith. Many also cite disillusionment with religious people and institutions as reasons for becoming unaffiliated.

Pew also reports that many people who have left the Catholic Church say they did so because they stopped believing in Catholic teachings. This is true for half of Catholics who have become Protestant as well as two-thirds of Catholics who have become unaffiliated. Many fewer say they left because of the clergy sexual abuse scandal. In contrast with other groups, Americans who have switched from one Protestant denominational family to another tend to do so because of changes in life circumstances, such as marriage or moving to a new community.

A Pew Forum poll on Americans and their religious affiliation finds Catholics have one of the highest retention rates, 68 percent, when it comes to carrying the Catholic faith into adulthood. It also found that a determining factor in whether or not one remains Catholic as an adult is whether or not the individual attended Mass as a child and teenager.

The study also found that the key reason people leave their church, Protestant or Catholic, is that "they just gradually drifted away from the faith."

Pew also found that only 2 to 3 percent of those polled cited sexual abuse of children as a reason for leaving when asked in an open-ended question why they left. When people were asked to choose why they left from a list of possible reasons, the number jumped from 21 percent for Catholics who became Protestant and 27 percent for former Catholics who are now unaffiliated with any church. Other reasons for leaving the church, such as disagreement on doctrinal matters, figured much higher.

Jennifer LeClaire is the editor of The Voice magazine and author of "Doubtless: Faith that Overcomes the World." You can also visit her online at www.jenniferleclaire.org.