How Has Going To Church Changed Over The Years

The religious mural of the United states continues to change at a rapid clip. In Pew Research Centre telephone surveys conducted in 2018 and 2019, 65% of American adults describe themselves as Christians when asked most their organized religion, down 12 percent points over the past decade. Meanwhile, the religiously unaffiliated share of the population, consisting of people who describe their religious identity as atheist, agnostic or "nada in particular," now stands at 26%, up from 17% in 2009.

Both Protestantism and Catholicism are experiencing losses of population share. Currently, 43% of U.S. adults place with Protestantism, downward from 51% in 2009. And one-in-five adults (20%) are Catholic, down from 23% in 2009. Meanwhile, all subsets of the religiously unaffiliated population – a group also known equally religious "nones" – accept seen their numbers keen. Cocky-described atheists at present account for four% of U.Due south. adults, up modestly just significantly from 2% in 2009; agnostics make upwardly 5% of U.South. adults, up from 3% a decade ago; and 17% of Americans now describe their religion equally "nix in item," up from 12% in 2009. Members of non-Christian religions also take grown modestly every bit a share of the adult population.

These are among the cardinal findings of a new assay of trends in the religious composition and churchgoing habits of the American public, based on recent Pew Research Center random-digit-dial (RDD) political polling on the phone.¹ The data shows that the trend toward religious disaffiliation documented in the Center's 2007 and 2014 Religious Mural Studies, and before that in major national studies like the General Social Survey (GSS), has connected chop-chop.

Pew Research Center's 2007 and 2014 Religious Landscape Studies were huge national RDD surveys, each of which included interviews with more than 35,000 respondents who were asked dozens of detailed questions about their religious identities, beliefs and practices. The Eye has not even so conducted a third such study, and when the Mural Study is repeated, it is probable to apply new methods that may preclude it from being straight comparable to the previous studies; growing challenges to conducting national surveys by telephone have led the Middle to rely increasingly on self-administered surveys conducted online.²

But while no new Religious Landscape Study is available or in the firsthand offing, the Middle has collected five additional years of data (since the 2014 Landscape Study) from RDD political polls (see detailed tables). The samples from these political polls are not as large as the Landscape Studies (even when all of the political polls conducted in a year are combined), but together, 88 surveys from 2009 to 2019 included interviews with 168,890 Americans.

These surveys do non include most as many questions most religion as the Landscape Studies do. All the same, equally role of the demographic battery of questions that ask respondents about their age, race, educational attainment and other groundwork characteristics, each of these political polls also include ane basic question about religious identity – "What is your present religion, if whatever? Are you Protestant, Roman Catholic, Mormon, Orthodox such as Greek or Russian Orthodox, Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist, Hindu, atheist, agnostic, something else, or nothing in detail?"

Additionally, most of these political polls include a question about religious omnipresence – "Aside from weddings and funerals, how frequently do you attend religious services? More than one time a week, in one case a week, once or twice a month, a few times a year, seldom, or never?" Taken together, these two questions (ane virtually religious identity, the other almost religious attendance) can aid shed light on religious trends in the U.Due south.

The information shows that just like rates of religious affiliation, rates of religious attendance are declining.^three Over the last decade, the share of Americans who say they attend religious services at least once or twice a month dropped past 7 percent points, while the share who say they attend religious services less often (if at all) has risen past the aforementioned degree. In 2009, regular worship attenders (those who attend religious services at least once or twice a month) outnumbered those who nourish services simply occasionally or not at all by a 52%-to-47% margin. Today those figures are reversed; more Americans now say they attend religious services a few times a year or less (54%) than say they nourish at least monthly (45%).

The changes underway in the American religious landscape are wide-based. The Christian share of the population is down and religious "nones" have grown across multiple demographic groups: white people, black people and Hispanics; men and women; in all regions of the land; and among college graduates and those with lower levels of educational attainment. Religious "nones" are growing faster among Democrats than Republicans, though their ranks are swelling in both partisan coalitions. And although the religiously unaffiliated are on the ascension amid younger people and most groups of older adults, their growth is most pronounced amongst young adults.

Furthermore, the data shows a wide gap between older Americans (Baby Boomers and members of the Silent Generation) and Millennials in their levels of religious affiliation and attendance. More eight-in-ten members of the Silent Generation (those built-in between 1928 and 1945) draw themselves as Christians (84%), as do three-quarters of Infant Boomers (76%). In stark dissimilarity, only half of Millennials (49%) describe themselves as Christians; four-in-ten are religious "nones," and ane-in-ten Millennials identify with non-Christian faiths.

Only about one-in-three Millennials say they attend religious services at to the lowest degree one time or twice a month. Roughly 2-thirds of Millennials (64%) attend worship services a few times a year or less often, including nearly 4-in-10 who say they seldom or never go. Indeed, there are as many Millennials who say they "never" attend religious services (22%) equally in that location are who say they go at least once a calendar week (22%).

While the trends are articulate – the U.S. is steadily becoming less Christian and less religiously observant as the share of adults who are not religious grows – cocky-described Christians report that they nourish religious services at most the aforementioned rate today equally in 2009. Today, 62% of Christians say they attend religious services at least once or twice a month, which is identical to the share who said the same in 2009. In other words, the nation'south overall rate of religious omnipresence is declining not because Christians are attending church less often, but rather because in that location are now fewer Christians as a share of the population.

Other primal takeaways from the new analysis include:

The data suggests that Christians are failing not just equally a share of the U.S. adult population, only also in absolute numbers. In 2009, there were approximately 233 one thousand thousand adults in the U.Southward., according to the Census Bureau. Pew Research Center'due south RDD surveys conducted at the time indicated that 77% of them were Christian, which means that by this measure, there were approximately 178 1000000 Christian adults in the U.Southward. in 2009. Taking the margin of fault of the surveys into account, the number of adult Christians in the U.Due south. every bit of 2009 could take been as low every bit 176 1000000 or as high equally 181 1000000.

Today, at that place are roughly 23 million more adults in the U.South. than there were in 2009 (256 million as of July 1, 2019, according to the Census Agency). Nigh 2-thirds of them (65%) identify every bit Christians, co-ordinate to 2018 and 2019 Pew Research Center RDD estimates. This ways that there are now roughly 167 million Christian adults in the U.Southward. (with a lower bound of 164 meg and an upper bound of 169 million, given the survey'south margin of error).

Meanwhile, the number of religiously unaffiliated adults in the U.S. grew by almost 30 million over this period.

The share of Americans who describe themselves as Mormons has held steady at 2% over the past decade.^four Meanwhile, the share of U.S. adults who identify with non-Christian faiths has ticked upward slightly, from five% in 2009 to seven% today. This includes a steady 2% of Americans who are Jewish, along with 1% who are Muslim, i% who are Buddhist, 1% who are Hindu, and iii% who place with other faiths (including, for instance, people who say they abide past their own personal religious beliefs and people who depict themselves as "spiritual")⁵
The rising share of Americans who say they nourish religious services no more than a few times a year (if at all) has been driven by a substantial jump in the proportion who say they "never" go to church. Today, 17% of Americans say they never nourish religious services, up from 11% a decade ago. Similarly, the decline in regular churchgoing is attributable mainly to the shrinking share of Americans who say they attend religious services at to the lowest degree in one case a week, which was 37% in 2009 and now stands at 31%.
The trends documented in Pew Research Center surveys closely resemble those found in the long-running General Social Survey (GSS), a projection of the contained research organization NORC at the University of Chicago, with master funding from the National Science Foundation. In GSS surveys conducted in the early on 2000s (2000 to 2004), 80% of U.S. adults identified equally Christians, including 54% who described themselves as Protestants and 25% who were Catholic. Past the late 2010s, 71% of GSS respondents described themselves as Christians (48% Protestant, 23% Cosmic). Over the same period, the GSS establish that religious "nones" grew from 14% of the U.S. developed population to 22%.

The point estimates from the GSS and Pew Research Middle surveys (that is, the share of adults who identify equally Protestant or Catholic or as religious "nones") are non straight comparable; the two studies inquire different questions and employ dissimilar modes of survey assistants. But the fact that the direction of the tendency is similar in both studies strongly suggests that both are picking up on real and significant change underway in the U.Southward. religious mural.

These findings about the religious limerick of Hispanics closely resemble those from Pew Research Center'due south National Surveys of Latinos (NSL) – a nationally representative survey of U.S. Latino adults fielded almost every twelvemonth. (Meet the detailed tables for complete trends in the religious limerick of Hispanics based on both Pew Enquiry Center political surveys and the NSL.)

Among white adults, the share of people who say they nourish religious services a few times a year or less now exceeds the share who attend monthly or more (57% vs. 42%); a decade ago, the white population was evenly divided between those who went to church at least monthly and those who did not. Regular churchgoers nonetheless outnumber those who infrequently or never get to religious services among black Americans (58% vs. 41%), though the share of people who say they attend religious services a few times a year or less oftentimes has risen over the last decade amid black Americans, simply as it has among the population as a whole. U.S. Hispanics are now well-nigh evenly divided betwixt those who say they attend religious services at least one time or twice a month (51%) and those who say they attend a few times a twelvemonth or less (49%).
There is all the same a gender gap in American religion. Women are less likely than men to describe themselves equally religious "nones" (23% vs. 30%), and more probable than men to say they attend religious services at least once or twice a month (fifty% vs. 40%). Only women, like men, take grown noticeably less religious over the terminal decade. The share of "nones" among women has risen past 10 percentage points since 2009 – similar to the increase among men. And the share of women who place as Christian has fallen by eleven points (from 80% to 69%) over that same period.
Christians have declined and "nones" have grown as a share of the adult population in all 4 major U.S. regions. Catholic losses have been most pronounced in the Northeast, where 36% identified as Cosmic in 2009, compared with 27% today. Among Protestants, declines were larger in the Due south, where Protestants at present account for 53% of the adult population, down from 64% in 2009.
Religious "nones" now make up fully one-third of Democrats. And about half dozen-in-10 people who identify with or lean toward the Democratic Political party say they nourish religious services no more than a few times a year. The ranks of religious "nones" and infrequent churchgoers also are growing inside the Republican Party, though they make upwards smaller shares of Republicans than Democrats.
The religious profile of white Democrats is very different from the religious profile of racial and ethnic minorities within the Democratic Party. Today, fewer than half of white Democrats describe themselves every bit Christians, and just three-in-10 say they regularly attend religious services. More than four-in-x white Democrats are religious "nones," and fully seven-in-ten white Democrats say they attend religious services no more than a few times a year. Black and Hispanic Democrats are far more likely than white Democrats to describe themselves every bit Christians and to say they nourish religious services regularly, though all 3 groups are becoming less Christian. Although 2009 surveys did not include enough blackness Republicans to analyze separately, the nearly contempo surveys show smaller religious differences by race and ethnicity amidst Republicans than Democrats.
Pew Enquiry Middle's telephone political polls do not typically include the detailed questions that are needed to determine whether Protestants place with denominations in the evangelical, mainline or historically black Protestant tradition. However, the political polls upon which this assay is based practice ask Protestants whether they call up of themselves as "born-again or evangelical" Christians. The data shows that both Protestants who describe themselves every bit built-in-again or evangelical Christians and Protestants who are not born-again or evangelical have declined equally a share of the overall U.S. adult population, reflecting the country'due south broader shift abroad from Christianity equally a whole. However, looking only at Americans who identify as Protestants – rather than at the public every bit a whole – the share of all Protestants who are born-once more or evangelical is at least as high today as it was in 2009.
The share of U.South. adults who are white born-again or evangelical Protestants now stands at 16%, down from 19% a decade ago. The shrinking white evangelical share of the population reflects both demographic changes that have occurred in the United States (where white people constitute a declining share of the population) and broader religious changes in American order (where the share of all adults who place with Christianity has declined). However, looking only at white Protestants – rather than at the public as a whole – the share of white Protestants who depict themselves as born-once more or evangelical Christians is at to the lowest degree as high as it was a decade ago.