Church Attendance Has Declined in Most U.S. Religious Groups
Church Attendance Has Declined in Most U.S. Religious Groups
Three in 10 Americans, but 67% of Mormons, attend church regularly. Most religious groups show declines in attendance over the past two decades.
Three in 10 U.S. adults attend religious services regularly, led by Mormons at 67%
As Americans observe Ramadan and prepare to celebrate Easter and Passover, the percentage of adults who report regularly attending religious services remains low. Three in 10 Americans say they attend religious services every week (21%) or almost every week (9%), while 11% report attending about once a month and 56% seldom (25%) or never (31%) attend.
Among major U.S. religious groups, members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, also widely known as the Mormon Church, are the most observant, with two-thirds attending church weekly or nearly weekly. Protestants (including nondenominational Christians) rank second, with 44% attending services regularly, followed by Muslims (38%) and Catholics (33%).
Majorities of Jewish, Orthodox, Buddhist and Hindu Americans say they seldom or never attend religious services.
As an ex-Mormon, very few of them WANT to go every week, but the conditioning and social stigma are very real.
More than you'd think. Many people base their entire social lives around their church. All of their friends go to the church. They spend a lot of time doing church activities and church events.
And in this very lonely world, even though I'm an atheist, I can't really blame them.
Yeah, the high school I went to required at least one semester of religious studies each year, but we had some very cool classes (like a class on cults that included looking at early Christianity through the lens of a cult), and the sociological aspects were massive. In fact, the journals relating to religion with the highest impact factor are all sociological based.
The social component of religion is an underappreciated factor and influential over even the beliefs usually.
All that said, I can't fathom ever obligating myself to a pre-noon social gathering on my weekends by choice. Even Sunday 'brunch' was only ever attended if around 1pm.
If rewriting the rules for church anyways, let's at least add mimosas and have it start way later than it does.
There was partly an attempt at humor in my original comment, but Mormon services and activities in particular are long, boring, and motivate with a stick at least as much as a carrot.
Old Mormon joke:
What’s the fastest way to go though a case of beer?
- Invite a Mormon fishing.
What’s the best way to keep that case of beer to yourself?
- invite two Mormons fishing
Also an exmo. I don't believe 67% attend weekly. That is massively overstated. I've read estimates from John Dehlin maybe? It's been a while) of 33% activity rate, which means attending once a month.
So, are they lying for the Lord, or maybe the poll is flawed, or the Church reports membership differently than the poll respondents did? Could be any or all, LOL.
For the poll being flawed, it was a telephone poll, and while they've tried to capture more cell phone numbers, you still have to answer and be willing to engage:
Results for this Gallup poll are based on telephone interviews from combined surveys conducted in 2021-2023, with an aggregate random sample of 32,445 adults, aged 18 and older, living in all 50 U.S. states and the District of Columbia
I'm not religious now, but I was raised in a Methodist household and know the dogma and culture.
Church membership and attendance is kind of an interesting phenomenon to me. It's a form of community that I think has ancient roots and satisfies a social need that we don't have many other good structures for. A church is a tribe. You don't have to like everyone in your tribe but they're your tribe and people enjoy a psychological benefit from clearly distinguishing their 'us' and 'them'. This structure has some modern analogies- sports teams, clubs, professional groups, etc, but a church also has a larger connection to a denomination and a religion. This extends the 'tribe' out such that even if you leave your city and have to find an entirely new tribe- you can find a church that will more-or-less treat you as a local member of the tribe.
That's pretty comforting and helps a lot of people define their life- having a group of people they know will accept you as 'one of them'. Other modern social structures don't really have this assumed tribal acceptance feature. Coming into a new team or club from the outside doesn't share the connection that churches have with other denominations. Granted a lot of that is ceremonial and not reality- churches have in\out groups and even the most polite congregations will quietly ostracize people, but it's all within the framework of the church\tribe. Not many people ever really get tossed out of the tribe.
I wish we could recapture some of the positive aspects for community building without the dogma, but I'm afraid it's two sides of the same coin and you really can't separate the positive community aspects from the dangers of dogma.
There have been a lot of community groups that have dwindled in popularity as work hours and commute times increased just to cover the cost of living. Rotary clubs, Shriners, 4H, and a bunch of others were all over the place when I was a kid, but nobody from my generation kept them going because we were too busy just trying to make ends meet.
It is hard to get something like that going again when scheduling is difficult. Plus finding out on social media that other members have horrible opinions they never brought up at the club doesn't help....
Social places away from home and work are known as "third spaces" and their decline in the US is becoming more widely-known.
I too wish we could recapture some of the positive aspects for community building without the dogma. Maybe it takes dogma to trigger the bonding of the tribe? Something about shared viewpoint/perspective of the world that speaks to our ancient instincts? I dunno.
Part of the problem though is that out-group exclusion is baked in, and if you wrap that up in anything important, it gets toxic even if the dogma is kinda loose. I mean, why aren't UU churches absolutely bursting at the seams? In part, it's because they refuse to reject anyone.
Yeah and weirdly that's about the only thing I respect about Catholics- they actually can and do tell mofos "you aint Catholic, those aint Catholic beliefs" so they can kind of 'police their own'. Whereas I can say I'm a Baptist Zoroastrian that believes Jesus was actually Zeus and nobody can tell me that's not a Baptist belief. Not that I think Catholic dogma makes an sense on its own but at least they don't allow any old shmuck to fork it.
But yeah I don't think there's a way to keep the secular community and drop the religious tribalism, at least not without a Moonhaven style guided cultural reboot but to me that's less plausible than Jesus actually being Zeus.
Other modern social structures don’t really have this assumed tribal acceptance feature.
Citizenship. You're literally a citizen of the entire country.
Sorry my country is a religion too.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_civil_religion?wprov=sfti1
Yeah... lol
I was raised Lutheran, I went to Sunday School pretty much every Sunday for about 15 years, and church at least once or twice a month. I never believed in any of it but I liked a lot of the people I met in my youth group, some of them didn't even live in my city or go to my school so that was the only time I got to see them. We went on trips all over the east coast US.
I stopped going when I was 19 and moved away for college. I lost touch with most of those people, which kinda sucks. I'm 38 now and used to go to church with my mom on the "big" holidays, but since I've been living in another state the past 5 years, my brother goes with her. I'm actually leaving tomorrow to go home for Easter for a week.
Interesting observation. I've noticed men I know that go to church found relationships and marriage, but they probably would have failed in the tinder-verse. More anecdotal, not a scientific study, so take it with a grain of salt.
Probably because they can find stupid women who believe in god and said man’s lies. Think about all of the morons at church, and you realize how much sense your statement makes. That kind of dude is gonna flop in real life dating because that’s the real world, without god.
I want to go every week. I miss it. I love the music, the tradition, the community, and being part of something bigger than myself.
I do not want to be associated with the kind of people who scream at "sinners" entering abortion clinics but don't actually do anything to solve the reason they go there. Nor with heriarchies that shuffle pedophiles around to avoid punishment instead of throwing the book at the. Nor with the mega churches who refuse to help flood or hurricane victims, but instead locked their doors. Nor with the cult of idolatry that venerates a fraudulent, adulterous, pathological lying narcissist.
Being associated with Christians made me stop wanting to go to church. I'm fucking pissed.
I left the Church when I realized that my Christian values were no longer welcomed.
Find some volunteering group, you'll get tradition, community and being part of something bigger, prolly not the music though. Where I am we are big into Emergency services, they are mostly run by volunteers but really you can find whatever works for you from animal shelters to helping people with personal finance if that's your niche. , No need to waste time idolatring an imaginary friend that doesn't reciprocate, you can do some actual good and feel good!
While I'm not a church person at all, I've definitely heard from progressive church goers (even non-religious ones that like the social aspects) that there's certainly options and denominations available that aren't that.
If it's something you actually miss or feel like would make your life more full, it might be worth church shopping for places that have a different attitude or approach from the churches that turned you off.
I think there's even non-denominational offerings mirroring the social setup but with no religious beliefs incorporated.
Episcopal churches are generally inclusive, while going hard on tradition/ritual. If you like classical music and structure, that’s a good place to start. If you live near a university, you’re likely to see some students and faculty there.
United Methodist churches can be very welcoming and inclusive in the US, but there’s a schism going on over LGBT marriage/ordination, so it can vary by area/congregation. You’ll know pretty quickly what kind of place it is. In a few years, the “Global Methodist Church” will be conservative, and United Methodists should be reliably inclusive. You may even see gay and trans pastors at some UMCs.
Anything with Baptist in the name is most likely going to be terrible. There are some rare exceptions though. If they’re politically conservative, you’ll hear about it 5 minutes into the sermon. If you like “contemporary” Christian music then they’re more likely to do that better than others.
Since COVID, you can church shop online lol. Don’t need to wake up early or go travel. You can see the sermon and music any time from home. If a church hasn’t invested in streaming their services at this point, they probably skipped COVID guidelines and killed a bunch of their people, so it’s a decent filter.
The MAGA led culture wars have exposed many churches and many christian’s as insufferable bigots who are far more obsessed with making sure everyone in their group agrees on who to hate than they are with sharing such concepts as grace or love. The Methodist split has been especially damning. It is insane to me to see so many otherwise normal people frothing at the mouth with hate and anger because the main denomination dared to even consider being more accepting of homosexuality.
I was recently told about a woman who was glad her church disaffiliated from United Methodist because she didn’t want to have to find another church. I thought, but bit my tongue, “woman, had your church stayed it would still be the exact same church it always was, it changed by leaving…” these people have been manipulated into thinking any church that stays somehow becomes a satanic cult… because maybe, one day in the future, the main governing body might allow gay preachers… it’s so stupid…
because maybe, one day in the future, the main governing body might allow gay preachers…
Maybe that's a reason people give, but it's 100% not an actual reason. They don't want gay people to exist anywhere in public life.
They've been insufferable since at least the 80's with the Moral Majority and all that other shit.
Good.
Organized religion eventually ruins everything it is involved with.
The sooner it dies out, the better.
I lost my religion over the pandemic. Watching Christians respond to Trump in the most unchristian way possible didn't leave me much of a choice.
Congratulations, you are now free
Just when you get used to only seeing bad news, some good news comes out!
30% is much too high.
I agree, but baby steps are still progress.
30℅ regular church attendance is still crazy, blows my European mind. I personally don't think I have ever met a person who attends it even once a year nor I ever knew of such people through friends.
I'm guessing you're German, Nordic or Slav? The more towards Portugal/Italy you go, the more religious the population is. Even the most religious European country is still far less religious than the US, however.
In Netherlands church attendance has gone down, but it should still be relatively easy to find someone who goes to church. The attendance isn't divided equally across the Netherlands though. Meaning, it is way higher in small villages than in a city. Which is sometimes easy to see by seeing what political party people have voted for.
For NL apparently 12% regularly goes to church. And 43% is "aligned" with a church, don't know what they exactly meant. See https://www.cbs.nl/nl-nl/longread/statistische-trends/2023/religieuze-betrokkenheid-in-nederland for a Dutch source.
Aligned likely means that if they have need of religious services they know what church they’re going to. Shit like weddings and funerals.
It would mean that they identify as say Lutheran but don't necessarily attend church.
I used to go like 3x weekly. Never again.
I attend 0 times per year.
Its basically just for weddings funerals and namegivings at this point and even that only for friends and relatives that are on the more traditional lifestyle
Let's start taxing them too
Sadly irrational thinking takes other forms. Look at MAGA, or QAnon or any other weird belief system. They all share traits with religions or cults in one sense or another.
Who needs to go to church when you can read the $60 Trump Bible at home? Complete with Constitution, the Declaration of Independence, and the Pledge of Allegiance!!!
A.k.a. "Many idiots are dead from performatively coughing into each other's mouths until they died from COVID."
I stopped going YEARS ago, but even my mom and dad broke the habit once the pandemic happened.
Time to add “Churches getting bailout money in addition to no taxes” to the Bingo cards.
Looks good at the surface, but there are also people who find the Church is not extreme enough.
C A P I T A L I S M
I wonder what's the Lutheran stats
I wouldn't worry about it.
Non church attendance doesn't mean that people have stopped or becoming less religious ... they just don't find a need to go to a big expensive building managed by people who all tell them they're doing everything wrong and will burn in hell after they die .... unless they announce their devotion (and give money) and they'll be promised passage to heaven.
The only reason religions and religious organizations exist is for themselves and their power and more people are recognizing that.
People will always find meaning in life, especially as they grow, develop and accumulate more knowledge and understanding from many sources. We don't need 3,000 year old teachings from illiterate desert goat herders to tell us how to live a good moral life.
Those who practice Jesus' new commandment of mutual love and the old commandment of love for neighbor live Christianity. More details in my book: https://en.m.wikibooks.org/wiki/The_Christian_meaning_of_life
Thanks but no thanks