It reflects an overall decline in Americans’ attendance at religious services over the past several years. according to Data from Gallup.
From 2021 to 2023, 30% of Americans said they will attend religious services weekly (21%) or almost every week (9%). At the same time, only 11 percent reported attending once a month, and 56 percent said they rarely (25 percent) or never (31 percent).
“Twenty years ago, an average of 42 percent of American adults attended religious services weekly or almost weekly. Ten years ago, this number had dropped to 38 percent; today it is 30 percent,” said Gallup Senior. Editor Jeffrey Jones writes: “This decline is primarily driven by an increase in the proportion of Americans who are religiously unaffiliated: 21 percent in 2021-2023, compared to 9 percent in 2000-2003. Almost all of them do not attend religious services regularly.”
Among the major religious groups in the United States, members of the Mormon Church report being the most strict, with 67% saying they attend church weekly or almost weekly.
According to the survey, “Protestants (including nondenominational Christians) come in second with 44% regularly attending religious services, followed by Muslims (38%) and Catholics (33%).” That’s what it means.
“The majority of Jewish, Orthodox, Buddhist, and Hindu Americans say they rarely or never attend religious services,” the report continues. “Twenty-six percent of Orthodox adults, 22 percent of Jewish adults, 14 percent of Buddhist adults, and 13 percent of Hindu adults regularly attend religious services. ”
People with no religious affiliation, including those who identify as agnostics or atheists, are less likely to attend religious services, although 3% say they attend weekly or almost weekly.
Among various religious groups, Catholics saw the largest decline in attendance between 2000 and 2023, falling from 45 percent to 33 percent. The survey found slightly smaller declines among Orthodox (9 percentage points) and Hindus (8 percentage points).
The groups that have declined the most over that period are those that identify with “other” religious groups.Generally, these are groups that are not large enough to be reported separately as their own group, or groups that are difficult to classify based on respondents’ answers,” Jones wrote. This group decreased by 24 points in his 20 years.
In contrast, Muslim and Jewish Americans have “slightly increased their attendance at religious services over the past 20 years,” according to the report.
Up to 34% of Muslim adults regularly attend a mosque in 2021-2023, compared to 34% in 2000-2003. However, the latest rate is lower than the 46% from 2011 to 2013.
More Jewish Americans are also attending synagogues, increasing from 15% two decades ago to 19% and 22%, respectively, from 2021 to 2023.
Jones predicted that “church attendance will continue to decline, given the weak religious attachments of young Americans.”
“Specifically, 35% of 18- to 29-year-olds say they have no religious preference other than a specific faith, such as Protestant/nondenominational Christian (32%) or Catholic (19%).” writes Jones. “Furthermore, young people, both those with a religious preference and those without, are much less likely to attend religious services. Those who attend regularly are 22 percent, lower than the national average. It’s a low point.”
Other recent polls have found that Americans perceive a decline in religious influence in the United States and see less value in children sharing their religious views. . Recently, the Pew Research Center found that: Eighty percent of U.S. adults say the role of religion in American life is shrinking, “that percentage is higher than ever.”
The results of the Gallup poll are based on telephone interviews conducted with 32,445 U.S. adults between 2021 and 2023. The margin of sampling error is ± 1 percentage point at a 95 percent confidence level.
Katherine Hamilton is a political reporter for Breitbart News. You can follow her at @thekat_Hamilton.
