Religious Trends

“Latter-day Saints have grown more diverse and a bit less religious, and more of them are leaving the church, says a new report from Pew Research Center.” - RNS

“Slightly more than half of U.S. Protestant pastors (54%) report the average worship service attendance at their church has increased by at least 4% since 2023, according to a Lifeway Research study…. Another 30% say their congregation has plateaued” - Lifeway

“Most polls do not ask follow-up questions about a person’s religious identity. When they do ask Nones about their specific beliefs, however, we see that they overwhelmingly believe in God (or a ‘higher power’), and they think people have souls.” - CPost

“In many cases, the differences don’t reflect conflicting realities, but rather significant dissimilarities in how researchers measure and report religion in America today. This, in turn, leads to confusion and can create difficulties in understanding what’s really going on.” - Gallup

“Religious historians will look back at 2006 as the absolute peak of denominationalism in the United States….Then the cracks started to form. Slowly at first, and then the pinholes became the size of golf balls and the hull of the SBC began taking on water in an incredibly rapid fashion.” - Ryan Burge

“More regular attenders say they hear messages from their clergy against abortion than in support of abortion rights” - Pew

“Some of the discrepancies may be because both growth and decline are happening in different demographics, the numbers for which end up canceling each other out.” - Veith

“There are sharp partisan divides on whether religion’s influence is good or bad and how far that influence should go.” - Pew Research

Also: Most Americans say religion plays positive role in society - CPost

“Our analysis…found that roughly 12% of all adults who attend services go to multiple congregations ‘regularly’ and 45% attend multiple congregations ‘occasionally.’ Of those who attend multiple congregations, 73% attend two congregations and 27% attend three or more, at least occasionally.” - RNS

The “new report from the Hartford Institute for Religion Research shows signs of a shift — for the first time in two decades, attendance is up. More people are volunteering, and there also seems to be a renewed sense of optimism among pastors and other clergy.” - MinistryWatch