Are Americans Getting Less Religious?
By DEACON MIKE MANNO
The Pew Research Center is reporting that its latest surveys indicate that Americans attend religious services less often than previous estimates suggested. But it did issue a warning about the various methods used and the possible effect that the coronavirus may have had on the numbers.
In the report, Pew took the effort to explain that the method of conducting its polls has changed, making it a little more difficult to track changes of opinion. Prior polls had been conducted by in-person phone interviews; however, polls are now taken online with no personal involvement by a pollster; the respondent basically answers in isolation.
According to the report: “Survey respondents tend to indicate higher levels of religiosity when answering questions from a live interviewer than when filling out a survey by themselves (either on paper or online). This is because, when representing themselves to another person, some people may (consciously or subconsciously) project a more highly religious image of themselves than when they are filling out a survey alone and unobserved. This ‘mode effect’ reflects, in part, that being religious has long been considered a socially desirable attribute in America.”
Thus, to make comparisons to past in-person surveys with self-administered polls, Pew is using a weighting methodology to make the comparisons more relevant.
However, despite the differences in the survey mechanics, Pew finds that both methods of data gathering indicate that religious attendance is “far less common” than reflected in past surveys. The conclusion by Pew is that while the results from the differing survey methods cannot be directly compared, the results of the self-administered polls produce a more accurate result. But even comparing results obtained by differing methods Pew found “a modestly but significant higher percentage of respondents who identify as religious ‘nones’ and fewer Christians.”
Some of the adjusted results, including those adjusted for the effects of the COVID virus, are:
- Participants report “far lower” levels of religious attendance with only 34 percent report attending religious services at least monthly and only 27 percent report attending at least once a week. Twenty-four percent report attending services “seldom,” and a whopping 26 percent say they never attend religious services. To understand the numbers a bit better, the question asked was to describe their typical attendance pattern in normal times, aside from the pandemic. It was, “Aside from weddings and funerals, how often do you attend religious services?”
- Only 45 percent of respondents reported praying daily. Another 23 percent report praying either weekly or monthly, while 16 percent report praying seldom and 15 percent say they never pray. The report says that of the differing methods used by surveyors, all found that nearly two-thirds or more of U.S. adults say that religion is at least “somewhat” important in their lives.
- The surveys show that the “nones” — those describing themselves as atheist, agnostic, or “nothing in particular” are growing as a share of the adult population, and “Christians have been declining for quite some time.” The most current polling shows 65 percent of adults identify as Christian — 42 percent Protestant, 21 percent Catholic, 2 percent Mormon, and one percent Orthodox Christians. “Nones” make up 28 percent of the population which includes 4 percent atheists.
In comparison, in 2009, 77 percent described themselves as Christian — that’s 12 percent higher than today. The nones, however, have increased from 17 percent to the current 28 percent, an 11 percent increase.
Other faiths that appeared in the survey amounted to six percent of the respondents. Jewish, Muslims, Buddhists, and Hindus each accounted for one percent or less.
In breaking down the numbers a bit further, Protestant respondents are broken down as: White evangelicals were 17 percent; non-evangelicals 12 percent, and Black Protestants 8 percent. Catholics were broken down as: White 12 percent, Hispanic 7 percent, all others 2 percent.
Much of the report was about the how the different methods of polling affected the results — inside baseball, so to speak. But it did make a couple of interesting findings about the polling methods. In the future it indicated that it will probably use more self-administered surveys and fewer telephone polls, finding that:
“Estimates of the frequency with which Americans attend religious services derived from self-administered surveys are clearly not comparable with those produced by phone surveys.” And even after adjustments to the sampling procedures the self-administered method “produces far lower estimates of the share of regular religious attenders” than other methods.
“This means future surveys conducted using self-administered modes cannot be compared with past surveys conducted over the phone to assess change over time in the share of Americans who regularly attend religious services.”
So now, what does all this mean besides Pew is reconstructing its polling methods to be more accurate and to better track changes in the religious attitudes of the American public over time?
First, of course, is that anything that produces more accurate results of the religiosity of the public is welcome, even if those results produce numbers that we don’t like. Unfortunately, this survey appeared to concentrate more on methods than producing a larger statistical profile of those who do and do not attend church weekly.
For example, I would have like to see more about church attendance among Catholics. It has been estimated by Gallup that our church attendance is on a steep decline. A 1955 Gallup survey reported weekly Mass attendance at 75 percent. Now it’s closer to 40 percent, if that high. Gallup also reported that Protestant youth are more likely — 36 percent to 25 — than Catholic youth to say that they’ve attended church during the week. And if you factor in the percentage of Catholics who regularly receive Reconciliation, the numbers will shock you.
The Center of Applied Research for the Apostolate, affiliated with Georgetown University, reports that only two percent of Catholics go regularly to Confession, and three-quarters either never go or go only once a year.
So why are these numbers going down? Why is Confession so unpopular when public confession, by way of daytime talk shows, is becoming more popular? I think we might want to take a look at that and try to answer the question to get more people back to the sacrament.
Another thing the Pew report mentions are the categories of White and Hispanic Catholics, listing all others at two percent. Sunday mornings were once described as the most segregated hours of the week — Whites went to their churches and Blacks to theirs. Now I realize there are societal and cultural differences involved here, but is there no outreach to our Black brothers?
And, finally, what are we doing about fallen-away Catholics? The survey puts the number of Catholics at 21 percent of the population. But if we follow the numbers from other surveys, there is not 21 percent of the U.S. population in Mass every Sunday. Part of the problem is that many Catholics wear their religion like an ethnic identity; once you are a Catholic you are one even if you fall away and never attend Mass again.
So where are we about reaching out to them? Many, I’m sure, might try to re-establish ties with the Church if given the chance, but might be too embarrassed to do so. How do we reach them? And what effect does a Catholic president who rejects many of the tenets of the faith have on the public?
The numbers from Pew are interesting, as well as its analysis of which of the methods of conducting surveys is the best for this purpose. But the more difficult questions can’t be answered by a poll; problems, however, can be spotted. Now the question is: What are we going to do about it?
(You can reach Mike at: DeaconMike@q.com, and listen to him every Thursday at 10 a.m. Central, on Faith On Trial on IowaCatholicRadio.com.)
