New survey of religion in America shows churches in decline | Opinion

An extensive new survey by the Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI) finds that only 16 percent of Americans say religion is the most important thing in their lives.

A decade ago, 20 percent said religion was the most important thing.

That’s just one factoid among many that indicate what the study, “Religion and Congregations in a Time of Social and Political Upheaval,” describes as a dramatically changing religious landscape in the United States.

NPR’s “Morning Edition” summed up the report’s results thusly: “The importance of religion in the lives of Americans is on the decline.”

PRRI’s report cites a plethora of reasons for this falloff: increasing demographic diversity, disaffection with organized religion, polarization along racial and political lines, fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic, controversial protests over racial justice, a divisive 2020 presidential election, a deadly insurrection at the U.S. Capitol and state legislative battles over reproductive and LGBTQ rights.

The study looks at all faiths, but it focuses on Christianity, which remains the country’s dominant religion.

It can sound discouraging if, like me, you’re the leader of a Christian congregation. There are bright spots if you look hard enough. For instance, 82 percent of people who still attend services say they’re optimistic about the future of their own house of worship.

But the news is mainly grim for church folks.

Here are some other findings from the study:

▪ Since 2006, the number of religiously unaffiliated has grown from 16 percent to 26.8 percent.

▪ A lot of religious switching is going on. One in four Americans (24 percent) were previously a follower or practitioner of a different religious tradition than the faith group they belong to now. That’s up from 16 percent just a year earlier.

▪ Among those who’ve left a religious tradition, 37 percent say they were formerly Catholic, 24 percent were non-evangelical Christian or Protestant, 17 percent belonged to another Christian tradition, 13 percent were evangelical Christians and 5 percent were members of non-Christian religions.

▪ Of those who’ve changed religions, 56 percent left their earlier group because they stopped believing in its teachings. Another 30 percent were alienated by its negative teachings regarding LGBTQ people.

▪ Attendance at religious services is down. Twenty-three percent of Americans say they attend services at least once a week, while more than twice that many, 57 percent, seldom or never attend.

As recently as 2019—before the pandemic—those numbers were 28 percent and 45 percent, respectively. However, the trend toward lower attendance was already underway pre-pandemic. COVID-19 seems to have accelerated it.

▪ Most congregations remain segregated racially. Eighty percent of white mainline/non-evangelical churchgoers, 77 percent of white Catholics and 75 percent of white evangelicals say their congregation is mostly white. Similarly, 74 percent of Hispanic Catholics and black Protestants say their congregation is mainly Hispanic or black, respectively.

You get the gist.

It’s challenging to wrap up this much disparate information under one pithy heading. And the PRRI report includes a lot more information than I’ve passed on here.

NPR’s characterization of the report — “The importance of religion in the lives of Americans is on the decline” — is certainly a valid takeaway. I wouldn’t argue.

But it’s not the only valid takeaway.

Another might be that, historically, churches have too often imitated the larger society in which they existed rather than transcended it. Today, we’re doing the same thing. Churchgoers, like their secular neighbors, find themselves restless, confused, weary, politically and racially ulcerated — blown here and there by every wind.

Yet what those same numbers might also say is that there are still Americans—roughly 50 million of them, if that 16 percent figure is correct — for whom faith is still their lodestar and source of hope, their reason for getting up each morning.

Jesus transformed the whole world for the better with a dozen ragtag fishermen and tax gatherers. What could 50 million gracious, merciful disciples do for this country today, if they really got focused on loving their neighbors and making peace and preaching good news instead of gloom and despair? Looked at that way, the future isn’t necessarily dispiriting. It could be spiritually electrifying.

Another interpretation of the PRRI findings would be that, however interesting they are as a snapshot of our moment, in the long term they don’t mean squat. All our momentary cultural ups and downs are, as my wife put it, merely the usual turbulence.

God plays the longest game possible. Religion has been waxing and waning and resurrecting itself for millennia, in every age and on every inhabited continent. Its great decline, even its death, has often been prophesied. The faithful wring their hands. Skeptics break into a victory jig.

But God somehow just keeps right on doing whatever it is God’s up to, unfazed by our silly speculations. Whenever some disciples grow sour and quit, God just makes some new ones. As the old chorus proclaimed, he’s got the whole world in his hands.

Paul Prather is pastor of Bethesda Church near Mount Sterling. You can email him at pratpd@yahoo.com.