A new survey from Gallup suggests that church attendance has been in decline over the last several years, across most major religious groups in the United States.
As reported by Breitbart, the data finds that between the years of 2021 and 2023, just 30% of Americans reported church attendance on a weekly basis, with 21% saying they attend church every week and 9% saying they attend almost every week. Meanwhile, only 11% said they attended once a month. By contrast, 56% reported rarely attending church, with 25% saying they attend only occasionally while 31% said they never attend.
“Two decades ago, an average of 42 percent of U.S. adults attended religious services every week or nearly every week. A decade ago, the figure fell to 38 percent, and it is currently at 30 percent,” wrote Gallup Senior Editor Jeffrey Jones. “This decline is largely driven by the increase in the percentage of Americans with no religious affiliation — 9 percent in 2000-2003 versus 21 percent in 2021-2023 — almost all of whom do not attend services regularly.”
The denomination with the highest church attendance rate is Mormonism, with 67% saying they attend church on a weekly basis. Protestants are a distant second place, with 44%. Muslims come in third with 38%, with Catholics in a close fourth at 33%.
“Majorities of Jewish, Orthodox, Buddhist and Hindu Americans say they seldom or never attend religious services,” the survey adds. “Twenty-six percent of Orthodox adults, 22% of Jewish adults, 14% of Buddhist adults and 13% of Hindu adults attend services regularly.”
The largest decrease in attendance during the observed time period was among those who identify with “other” religions outside of the major denominations, as these groups are “generally not large enough to report separately as their own group, or those that are difficult to categorize based on respondents’ answers,” the study continues.
One of the major factors to which Jones attributes the trend is the increasing lack of religious identity among younger Americans, which he says will only accelerate the decline.
“Specifically, more 18- to 29-year-olds, 35 percent, say they have no religious preference than identify with any specific faith, such as Protestant/nondenominational Christian (32 percent) or Catholic (19 percent),” Jones explains. “Additionally, young adults, both those with and without a religious preference, are much less likely to attend religious services — 22 percent attend regularly, eight points below the national average.”
The poll was conducted over the course of three years via phone interviews with 32,445 American adults. The margin of error is one percent, with a confidence level of 95%.