March 28 column<\/a> by Washington University expert Ryan Burge. The latest data from the Cooperative Election Study with its huge population sample show that as of last year 31.8% of U.S. adults identified as non-religious, compared with 34.1% in 2024, 35.6% in 2023 and 36.2% in 2022. That persistent slump brings numbers to totals seen back in 2017 and 2018.\u00a0<\/p>\nBurge said that trend is \u201cstatistically significant\u201d with a negligible polling margin of error. Though YouGov performs CES surveys, Burge sees no sampling errors comparable with what he calls its British \u201cdisaster.\u201d Moreover, the same pattern appears with another standard source, the University of Chicago\u2019s General Social Survey (GSS), where American adults without religious ties slipped similarly, from 28% in 2021 to 25.2% in 2024.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Politicians and journalists will be interested that the share of Democrats who say they\u2019re non-religious has now fallen to 41.1%, a level seen back in 2014. Among Republicans, the non-religious are 17.1%, returning to the 2015 level. Burge, a political scientist, is unsure whether or what partisan factors might explain these declines.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Before hallelujahs burst forth, Burge delves into \u201cstaggering\u201d negative findings on age categories. Social scientists generally use these definitions: Silent Generation (those born 1925-1945), Baby Boomers (1946-1964), Generation X (1965-1980), Millennials (1981-1996), and Gen Z (1997-2012).\u00a0<\/p>\n
Here are CES percentages on non-religious identity in those five groups, moving from oldest to youngest: 14.2%, 20.9%, 28.1%, 41.2% and 43.1%. While the non-religious population has recently slipped, Burge warns, that\u2019s \u201cnot by a huge percentage and\u00a0not for very long.\u201d <\/p>\n
Despite hopes of religious leaders, he sees \u201cabsolutely zero evidence\u201d that those younger generations \u201care meaningfully moving back toward faith.\u201d Thus the secularism of those born after 1980 will inevitably wipe out temporary religious gains.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Keep in mind that there are several ways to gauge trends in religiosity. CES and other surveying groups measure \u201cbelonging,\u201d poll respondents\u2019 self-reported religious identity or affiliation. As another Burge column points out, documented memberships are lower than peoples\u2019 self-identifications. Some surveys, particularly by Pew Research or the decennial Religion Census, seek to nail down respondents\u2019 specific church membership.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Many denominations issue their own annual membership counts. The National Council of Churches and a predecessor compiled comparable membership reports from most major denominations in yearbooks beginning in 1916, but that essential service disappeared after the 2012 edition.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Another approach is \u201cbehaving,\u201d as in Gallup polls going back to 1937 on respondents\u2019 reported attendance at worship services. In 2000, 46% reported attendance weekly or almost weekly, compared with 31% as of 2025. Significantly, Protestants as a whole report markedly higher weekly worship attendance than Catholics, reversing a historical pattern. Some analysts think these numbers declined because during most of U.S. history people exaggerated attendance to look good whereas these days it doesn\u2019t matter.<\/p>\n
The third criterion is \u201cbelieving,\u201d whether the doctrinal and moral views of poll respondents uphold stands of their faith. These surveys usually show the lowest levels of religious devotion.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Then there\u2019s the intriguing index of peoples\u2019 perception of religion\u2019s influence in American life. On that, Gallup reported last year that 34% think influence is increasing, versus only 20% in 2024. Though a 59% majority of 59% see declining influence, that compared with 75% a year earlier.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"(ANALYSIS) Is Christianity gaining or declining? For sure, it\u2019s gaining on a worldwide basis thanks to expansion in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":518541,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[59,57,58,50,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-518540","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-united-kingdom","8":"tag-gb","9":"tag-great-britain","10":"tag-greatbritain","11":"tag-news","12":"tag-uk","13":"tag-united-kingdom","14":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/518540","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=518540"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/518540\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/518541"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=518540"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=518540"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=518540"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}