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A new report about religion in America is out, and it may temper the narrative of a religious revival.
Significantly fewer Americans consider faith to be an important part of their lives than a decade ago. A recent Gallup study found that only 49% of U.S. adults say religion is important to them, down sharply from 66% in 2015.
The researchers noted that such a significant drop of 17 percentage points is rare. Since 2007, only 14 out of more than 160 countries surveyed in the World Poll have seen religiosity fall by more than 15 percentage points within a decade.
Wealthier countries have experienced the steepest declines — Greece, Italy and Poland each lost more than 20 percentage points — while nations like Chile, Turkey and Portugal saw drops similar to the U.S.
Gallup notes that American religiosity is converging with other economically advanced nations. Last year, in 38 countries that belong to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development — including most of Europe, Australia, Canada and the United States — a median of 36% reported that religion was an important part of their lives. But the difference between the U.S. and these other countries is shrinking.
The takeaway from the Gallup’s researchers is:
“Fewer Americans identify with a religion, church attendance and membership are declining, and religion holds a less important role in people’s lives than it once did,” authors Benedict Vigers and Julie Ray wrote about Gallup’s recent findings. “The U.S. increasingly stands as an outlier: less religious than much of the world, but still more devout than most of its economic peers.”
Age remains a strong predictor of religious engagement.
The latest Religious Landscape Study from the Pew Research Center offered a glimpse into how important religion is for different age groups. About 49% of adults over 65 consider religion very important, compared with just 28% of 18–29-year-olds.
Pew’s data show that 62% of Americans now identify as Christian, down from 78% in 2007, but relatively stable since 2019. The rise of the religiously unaffiliated has also slowed and now 29% of American adults identify as religiously unaffiliated, which includes atheists, agnostics and “nothing in particular,” also known as “nones.”
Despite these declines, data points to widespread spirituality. Over 80% of Americans believe in a soul and a universal spirit or God.
Daniel Cox, director and founder of the Survey Center on American Life, recently wrote that Christian and spirituality-themed online trends don’t fully paint the picture of religiosity among Americans. While Gen Z tend to turn to Christian influencers, podcasts, spirituality apps, he writes, attendance numbers and overall religious commitments, especially among women, are falling.
“Online displays of religiosity can appear more as an aesthetic accessory or lifestyle brand rather than a guiding set of values or social community,” he writes. “The type of performative religiosity and spirituality found on social media, even if it is personally meaningful, bypasses traditional requirements of religious practice.”
Although broader data still show that young people are less religious than older generations — including being less likely to consider religion an important part of their lives — faith is taking on new forms as it continues to shape political and cultural life.
Fresh off the press
- I wrote a profile of Jane Clayson Johnson, best known as the superstar broadcast journalist, who stepped away from her career to become a mother in the early 2000s. We caught up about her latest projects, which include a documentary and a Deseret Voices podcast, and how she thinks about her purpose today.
- The first two episodes of Deseret Voices dropped last week, and they’re a fascinating listen. Johnson talks with BYU President Shane Reese and Advancement Vice President Keith Vorkink about how the antitrust class-action lawsuit settlement in the House v. NCAA case has redefined college sports. And McKay Coppins speaks with Sen. Mark Kelly, D-Ariz., about increased political violence in the country.
- In other news, over the weekend, Pope Leo hosted a group of Hollywood actors and filmmakers like Cate Blanchett and Spike Lee at the Vatican. In his address to the audience, which included his Hollywood guests, Pope Leo said: “Today we live with digital screens always on. The flow of information is constant. But cinema is much more than just a screen. It is a crossroads of desires, memories and questions. But cinemas are experiencing a troubling decline. … I urge institutions not to give up, and to cooperate in affirming the social and cultural value of this activity.”
Quote of the week
Last week, I spoke with Charles Murray, a political scientist and a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, about his newly released book “Taking Religion Seriously.” (Our Q&A is forthcoming.) But I asked Murray, author of “The Bell Curve” and “Human Diversity,” what he thought the future of religion in America looked like. Here’s his take on where we are today:
“We’ve got two competing forces. One is that modernity is making people more and more able to avoid thinking about the great questions. We can entertain ourselves 24/7 as of 2025 in a way that you couldn’t do in 1825 or even in 1925. Life just forced you to confront the great questions regularly. It was common to lose a spouse, common to lose a child. All sorts of things happened all the time that made you keep the big questions at the front of your mind. That’s not true anymore for great numbers of people, and I think that accounts for a lot of the secularization that’s gone on.
“But the other force is the great questions are still out there. And the yearning of human beings to understand those mysteries is still out there. And for a long time among intellectuals, it was unfashionable to believe that. The fact that I’m writing this book, that Ross (Douthat) wrote his book and a lot of people are taking religion seriously — is a sign that intellectually lots of people are coming back around to the idea that they need to take on the great questions and that would point to a resurgence of interest in religion. Whether that’s going to be reflected in attendance of church in terms of the total population is up in the air.”
What I’m reading
- Pickleball on Sunday? A growing number of college pickleball players, at BYU and other faith-based schools, are asking tournament organizers to stop scheduling matches on Sundays so they can observe their religious practices, while sponsors want to see players participate in high-profile games on Sundays. — The Washington Post
- In their annual meeting, U.S. Roman Catholic Bishops condemned President Donald Trump’s immigration policies and approved a special “pastoral message” in defense of undocumented immigrants. “We as Catholic bishops love our country and pray for its peace and prosperity. For this very reason, we feel compelled now in this environment to raise our voices in defense of God-given human dignity,” the statement said. — Catholic Standard
- Nikalie Monroe’s unusual social experiment to test compassion of the churches has gone viral on TikTok. The Kentucky woman had called more than 40 houses of worship while pretending to need baby formula. Most did not respond quickly, but some, including a mosque, a Buddhist temple and several small churches, offered support. Monroe’s TikTok reports sparked a national debate about compassion of faith communities and what it means to support those in need. — Louisville Courier Journal and The Washington Post
- What does it mean to convert? This essay on conversion to Catholicism explores the misconceptions about why people, and men in particular, convert to Catholicism and what’s at the heart of conversion for the author. “To convert is not to sign on to a platform; it is to be seized by a reality you did not invent and cannot manage,” writes Finnegan Schick. — Comment
- Christian themes are seeing a cultural resurgence, and the new album of the Spanish singer Rosalía is the latest example. It’s called “Lux” and it “adopts the sound and ambitions of a classical oratorio to mirror the modern quest for salvation.” The singer sings in 13 languages and reinterprets the stories of holy women like Hildegard of Bingen, “the monastic musical innovator of the 1110s, and Sun Bu’er, the Taoist poet who scarred her own face for her faith.” — The Atlantic
End notes
Each Wednesday, different faith or spiritual communities at Harvard Divinity School take turns hosting a service, sharing their practices and traditions with fellow students and staff. Over my years in Boston, I’ve attended several of these gatherings, and last year I even wrote a story about Latter-day Saint students at this divinity school.
Last week, the students hosted another beautiful service, which included the reading and reflection about Joseph Smith’s first vision, a performance of “Joseph Smith’s First Prayer” by Harvard Divinity School choir, and the reading of Rosalynde Welch’s essay in Wayfare Magazine “Airborne at Low Elevation.”