The Beehive State has a reputation of being religious. Does this reputation hold up?
The majority of Utah residents are members of The Church of Jesus Christ Latter-day Saints and there are other flourishing religious communities as well.
Here’s a brief look into the religious landscape of Utah.
What is the religious landscape of Utah?
According to the PPRI American Values Atlas for 2021, Latter-day Saints make up the highest percentage of the state’s population at 56%. The unaffiliated is the next highest at 23% while white mainline Protestant composes 3% along with Buddhists, Muslims and white evangelical Protestants. Hispanic Catholics are 1% of the population and white Catholics are 2%.
This atlas also indicated that 52% of Utahns attend service at least once a week while 12% attend once or twice a month and 35% never attend.
Pew Research’s 2014 study found that 55% of Utahns were Latter-day Saints, 22% were unaffiliated, 7% were evangelical Protestant, 6% were mainline Protestant, 5% were Catholic, 3% were atheist, 1% were Muslim, 1% were Jewish along with other religions like Orthodox Christians and Jehovah’s Witnesses composing less than 1% of the population.
53% of Utahns said they attend church services at least once a week while 19% said they attend once or twice a month. 28% responded that they seldom or never attend and 1% said that they didn’t know per Pew Research’s study.
According to a Statista survey from 2017 by Erin Duffin that measured religiosity, 54% of Utahns are very religious while 16% are moderately religious. The national average is 37% of people are very religious and 30% are moderately religiosity.
The Washington Post reported on Utah’s high rate of religiosity in 2015, “But Utah stands alone, according to the results of a Gallup survey of more than 175,000 Americans last year. That state sits atop the list and is the only one in the nation where more than half — 51 percent — of those surveyed reported attending church every week.”