Survey finds declining rate of Christians in America may have leveled off

The Pew Research Center on Wednesday released its 2023-2024 Religious Landscape Study that aims to assess the size of religious groups in the United States. With nearly 37,000 respondents, it is the largest single survey the center conducts.

What were the survey’s findings? The survey found that 62% of American adults describe themselves as Christians. While the total is down from 78% in 2007, the rate has been relatively stable since 2019. The percentage of respondents who say they pray daily has also remained fairly consistent since 2021 and one-third of participants said they attend religious services at least once a month.

Nearly 80% of Americans believe in a spiritual world beyond the natural world and 70% believe in an afterlife. Meanwhile, the percentage of adults who identify as a religion other than Christian has risen to 7.1% from 4.7% in 2007.

What about declining rates? The survey found that membership has declined in all three major strands of Protestantism including evangelicals, mainline Protestants, and black Protestant churches. Additionally, young adults reported they were less religious than older generations, with fewer saying they identified as Christian, prayed daily, or attended religious services at least once a month. Young people who were raised in nominally religious or nonreligious homes were also more likely to identify as religiously unaffiliated and 35% of adults said they had switched religions since childhood.

What do church leaders say about the trend? In an email to WORLD, Vice President for Communications at the Southern Baptist Convention Brandon Porter said the pattern is universal to all Christian denominations. He said the cultural benefit of being part of a local church has slipped as people find more activities to pursue on Sundays. However, a Lifeway Research analysis last year found that attendance at Southern Baptist congregations may have actually increased more than initially reported. Though the nation as a whole has trended away from regular church involvement, Porter pointed to spiritual movements on university campuses like Asbury University as evidence that the younger generation is still seeking the Lord. In 2023, Barna research found that nearly half of Gen Z teenagers are open to spirituality, compared to less than a third of Gen Z adults.

Dig deeper: Read my report in The Sift from December about how Bible sales soared last year.