With major religious celebrations taking place in March and April, the percentage of adults who report regularly attending services in America has dropped, Gallup revealed in a survey.
Just 3 in 10 Americans say they attend religious services every week (21%) or almost every week (9%), while 11% report attending about once a month and 56% seldom (25%) or never (31%) attend.
Two decades ago, an average of 42% of U.S. adults attended religious services weekly or nearly every week, Gallup pointed out. A decade ago, the figure fell to 38%, and it is currently at 30%. This decline is largely driven by the increase in the percentage of Americans with no religious affiliation — 9% in 2000-2003 compared to 21% in 2021-2023 — almost all of whom do not attend services regularly.
Catholics have one of the larger drops in attendance, from 45% to 33%, and weekly attendance by Protestants/Christians also fell.
There are slightly smaller decreases among Orthodox and Hindu followers.
By contrast, Muslim and Jewish Americans have shown slight increases in religious service attendance over the past two decades, Gallup notes. The 38% of Muslim adults who regularly attend mosque is up from 34% in 2000-2003, although lower than in 2011-2013 (46%). The increase in synagogue attendance among Jewish Americans has been steadier, moving from 15% two decades ago to 19% last decade and 22% currently.
Members of the Mormon Church are the most observant, with two-thirds attending church weekly or nearly weekly. Protestants (including nondenominational Christians) rank second, with 44% attending services regularly, followed by Muslims (38%), and Catholics (33%).
Orthodox adults attend regularly at a rate of 26%, as do 22% of Jewish adults, 14% of Buddhist adults, and 13% of Hindu adults. Although Buddhist and Hindu adults have similar levels of regular attendance, Buddhist adults are much more likely to say they seldom or never attend (75%) than Hindu adults (51%). The largest segment of Hindu Americans, 36%, say they attend about once a month.
Americans with no religious affiliation, including those who say they are atheist or agnostic, are very unlikely to attend church. Nevertheless, 3% say they attend weekly or nearly weekly.
More 18- to 29-year-olds, 35%, say they have no religious preference than identify with any specific faith, such as Protestant/nondenominational Christian (32%) or Catholic (19%).
Additionally, young adults, both those with and without a religious preference, are much less likely to attend religious services — 22% attend regularly, 8 points below the national average.
The Gallup poll was based on telephone interviews from combined surveys conducted in 2021-2023, with an aggregate random sample of 32,445 adults, aged 18 and older, living in all 50 U.S. states and the District of Columbia. For results based on the total sample of national adults, the margin of sampling error is plus or minus 1 percentage point at the 95% confidence level.
Peter Malbin ✉
Peter Malbin, a Newsmax writer, covers news and politics. He has 30 years of news experience, including for the New York Times, New York Post and Newsweek.com.
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