Pew Research Center has conducted five surveys since the summer of 2020, asking U.S. adults whether they attended religious services in person in the prior month and, separately, whether they took part virtually (by streaming online or watching on TV).
In the first of those polls, in July 2020 — when many churches, synagogues, mosques and other houses of worship were limiting attendance or closed to physical worshipers — 41% of adults said they had joined in religious services in one of these ways (either in person or virtually) in the past month. Most of them (27% of all U.S. adults) said they had participated only virtually.
Since then, the total share of U.S. adults participating in religious services has barely budged, hovering around four-in-ten. But as the pandemic has run its course and many religious congregations have reopened their doors to worshipers, the percentage of Americans participating virtually in worship services has been dropping, Pew notes.
Meanwhile, in-person attendance quickly rebounded and then appears to have plateaued. In the most recent survey asking these questions, in November 2022, 12% say they participated only virtually in the past month (down from 27% in the first year of the pandemic), while 16% say they attended only in person (up from 4% in 2020). An additional 12% say they did both.
One-in-five U.S. adults say they now attend religious services in person less often than they did before the pandemic, according to Pew. This share is partially offset by 7% of Americans who report attending in person more often than before COVID-19.
About 7% of all U.S. adults say they now watch religious services online or on TV more often than before the pandemic.
Throughout the pandemic, white evangelical Protestants consistently have been the most likely of the country’s major religious groups to attend services in person. The portion of white evangelicals who report that they physically went to church in the past month has not dropped below 30% at any point since July 2020. In the most recent survey, fully half of white evangelicals (52%) say they attended in person.
Black Protestants have experienced a substantial bounce in physical attendance, from a low of 14% in July 2020 to 41% in the recent survey. In the most recent survey, about half of Black Protestants (54%) say they participated in services online or on TV in the last month, compared with 46% of white evangelical Protestants and smaller shares of Catholics (20%), white non-evangelical Protestants (19%) and Jews (16%).
As for party affiliation, Republicans and Republican-leaning independents have been much more likely than Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents to attend in-person religious services — as well as somewhat more likely to participate virtually — throughout the pandemic.
Older Americans tend to be more religious than young adults, and despite being at greater risk of hospitalization and death from COVID-19, Americans ages 65 and older have generally been somewhat more inclined than young adults (ages 18 to 29) to go to religious services in person, Pew notes. Older Americans also report participating in religious services virtually at higher rates than the youngest adults.
About half of adults 65 and older say they attended services in the past month, including a third who went either only in person (18%) or both in person and virtually (15%). That compares with roughly three-in-ten adults under 30 who say they participated in religious services in any way, including about one-fifth who went either only in person (12%) or both in person and virtually (9%).
Throughout most of the pandemic, about six-in-ten Americans have not taken part in religious services in any way. In the new survey, this includes roughly seven-in-ten adults under 30 (72%) and about nine-in-ten religiously unaffiliated adults (those who describe their religious identity as atheist, agnostic or “nothing in particular”).
The American Trends Panel (ATP), created by Pew Research Center, is a nationally representative panel of randomly selected U.S. adults. Panelists participate via self-administered web surveys. Panelists who do not have internet access at home are provided with a tablet and wireless internet connection. Interviews are conducted in both English and Spanish. The panel is being managed by Ipsos.
Data in this report is drawn from the panel wave conducted from Nov. 16 to Nov. 27, 2022. A total of 11,377 panelists responded out of 12,402 who were sampled, for a response rate of 92%. The cumulative response rate accounting for nonresponse to the recruitment surveys and attrition is 4%. The break-off rate among panelists who logged on to the survey and completed at least one item is 1%. The margin of sampling error for the full sample of 11,377 respondents is plus or minus 1.5 percentage points.
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