More than half of Pennsylvanians don't go to religious services
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More than half of Pennsylvanians confess they never or rarely attend church or religious services.
The big picture: The rest of the country isn't much better. The national average sits at 49%, per a new analysis of Household Pulse Survey data taken between February and March 2024.
By the numbers: Of those who do attend, 13% of residents in the metro area say they went to services 1-3 times a year, 7% attended 4-11 times per year, and 18% went 12 or more times.
Zoom in: More than two-thirds of adults in the Philly metro identify as Christian, 26% Catholic, 3% Jewish and 1% Muslim, while a quarter consider themselves religious "nones," including about 5% who say they're atheist, the Pew Research Center found in 2014.
Zoom out: Vermont (75%), New Hampshire (66%) and Maine (66%) have the highest share of adults who say they never or seldom attend church or religious services.
- Mississippi (32%), Alabama (36%) and Louisiana (37%) have the lowest shares.
State of play: More than three-quarters of Americans say religion's role in public life is shrinking, per a recent Pew survey — the highest level since the group first started tracking such sentiment in 2001.
- Many Americans are unhappy about that, with about half of adults telling Pew both that "religion is losing influence and that this is a bad thing."
- About 57% of adults say that religion has a positive impact on American life, per Pew.
Friction point: Nearly half of U.S. adults say they feel at least "some" tension between their religious beliefs and mainstream culture, Pew found.
- That's up from 42% in 2020.
Yes, and: A separate Gallup survey published this week found that Latter-day Saints are the only religious group wherein a majority say they attend services weekly, at 54%.
- 30% of Protestants reported weekly attendance, compared to 28% of Muslims, 23% of Catholics and 16% of Jews.
The bottom line: Religious service attendance has been dropping for decades, per Gallup, driven largely by "the increase in the percentage of Americans with no religious affiliation — 9% in 2000-2003 versus 21% in 2021-2023."