A strong majority of U.S. adults believe religion is losing its influence in public life, a new Pew Research Center survey found.
Overall, 80 percent of U.S. adults say religion’s role in American life is shrinking, “a percentage that’s as high as it’s ever been,” according to the poll report. Nearly half (49 percent) say the decline of religious influence in public life is a “bad thing.” Eight percent say religious influence is “growing and this is good.”
Only 6 percent say religious influence is “growing and this is bad,” and 13 percent say religious influence is “shrinking and this is good.”
A little over one in five Americans feel neutral about religious influence on public life, the poll found. Three percent say it is “growing and this doesn’t make a difference,” while 18 percent say it is “declining, and this doesn’t make a difference.”
Other polls in recent years have found that Americans perceive a decrease in religious influence in the United States and place less value on their children sharing their religious views. Other polls show that church attendance and general belief in God have dropped in the U.S. during the past few years.
A Wall Street Journal-NORC poll in March 2023 notably found that the percentage of Americans who said patriotism, religious faith, family, and other traditional American values are “very important” is on the decline.
While 49 percent of respondents said, “I know God really exists and I have no doubts about it,” only 39 percent said religion is “very important” to them. Religion saw a precipitous decline in ranking of importance: 62 percent of Americans said religion was “very important” in 1998, a sentiment which tumbled down to 48 percent in 2019 before hitting 2023’s low percentage.
Younger respondents were less likely to rank religion as very important to them than seniors, 31 percent to 55 percent. Republicans (53 percent) were also more likely than Democrats (27 percent) and independents (38 percent) to say that religion is “very important.”
The Pew Research Center poll was conducted with 12,693 respondents between February 13-25, 2024. The margin of sampling error is ±1.5 percentage points.
Katherine Hamilton is a political reporter for Breitbart News. You can follow her on X @thekat_hamilton.