The PRRI Religious Change Survey
"Bringing Religion Back" looks like a challenge
Last week the Public Religion Research Institute released the results of a survey focused on religion in America. Specifically, they were examining various aspects of the changing religious environment over the last decade.
In many ways, this is a nice follow-up to the grand themes post I wrote on Monday. It provides the data closer to the ground than my 35,000 foot view.
Here is the introduction to their report:
America encompasses a rich diversity of faith traditions. While many Americans identify with the religion in which they were raised, others choose different religious paths as adults for a variety of reasons, including marriage into a new faith tradition, relocation to a new area, or a change in theological views. This “religious churning” is very common in the United States. In 2022, PRRI found that about one in four Americans say they were previously a follower or practitioner of a different religious tradition or denomination than the one they belong to now. Other American religious demography studies estimate the number of religious switchers at higher rates.
This report takes a closer look at religious change in America, examining which major faith traditions have done better at retaining members and which have fared worse. In the United States today, the only major religious category experiencing widespread growth is the religiously unaffiliated. This report delves deeper into why people continue to disaffiliate with religion, including new analysis that considers how self-professed atheists and agnostics differ from Americans who say they are “nothing in particular.”
While the percentage of religious “nones” is growing, roughly three in four Americans continue to identify with a specific faith tradition, and many Americans engage in religious practices routinely, including regular church attendance. Our report considers the reasons that many Americans continue to attend religious services.
Finally, we consider the extent to which Americans who attend church regularly have experienced or witnessed charismatic elements while attending those religious services. We also study the extent to which Americans hold prophetic theological views and beliefs associated with the prosperity gospel.
I am going to focus on four issues in the report: 1) the religious makeup of Americans in 2023, 2) patterns of religious switching, 3) the decline in the importance of religion, and 4) changes in reported worship attendance.
The American Religious Environment 2013-2023
While the results shown below are not from a panel survey — meaning that they are different samples in 2013 and 2023 — they still paint an interesting picture of how the religious environment continues to change.
This is what’s called a stack-column chart. Theoretically, the percentages in the columns add to 100% plus or minus rounding error.1
What I find most striking about the figure is the stability of these group percentages over the decade. Nearly all the categories are the same as they were in 2013. The exceptions are white evangelicals who lost a 3% share and the unaffiliated who gained a 5% share. Most of the growth in the latter came among agnostics and atheists.
It’s tempting to posit generational replacement as a key driver in the white evangelical change with fewer young people taking the place of those who died. But that is certainly even more the case for non-evangelical white protestants (mainlines) and white Catholics. To better understand what might be going on, we can look at religious change.
Religious Switching
There are two charts in the report that paint a picture of religious switching. One looks at the relationship between childhood religion2 and current affiliation. The second examines one’s prior religion before switching to the current religious group.
This figure underscores something sociologists of religion have documented for decades. Evangelicals do a far better job of hanging on to their young people, with nearly 3/4 of those growing up in the tradition still there. This is 18% higher than patterns for mainlines and 14% higher than white catholics.
It might be surprising to find that the retention rate for the nones is equal to that of white evangelicals. Only 2.5% of nones switched to a religious group while 18% joined.
This figure gives a sense of how people “switch in” to other religious groups. Overall, a quarter of switchers came from evangelical circles and another quarter from mainlines. Looking at the rest of the bars tells an interesting story as well. Of those who came into evangelical churches, 40% were mainlines. On the other hand, 30% went the other direction from evangelical to mainline. The presence of former catholics in all protestant spaces is an under-told story.
The bottom bar shows the percentages of disaffiliation from various groups. Catholics and mainlines each have 35% switching to nones with evangelicals behind at 16%.
Religious Salience
The survey asked respondents about the importance of religion in their lives. Overall, the percentage saying that religion was “the most important thing” fell from 27% to 15% between 2013 and 2023, a drop of nearly half the 2013 figure.
There are significant changes afoot even within the religious population. The report breaks down the percentages saying religion was very important across multiple subgroups.
While evangelicals and black protestants still have the highest percentages among the religious groups, even these have shown significant declines: 14% for evangelicals and 18% for blacks. The corresponding 2023 figures from mainlines and catholics are all in the single digits.
This is important in light of former President Trump’s comments that “we need to bring religion back”. Religious salience isn’t just on the decline in America in general3, it is falling among religious folks.
Religious Attendance
There is probably no religious measure in surveys that is more standard than that of frequency of worship attendance. The PRRI data is certainly consistent with what we know of COVID disrupting normal church and synagogue patterns.
The percentage of respondents who attended services once a month or more fell from 40% in 2013 to 31% in 2023. This figure allows one to see the variation in weekly attendance across subgroups.
For some reason, black church attendance actually increased. Mainline attendance stayed stable at 20%. Catholic percentages fell significantly. Barely half of evangelicals reported attending once a week or more.
There is an interesting age differential on attendance. However, the 18-29 population lost less ground than did their older counterparts.
So What?
Religious behaviors and attitudes are changing. Perhaps this is evidence of the general pattern of secularization social scientists have written about for decades. Modern life is busy and complex and seems to squeeze religion out.
Given these patterns, it is not surprising that surveys report that evangelicals feel discriminated against or that Christian Nationalists desire to “take our country back for God”. What those who feel marginalized don’t seem to recognize is that the changes they see are happening among their fellow religionists.
There’s a lot more interesting stuff in the PRRI report. They demonstrate how the “nothing in particular” segment of the nones are markedly different from the agnostics and atheists. They show the various reasons why people say they disaffiliated.4 They look briefly at charismatic practices, Christian Nationalism, and support for Trump.
This is but one cross-sectional survey.5 It tells us of some important shifts in the religious landscape that are worthy of further thought.
The actual totals come to 95 and 97% respectively. The remaining percentages are likely the “refused to answer” category.
This is always an iffy measure. I’m reminded of an interview I did with a prospective adjunct faculty member. He was in his late 50s. When asked what his religious affiliation was, he said Methodist. When I asked how involved he was, he said, “I’ll have to ask my mother.”
It’s probably worthy of much more reflection, but it’s striking the age differences present in 2013 have disappeared.
The number one reason is that “they don’t believe anymore”. I wish there were more questions exploring this. What did they quit believing? Theology, science, politics? In some ways it’s a generic answer not unlike asking a student why they’re leaving college and they say “finances”.
I imagine that there will be an update to Pew’s “Religious Landscape Survey” before long as the prior iterations occurred in 2004 and 2014.