The share of Americans who were not a member of a church or synagogue has been increasing since 1992. In 2023, about 55 percent of Americans were not members of a church or synagogue. In that same year, 45 percent of Americans were members of a church or synagogue.

According to a 2022 survey, 31 percent of Americans never attend church or synagogue, compared to 20 percent of Americans who attend every week.

Religiosity in the United States

Despite only about a fifth of Americans attending church or synagogue on a weekly basis, almost 40 percent consider themselves to be very religious. Additionally, states in the Deep South such as Mississippi, Alabama, and Louisiana had the most residents identifying as very religious. In contrast, New England states like Vermont, Maine, and New Hampshire had the most people identifying as nonreligious.

A Christian nation?

Despite the official separation of church and state embedded in the Constitution, many would still consider the United States to be a Christian nation. Catholicism has the largest number of adherents in the United States, due to there being many different Protestant denominations. The Southern Baptist Convention had the largest number of Evangelical adherents, while the United Methodist Church was the largest Mainline Protestant denomination.

This data collection contains information by region, state, and county on churches and church membership for 53 Christian denominations in the United States in 1971. These estimates or enumerations by denomination were collected by the National Council of Churches of Christ in the U.S.A. (NCCC) from each reporting denomination. The data are recorded for the nation as a whole, regions, states, SMSAs, and counties. This dataset was obtained from the Office of Research, Evaluation and Planning of the NCCC. In addition to data identifying the units of record, data for each reporting denomination are present, including: (1) number of churches, (2) number of communicant, confirmed, or full members, and (3) total number of "adherents." When incomplete information was supplied about a denomination's total number of adherents, an estimate was made by NCCC and identified in the data as such.

This data set contains statistics by state for 133 Judeo-Christian church bodies, providing information on the number of churches and members. It is not known exactly what percent of total Judeo-Christian adherents this actually represents. When compared to the Yearbook of American and Canadian Churches: 1990, this study accounts for 23 percent more communicant members.

Please note that this data set may not be sold in any form, including as an addition to proprietary software, without the permission of the copyright holder. Churches and Church Membership in the United States, 1990 is published by the Glenmary Research Center, P.O. Box 507, Mars Hill, NC 28754.

Visit the "/us-religion/sources-for-religious-congregations-membership-data" Target="_blank">frequently asked questions page for more information about the ARDA's religious congregation and membership data.

This data set contains statistics by county for 111 Judeo-Christian church bodies, providing information on their number of churches and members. The denominations included represent an estimated 91 percent of U.S. membership totals officially submitted to the Yearbook of American and Canadian Churches.

This data set contains statistics by county for 133 Judeo-Christian church bodies, providing information on their number of churches and members.

Please Note: This dataset is part of the historical CISER Data Archive Collection and is also available at the Roper Center for Public Opinion Research at https://doi.org/10.25940/ROPER-31094204. We highly recommend using the Roper Center version as they may make this dataset available in multiple data formats in the future.

This data set contains statistics by county on Christian churches and membership for 1971. Fifty-three denominations are included, representing an estimated 81 percent of church membership in the United States.

Over the past decade, the share of the Swedish population who was a member of the Swedish Church decreased steadily from 70 percent in 2010 to 51 percent in 2024. This underlines the trend that religion is playing a smaller part in people's lives in Sweden. The Church of Sweden is the largest Christian church in Sweden and it was the state church between 1536 and 2000.

In 2023, 27.5 percent of Americans were unaffiliated with any religion. A further 13.4 percent of Americans were White evangelical Protestants, and an additional 13.3 percent were White mainline Protestants. Religious trends in the United States Although the United States is still home to the largest number of Christians worldwide, the nation has started to reflect a more diverse religious landscape in recent years. Americans now report a wide range of religious beliefs and backgrounds, in addition to an increasing number of people who are choosing to identify with no religion at all. Studies suggest that many Americans have left their previous religion to instead identify as atheist, agnostic, or nothing in particular, with many reasoning that they stopped believing in the religion's teachings, that they didn't approve of negative teachings or treatment of LGBTQ+ people, or that their family was never that religious growing up. Christian controversies Over the last few years, controversies linked to Christian denominations have plagued the nation, including reports of child sexual abuse by the Catholic Church, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and the Southern Baptist Convention. Christian churches have also been accused of supporting discriminatory actions against LGBTQ+ people and people belonging to other religious groups. In addition, there have been increasing concerns about Christian nationalism, the political ideology that asserts that America was founded to be a Christian nation. Although the majority of Americans still think that declaring the United States a Christian nation would go against the U.S. Constitution, studies found that most Republicans would be in favor of this change.

This study, designed and carried out by the "http://www.asarb.org/" Target="_blank">Association of Statisticians of American Religious Bodies (ASARB), compiled data on 372 religious bodies by county in the United States. Of these, the ASARB was able to gather data on congregations and adherents for 217 religious bodies and on congregations only for 155. Participating bodies included 354 Christian denominations, associations, or communions (including Latter-day Saints, Messianic Jews, and Unitarian/Universalist groups); counts of Jain, Shinto, Sikh, Tao, Zoroastrian, American Ethical Union, and National Spiritualist Association congregations, and counts of congregations and adherents from Baha'i, three Buddhist groupings, two Hindu groupings, and four Jewish groupings, and Muslims. The 372 groups reported a total of 356,642 congregations with 161,224,088 adherents, comprising 48.6 percent of the total U.S. population of 331,449,281. Membership totals were estimated for some religious groups.

In January 2024, the ARDA added 21 religious tradition (RELTRAD) variables to this dataset. These variables start at variable #9 (TOTCNG_2020). Categories were assigned based on pages 88-94 in the original "https://www.usreligioncensus.org/index.php/node/1638" Target="_blank">2020 U.S. Religion Census Report.

Visit the "https://www.thearda.com/us-religion/sources-for-religious-congregations-membership-data" Target="_blank">frequently asked questions page for more information about the ARDA's religious congregation and membership data sources.

The survey studied religiosity and church membership in Finland as well as people's participation in parish activities. Questions also charted personal faith, spiritual matters, attitudes towards religious communities, and family. The respondents were first asked about helping others, donating money to charity, and the meaning of their own work. Questions surveyed why the respondents helped other people (e.g. they felt it was their duty as a citizen or a Christian, they felt good when helping others), how much money the respondents had donated to charity in the past year, and whether the respondents thought it was important that they could help and serve others in their work. The next questions focused on how the respondents spent Sundays and holidays. The respondents were asked, for example, whether they usually went to worship service on Sundays, ate a more festive meal, cooked, or cleaned. The respondents' Easter and Christmas celebrations were also examined with questions on whether they fasted or participated in a worship service on Easter and whether they visited graves or read the Christmas Gospel on Christmas. Further questions focused on fasting and the meaning of fasting to the respondents as well as the respondents' views on the importance of religious ceremonies in connection to big life events (e.g. when a child is born, marriage). Religion and worldviews were surveyed next with questions related to different religions and their teachings, spiritual matters, the existence of God, and the firmness of the respondents' belief in a number of religious tenets and phenomena (e.g. a good God, angels, the Devil). The respondents' personal spirituality was charted with questions on how often they prayed, read the Bible, watched or listened to religious programmes on TV or radio, and visited websites related to religion. The respondents were asked which books (excluding sacred books of religions), songs and spiritual influencers had the most significance for them spiritually. The respondents' religious and supernatural experiences, such as God answering their prayers or foreseeing a future event, were also surveyed. Religious traditions, family and childhood were surveyed next. The respondents were asked to choose which statements about religion and religious activities they thought described their childhood home and whether they had taught or would teach their children a bedtime prayer. Questions also charted how important the respondents thought it was to pass on various religious traditions, such as baptism, attending worship service, and celebrating Christmas as the birthday of Jesus Christ, to future generations. Attitudes towards the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland were also surveyed. The respondents were asked whether people close to them viewed the church with a more positive or negative attitude, what they thought the church's role was in mitigating climate change, and whether the church should support same-sex marriage. Next, membership of a church or other religious community was examined. Those who were members of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland were asked about the importance of a number of reasons for Church membership as well as whether they had considered quitting the Church. Those who were not members of the Evangelical Lutheran Church were asked whether they had previously quit the Church and what their reasons for quitting had been. Attitudes towards Finnish identity and different groups of people were also surveyed. Background variables included, among others, the respondent's age, gender, level of education, occupation, household size, household income, type of housing, NUTS2 region of residence, household composition, and political party preference in the 2019 parliamentary elections.

In Sweden, the number of members of the Church of Sweden decreased steadily from 2000 to 2023, underlining the diminishing role of the church in the country. Nevertheless, there were nearly 5.5 members of the Church of Sweden in 2023, equalling more than half of the country's population.The Church of Sweden is the largest Christian church in Sweden, and it was the state church between 1536 and 2000.

Religious beliefs and moral attitudes.

Thopics: perceived change in violence on the streets, bribery, adultery and tax evasion during the last 10 years; justifyability of tax evasion (scale); justifyability of death penality; attitude towards: homosexual adoption, right to commit suicide, men more right for job than women; attitudes towards abortion in different circumstances (scale);
individual or public responsability for pensions; cuts in unemployment benefits; smoking ni public buildings; goals in education of children: indepdendence, obedience, creativity; attitudes towards income differeces; attitudes towards homeless people in neighbourhood; acceptance of nepotism (Kohlberg); Criteria for selecting patients for important surgery in hospitals; attitudes towards euthanasia; rules about good and bad; source of morality (scale); control over life; solving problems: individual vs. society; social orientation; volunteering: religious organizations, non-religious organizations; geographical mobility; residence of best friend; nationality of respondent; nationality of mother; nationality of father; attitudes towards migrants (ethnocentrism); political interest; party preference; least preferred party; reception of political news; concept of god; beliefs about life after death; salvation; conditions of salvation; theodizee (scale); respondent´s religiosity (self-assessment); beliefs influence daily life; beliefs influence important decisions; spiritual life; church attendance; frequency of praying; religious services: birth, marriage, death; conceptions of jesus; conceptions of the bible; dramatic change around millennium; denominational membership; closeness to church; women as priests; conversion experience; church attendance at age 12; transcendental experiences; possession of holy object; power of holy obejct; possession of talisman or lucky charm; power of talisman or lucky charm; consult horoscope; take horoscope into account in daily life; share of friends with different religion; perceived percentage of religious people in country; role of religion in world; attitudes towards: girls cover heads, take soft drugs, prevent blood transfusion, commit suicide; attitudes towards religious groups (enrichement, cause of conflict, other religious teachings, Jehovas witness, scientologist); truth in religion; religious symbols in schools; financial support: religious schools, religions; attitudes towards: oath with reference to God; consult religions in making laws, nurse may refuse legal abortion; attitutes towards science; desired influence of churches on politics; perceived influence of churches on politics;

Demographics: gender; age (year of birth); highest level of education; emloyment status; status of unpaid work; secondary job; marital status; steady life partner; partner´s highest level of education; partner´s religion; partner´s church attendance; number of children; household (number of children +18; 13-17; 5-12; less than 4); net household income; acceptance of cut in income for solidarity with poorest countries; community size; national ranking of community size; history of church membership;

Additionally coded: length of interview; year of interview.

Optional questions (not asked in all countries): importance of freedom; importance of equality; God concerned with every individual; God is valuable in humankind; life has meaning because of a God; sorrows have meaning if beliefs in a God; sorrows receive meaning from yourself; death is natural resting point; death is passage to another life; life has meaning if yourself give meaning; Virgin Mary was taken to heaven; believe in saints; father´s religion at age 12; father attend religious services at age 12; mothers´s religion at age 12; mother attend religious services at age 12; education in religious schools; profession (ISCO); partner´s profession (ISCO), community size (not grouped); pope hinders unity of Christians; religious services: sober; religious services: music and ceremonial clothes; pope should adapt his message; laity involvement; meaning of Christmas; month of interview; father´s highest level of education; mother´s level of education; number of household members

Additional questions in the BELGIAN questionnaire (only substantial questions. No country specific versions of questions from the masterquestionnaire): meaning of marriage in church; homosexuals may marry; light candle when enter church; water from Lourdes at home; pilgrimage; ...

This statistic shows the median donation per worshipper of churches in the United States in 2008, by church size. As of 2008, the median donation per worshipper of mid-sized churches (101 to 350 members) was at 1,656 U.S. dollars per year.

This data set contains statistics by county for 133 Judeo-Christian church bodies, providing information on their number of churches and members.

Please note that this data set may not be sold in any form, including as an addition to proprietary software, without the permission of the copyright holder. Churches and Church Membership in the United States, 1990 is published by the Glenmary Research Center, P.O. Box 507, Mars Hill, NC 28754.

Visit the "/us-religion/sources-for-religious-congregations-membership-data" Target="_blank">frequently asked questions page for more information about the ARDA's religious congregation and membership data.

Social relevance of Christian religion in the Netherlands.Social characteristics / intimate relationships / division of care and household work / education / employment / social integration / intra-generational occupational mobility / intergenerational educational and occupational mobility / educational and occupational homogamy / traditional achievement values / traditional family values / social criticism / hedonistic values / r.' s past and present church membership / r'.s past and present church attendance / r'.s religious upbringing / membership non-Christian religious group / parents' past and present church membership / partners past and present church membership / past and present church membership of best friends and family / Christian, transcendental and world-directed interpretation and denial existence ultimate reality Christian and world-directed interpretation and denial of meaning of life, suffering and death / Christian and world-directed interpretation of good and evil / salience of religion and world view / religious surroundings / anthropomorphic and non-anthropomorphic images of God, theism, and individual, social and cosmic panentheism / external, internal and quest religious orientation / religious and mystic experiences and prayer / economic and cultural conservatism / political party preference, (post)materialism, political orientation, interest in politics / legitimacy of government decisions / primary relationship / attitudes towards homosexuality / attitude towards ethnic minorities / subjectively perceived threat / ethnic distance / ethnic discrimination / authoritarianism / anomie / utilitarian individualism / social trust individual and group deprivation / policy matters with regard to ethnic minorities / exposure to ethnic minorities / received and given help behaviour / financial help behaviour / pro-social orientation / attitude towards relationship men and nature / interaction with nature / proximity of nature / action willingness for nature / physical and mental illness / perception of chronic stress / acute negative life-events / stressful events during childhood and adolescence / physical family history mental health / social functioning.The data- and documentation files of this dataset can be downloaded via the option Data Files.

The survey contained questions about church and religion in Finland. The respondents (n=1030) were first asked whether they were members of a church or other religious community. Those who were members of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland were asked the importance of certain reasons for the Church membership (e.g. the possibility to participate Church service, the Church teaches Christian love of one's neighbour) and whether they had considered quitting the Church. Those who were not members of the Church were asked whether they had considered joining it. The respondents were requested to estimate how well certain adjectives describe the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland, using pairs of opposite adjectives (e.g. honest-dishonest, tolerant-intolerant). Participation in congregational and spiritual life was charted with questions focusing on how often the respondents participated in church services, the Eucharist or other spiritual events and how often they prayed, read the Bible and watched or listened to religious programmes on TV or radio. Different factors causing non-participation in church activities, such as the respondent's lack of influence in the Church or the perceived narrow-mindedness of the Church were surveyed. Opinions on the development of the Church were examined. The respondents were asked to what extent they agreed with statements such as "the Church should, above all, proclaim the word of God" and "the Church should be more tolerant". Views were probed on the belief in God as well as the firmness of belief in a number of religious tenets and phenomena (e.g. the virgin birth of Jesus, Heaven, the Last Judgement). Perceptions on the nature of God were investigated by requesting the respondents to choose between a pair of opposite adjectives describing God. Opinions on the origin of human beings and other species as well as on Jesus and life after death were charted. The respondents were asked how well the Evangelical Lutheran Church has performed its tasks. Religious upbringing of the respondents was investigated by asking about, for example, the recital of bedtime prayer, observation of Sabbath and discussions about religious matters in the respondent's childhood home. The respondents were further asked whether they had received a religious upbringing from family members (e.g. mother, father, grandfather) and whether they intended to give their own children a religious upbringing. Views were probed on the ordination of women, on the people opposing it and on attendance in events with a priestess. The respondents' willingness to pay more church tax in order to preserve the services and activities provided by the Church was investigated as well as their habits of donating money to charity during the year. Background variables included, among others, the respondent's age, gender, occupational status, education, gross annual income of the household, occupational status of the household head, region of residence (NUTS3), municipality type, household composition, political party choice if parliamentary elections were held at that time and political party choice in the previous parliamentary elections.

In 2021, around 21 percent of the Australian population attended a Christian church frequently. Although the share of people of Christian faith in Australia appears to be declining, church attendance has remained relatively stable since 2006.

Data set that looked at religion, self-rated health, depression, and psychological well-being in a sample of older Blacks and older Whites (aged 65 and over) within the United States. Questions were asked regarding religious status, activities, and beliefs among those who currently practice the Christian faith, those who used to be Christian but are not now, and those who have never been associated with any religion during their lifetimes. Demographic variables include age, race, sex, education, and income. Wave II was collected in 2004 and reinterviewed 1,024 respondents. There were 75 respondents who refused to participate, 112 who could not be located, 70 that were too ill for participation, 11 who had moved to nursing homes and 208 were deceased. * Dates of Study: 2001- 2004 * Study Features: Longitudinal, Minority Oversample * Sample Size: 1,500

This statistic shows the sources of congregational income of churches in the United States in 2008, by church size. As of 2008, trust funds, investments, bequets were the source of about 41 percent of income of small churches with up to 100 members.