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.

In 2023, the average weekly church attendance at Church of England services was 693,000. Between 2009 and 2019 the average weekly church attendance for the Church of England fell by approximately 218,000. Church attendance figures fell even more during 2020 and 2021, although this was due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

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.

The CARPE project has been developed to empirically address the religious change and secularization debate. The present data set contains aggregate survey-based estimates for the proportion of persons attending church, according to various frequency/probability thresholds. Further variables are sample shares of denominations, proportion female, average respondent age, proportions of rough educational attainment groups, and identifiers for country, year, and survey programme. The pooled dataset involves 45 European countries and spans the years 1973 to 2016, with variable density of coverage across the countries. Those countries are Albania, Austria, Armenia, Belgium, Bosnia Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Belarus, Croatia, Cyprus, Northern Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Georgia, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Kosovo, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Macedonia, Malta, Moldova, Montenegro, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Russian Federation, Serbia, Slovak Republic, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, Ukraine, United Kingdom.

Estimates were derived from the individual-level data of the following survey programmes: • Eurobarometer (http://ec.europa.eu/public_opinion/), • European Social Survey (ESS), (http://www.europeansocialsurvey.org/), • European Values Study (EVS), (http://www.europeanvaluesstudy.eu/), • International Social Survey Programme (ISSP) (http://www.issp.org/), • World Values Survey (WVS) (http://www.worldvaluessurvey.org/)

This study was an effort to gather the statistics of churches and church membership throughout the United States for 1952. The data presented here are county-level data based on the cooperation of 114 religious denominations in the continental United States.

This dataset is a longitudinal version of the Churches and Church Membership in the United States studies from 1980 and 1990, and the Religious Congregations and Membership Studies from 2000 and 2010. It contains the adherent and congregation counts of 302 religious groups that participated in at least one of the 1980-2010 data collections. It is very important to understand how this file differs from its standalone counterparts, and its many limitations. Using these data for over-time comparisons without reading any documentation will likely result in inaccurate statistics. Data users are strongly urged to read the paper by Rachel Bacon, Roger Finke and Dale Jones that details all the changes made when creating the longitudinal file. Major changes made to the file include new variable naming schemes, new combined religious groups that correct for schisms and mergers, new adherent counts for the United Methodist Church, and count estimates for missing data among 40 groups. Users can download the paper "https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s13644-018-0339-4" Target="_blank">here. Users can download the appendices here: "/ARDA/archives/AppendixA_RCMS.pdf" Target="_blank">Appendix A, "/ARDA/archives/AppendixB_RCMS.pdf" Target="_blank">Appendix B, "/ARDA/archives/AppendixC_RCMS.pdf" Target="_blank">Appendix C.

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.

Erratum: An error in the variable indicating the total state population by year (TOTPOP) has been corrected. This variable now matches the RCMS state level files for the years 1980, 1990, 2000, and 2010.

Every year, the number of Italian believers attending religious services becomes lower and lower. In 2023, the number of people attending places of worship at least once per week dropped below ten million individuals for the first time since at least 2001, seven million worshipers less than in 2013. However, figures increased to 10.2 million in 2024 compared to 2023. In 2020, the most prayerful were the citizens aged over 75 years, whereas the lowest number of individuals attending religious services at least once a week was recorded in the age group between 18 and 19 years. Religious affiliation of Italians Although the dominant religion in Italy is Catholicism, Italian citizens also belong to other religious minorities. In 2020, the largest share of individuals not affiliated to the Roman Catholic Church were Muslims, followed by Jehovah’s Witnesses and Protestants. Reasons to leave religion When asked about the reason they left the religion, 64 percent of the Italian respondents stated that they disagreed with their religion’s position on social issues. Another 60 percent of the interviewees were unhappy about scandals involving religious institutions, whereas six percent left the religion because they married someone outside the faith.

ImportanceReligiosity has been associated with positive health outcomes. Hypothesized pathways for this association include religious practices, such as church attendance, that result in reduced stress.ObjectiveThe objective of this study was to examine the relationship between religiosity (church attendance), allostatic load (AL) (a physiologic measure of stress) and all-cause mortality in middle-aged adults.Design, setting and participantsData for this study are from NHANES III (1988–1994). The analytic sample (n = 5449) was restricted to adult participants, who were between 40–65 years of age at the time of interview, had values for at least 9 out of 10 clinical/biologic markers used to derive AL, and had complete information on church attendance.Main outcomes and measuresThe primary outcomes were AL and mortality. AL was derived from values for metabolic, cardiovascular, and nutritional/inflammatory clinical/biologic markers. Mortality was derived from a probabilistic algorithm matching the NHANES III Linked Mortality File to the National Death Index through December 31, 2006, providing up to 18 years follow-up. The primary predictor variable was baseline report of church attendance over the past 12 months. Cox proportional hazard logistic regression models contained key covariates including socioeconomic status, self-rated health, co-morbid medical conditions, social support, healthy eating, physical activity, and alcohol intake.ResultsChurchgoers (at least once a year) comprised 64.0% of the study cohort (n = 3782). Non-churchgoers had significantly higher overall mean AL scores and higher prevalence of high-risk values for 3 of the 10 markers of AL than did churchgoers. In bivariate analyses non-churchgoers, compared to churchgoers, had higher odds of an AL score 2–3 (OR 1.24; 95% CI 1.01, 1.50) or ≥4 (OR 1.38; 95% CI 1.11, 1.71) compared to AL score of 0–1. More frequent churchgoers (more than once a week) had a 55% reduction of all-cause mortality risk compared with non-churchgoers. (HR 0.45, CI 0.24–0.85) in the fully adjusted model that included AL.Conclusions and relevanceWe found a significant association between church attendance and mortality among middle-aged adults after full adjustments. AL, a measure of stress, only partially explained differences in mortality between church and non-church attendees. These findings suggest a potential independent effect of church attendance on mortality.

Volunteer rate and distribution of volunteer hours, population aged 15 and over, religious attendance, 2013.

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.

Donor rate and distribution of average annual donations, for the population aged 15 and over, by religious attendance, Canada and provinces.

This study was an effort to gather the statistics of churches and church membership throughout the United States for 1952. The data presented here are state-level data based on the cooperation of 114 religious denominations in the continental United States.

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 table provides an overview of the changes in the percentage of people in the Netherlands aged 15 to 25 who consider themselves to belong to a certain denomination. The following categories of religion are distinguished: No religious denomination, Roman Catholic, Protestant, Islam and other denomination. It also shows the percentage of people aged 15 to 25 who attend a religious gathering. Religious denomination and attendance at religious services are broken down into various personal characteristics. In order to show how young people in the Netherlands are doing, the National Youth Monitor describes more than 70 topics in addition to this topic. The subjects are called indicators. Data available from: 2021 Status of the figures: The figures in this table are final. Changes as of April 7, 2023: None This is a new table. When will new numbers come out? Figures for 2023 will be added in the first half of 2024.

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.

In 2023, 36 percent of people that were regular attendees of Church of England services were aged 70 or over, with just under half being aged between 18 and 69, and 18 percent being 17 or younger.

Donor rate and distribution of donations, population aged 15 and over, religious attendance, 2013 data.

The table "Church denomination; per living situation 1999" shows the percentage of people aged 18 and over who indicate that they belong to a certain religious denomination for the variables age group, level of education, household composition and social group. The following categories of religious denomination are distinguished: Reformed, Dutch Reformed, Roman Catholic, other religious denomination and no religious denomination. The percentage of people over the age of 18 who regularly go to church or another religious gathering is also shown per life situation. This table was created in response to the 2000 CBS publication "Church affiliation and church attendance at the end of the 20th century". This publication discusses the following topics: Religion in historical perspective, religion: where and who, religion and politics , religion and voluntary work, religion and environment, religion and values ​​orientations. You can order this publication from sales@CBS.nl, quoting code number E-15/2000. Data available on: 1999 Frequency: irregular Status of the figures: final Changes compared to the previous version: none When will new figures be released? This table has been discontinued as of January 1, 2008.

Moreno-Medina, Jonathan, (2023) “Sinning in the Rain: Weather Shocks, Church Attendance, and Crime.” Review of Economics and Statistics 105:1, 54–69.

In 2020, people aged 65 years and over belonged to the group with the highest weekly church attendance in Italy. On the contrary, teenagers and young adults made up the smallest group of people going weekly to church.