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 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.

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.

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 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 statistic shows the frequency of religious service attendance of Americans in 2014, by state. In 2014, ** percent of residents of Utah attended religious service weekly.

This data set contains statistics by state 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. 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, 1980 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.

The support for same-sex marriage in the United States increased overall between 2006 and 2023. According to a survey conducted across the years, this increase was shared among all levels of church attendance. Citizens who visited the church weekly were consistently the group least in favor of gay marriage. As of 2023, 83 percent of citizens who seldom or never visited the church thought that same-sex marriage should be recognized by the law as valid.

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.

Belief in God has historically been a persistent aspect of American society, with ** percent of surveyed Americans saying that they believed in God in 1944. However, the share of Americans who believed in God has decreased steadily over time after reaching a peak of ** percent in the ***** and ***. As of 2022, the share of Americans who believed in God had fallen to ** percent. Religious participation and practice There has been a significant reduction in participation within religious organizations in the United States, with Americans found less likely to attend church or become members of a church. While ** percent of Americans belonged to a church, synagogue, mosque, or temple in 1999, this number dropped to 47 percent by 2021. This decline in church membership may have contributed to Americans’ waning belief in God, as continuous religious practice has been attributed to greater faith and religious conviction. ** percent of Americans who attended religious services weekly believed that God hears prayers and intervenes, in comparison to 28 percent of Americans who seldom or never attended religious services. Younger Americans less likely to believe While most U.S. adults still believe in God, younger Americans are less likely to share this belief. Older generations of Americans were more likely to participate in religious services while growing up, with ** percent of the Silent Generation reporting that they attended Sunday school or another religious education program, while Generation Z were more likely to have lacked any sort of religious upbringing in the United States. In 2021, 15 percent of Gen Z said that they had never been religious.

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.

Abstract (en): This data collection contains county-level information on churches and church membership by denomination in Michigan for 1950 and 1960. Information is given on the names of the county, presbytery, and church. Other variables provide information on the number of churches and church members for each denomination. Additional variables give the number and percentage of the state population who were 14 years and older in each county in 1950 and in 1960, the percentage of this age group who attended churches in 1950 and in 1960, and the percentage of the change in membership in each denomination between 1950 and 1960. ICPSR data undergo a confidentiality review and are altered when necessary to limit the risk of disclosure. ICPSR also routinely creates ready-to-go data files along with setups in the major statistical software formats as well as standard codebooks to accompany the data. In addition to these procedures, ICPSR performed the following processing steps for this data collection: Checked for undocumented or out-of-range codes.. Counties in Michigan. The data map is provided as an ASCII text file, and the codebook is provided by ICPSR as a Portable Document Format (PDF) file. The PDF file format was developed by Adobe Systems Incorporated and can be accessed using PDF reader software, such as the Adobe Acrobat Reader. Information on how to obtain a copy of the Acrobat Reader is provided on the ICPSR Web site.

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 study, designed and completed by the Association of Statisticians of American Religious Bodies (ASARB), represents statistics for 149 religious bodies on the number of congregations within each county of the United States. Where available, also included are actual membership (as defined by the religious body) and total adherents figures. Participants included 149 Christian denominations, associations, or communions (including Latter-day Saints and Unitarian/Universalist groups); two specially defined groups of independent Christian churches; Jewish and Islamic totals; and counts of temples for six Eastern religions.

It is important to understand the methodology producing these data and its limitations. While these data contain membership data for many religious groups in the United States, including most of the larger groups, they do not include every group. It is recommended that users read the notes below. Users may also want to refer to a paper by Roger Finke and Christopher P. Scheitle that explains the "adjusted" adherence rates included in the file.

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.

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.

This is the replication package for "Churches as Social Insurance: Oil Risk and Religion in the U.S. South". Abstract: Religious communities are important providers of social insurance. We show that risk associated with oil dependence facilitated the proliferation of religious communities throughout the U.S. South during the 20th century. Known oil abundance predicts higher rates of church membership, which are not driven by selective migration or local economic development. Consistent with a social insurance channel, greater oil price volatility increases effects, while greater access to credit, state-level social insurance, and private insurance crowds out effects. Religious communities limit spillovers of oil price shocks across sectors, reducing increases in unemployment following a negative shock by about 30%.

No description was included in this Dataset collected from the OSF

Attitude of protestant Christians to their church. Topics: Constituting characteristic for the protestant denomination; selected reasons for infant baptism; attitude to baptism; preference for infant baptism or adult baptism as well as for government or church kindergartens; meaning of confirmation; confirmation of respondent; memory of the confirmation pastor and the confirmation text; regular attendance at the children's service; attitude to the current children's service; experiences and memories of one's confirmation classes; closeness of father and mother as well as respondent with church; perceived change and direction of change of church closeness; agreement with the church in religious matters; most important reasons and attitude to church membership (scale); preference for church or government hospital in case of illness; perceived differences between government and church hospitals regarding medical equipment, medical personnel and care for the sick; occasion for the last conversation with a protestant pastor or minister; time of conversation; general impression of this conversation; knowledge about the pastor in one's parish and frequency of contact; cause for the last house visit of the pastor; attitude to a house visit by the pastor; preferred relief organization for a donation; reasons for preference of the selected relief organization; knowledge about the protestant relief organization; donation readiness with house-to-house and street collections for selected purposes and projects; general attitude to house-to-house and street collections; desired and actual involvement of the protestant church in selected religious and social areas; preference for government or church involvement in selected areas; preference for government or church home for the old; frequency of conversation about religion, church and faith; personal opinion leadership or opinion allegiance; interest in church counseling in case of marriage problems; inclination toward leaving the church; knowledge about the office responsible for leaving the church; estimated personal consequences of leaving the church; persons leaving the church in the circle of relatives and friends; knowledge about the church tax rate; figures of church tax and judgement on the level of the amount; attitude to the church tax (scale); preference for voluntary payments or government tax collection; extent of one's own payments in case of elimination of the church tax; length of local residency; party preference; union membership; party membership; club membership; employment in a church facility; interest in participating in a church facility; satisfaction with the social conditions in the Federal Republic; watching television; interest in church broadcasts and services on the radio; spatial closeness to parents and frequency of visits; frequency of contacts with friends in one's residence as well as with the friends; reading of magazines; frequency of church attendance; religiousness (Kaufmann Scale); identification as a member of the parish, the established protestant church in the state or member of the protestant church of Germany; knowledge about individual established protestant church in the state; membership in the established protestant church in the state; religious denomination of spouse and parents; main denomination affiliation of residents at place of survey; city size; refugee or exile status; fleeing before 1948; judgement on the income tax burden of respondent.

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.

Attitude of protestant Christians to their church. Topics: Constituting characteristic for the protestant denomination; selected reasons for infant baptism; attitude to baptism; preference for infant baptism or adult baptism as well as for government or church kindergartens; meaning of confirmation; confirmation of respondent; memory of the confirmation pastor and the confirmation text; regular attendance at the children's service; attitude to the current children's service; experiences and memories of one's confirmation classes; closeness of father and mother as well as respondent with church; perceived change and direction of change of church closeness; agreement with the church in religious matters; most important reasons and attitude to church membership (scale); preference for church or government hospital in case of illness; perceived differences between government and church hospitals regarding medical equipment, medical personnel and care for the sick; occasion for the last conversation with a protestant pastor or minister; time of conversation; general impression of this conversation; knowledge about the pastor in one's parish and frequency of contact; cause for the last house visit of the pastor; attitude to a house visit by the pastor; preferred relief organization for a donation; reasons for preference of the selected relief organization; knowledge about the protestant relief organization; donation readiness with house-to-house and street collections for selected purposes and projects; general attitude to house-to-house and street collections; desired and actual involvement of the protestant church in selected religious and social areas; preference for government or church involvement in selected areas; preference for government or church home for the old; frequency of conversation about religion, church and faith; personal opinion leadership or opinion allegiance; interest in church counseling in case of marriage problems; inclination toward leaving the church; knowledge about the office responsible for leaving the church; estimated personal consequences of leaving the church; persons leaving the church in the circle of relatives and friends; knowledge about the church tax rate; figures of church tax and judgement on the level of the amount; attitude to the church tax (scale); preference for voluntary payments or government tax collection; extent of one's own payments in case of elimination of the church tax; length of local residency; party preference; union membership; party membership; club membership; employment in a church facility; interest in participating in a church facility; satisfaction with the social conditions in the Federal Republic; watching television; interest in church broadcasts and services on the radio; spatial closeness to parents and frequency of visits; frequency of contacts with friends in one's residence as well as with the friends; reading of magazines; frequency of church attendance; religiousness (Kaufmann Scale); identification as a member of the parish, the established protestant church in the state or member of the protestant church of Germany; knowledge about individual established protestant church in the state; membership in the established protestant church in the state; religious denomination of spouse and parents; main denomination affiliation of residents at place of survey; city size; refugee or exile status; fleeing before 1948; judgement on the income tax burden of respondent.