The reason for the season: American religiosity today

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9/11, Agnostics, Americans, Atheists, Baby Boomers, Catholics, Christian nation, Christianity, church attendance, church membership, church membership, churches, Democrats, demographics, Donald Trump, downward church attendance, formal religious identity, Frank Newport, Gallup Daily tracking, Gallup.com, Hillary Clinton, historical patterns, Jews, millenials, Mormans, Mosques, Muslims, non-Christians, partisan identification, political groups, Protestants, religion, religion in daily life, religiosity, religious identity, religious influence, Republicans, synagogues

Gallup.com

http://www.gallup.com/poll/200186/five-key-findings-religion.aspx?utm_source=alert&utm_medium=email&utm_content=morelink&utm_campaign=syndication

Religion

December 23, 2016

Five Key Findings on Religion in the U.S.

by Frank Newport

Story Highlights

• Almost eight in 10 identify with a religion, mostly Christian
• 21% have no religious identity, up from 15% in 2008
• Over seven in 10 say religion is losing its influence in U.S. society

PRINCETON, N.J. — Religion remains an integral part of most Americans’ lives, but Gallup’s ongoing research shows how this has changed over time.  The following are five important findings about religion in the U.S.:

1.  America remains a largely Christian nation, although less so than in the past.  Seventy-four percent of Americans identify with a Christian religion, and 5% identify with a non-Christian religion.  The rest of the U.S. adult population, about 21%, either say they don’t have a formal religious identity or don’t give a response.

Religious Identification in the U.S.: 2016

	%
Protestant/Other Christian	48.9
Catholic	23.0
Mormon	1.8
Jewish	2.1
Muslim	0.8
Other non-Christian religion	2.5
None/Atheist/Agnostic	18.2
No response given	2.6
Based on 173,229 interviews conducted Jan. 2-Dec. 19, 2016
Gallup

The dominance of Christianity in the U.S. is not new, but it has changed over time.  The U.S. has seen an increase in those with no formal religious identity (sometimes called “nones”) and a related decrease in those identifying with a Christian religion.  Since 2008, when Gallup began tracking religion on its daily survey, the “nones” have increased by six percentage points, while those identifying as Christian have decreased by six points.  The 5% who identify with a non-Christian religion has stayed constant.

In the late 1940s and 1950s, when Gallup began regularly measuring religious identity, over nine in 10 American adults identified as Christian — either Protestant or Catholic — with most of the rest saying they were Jewish.

2.  The trend away from formal religion continues.  The most significant trend in Americans’ religiosity in recent decades has been the growing shift away from formal or official religion.  About one in five U.S. adults (21%) don’t have a formal religious identity.  This represents a major change from the late 1940s and 1950s when only 2% to 3% of Americans did not report a formal religious identity when asked about it in Gallup surveys.  The increase in those claiming no religious identity began in the 1970s, with the percentage crossing the 10% threshold in 1990 and climbing into the teens in the 2000s.

Americans are also significantly less likely now than they were in the past to claim membership in a church, synagogue or mosque.  In 1937, when Gallup first asked about church membership, 73% said they were a member of a church.  This figure dropped into the upper 60% range in the 1980s and continued to decrease from that point on.  It fell to its lowest point of 54% in 2015 but increased slightly to 56% this year.

Self-reported church attendance is also lower than it has been in past decades — although perhaps not as low as might be expected, given the drop in church membership and the increase in the percentage of those with no religious identity.

Gallup’s longest-running religious service attendance question asks, “Did you, yourself, happen to attend church, synagogue or mosque in the last seven days, or not?”  In 1939, when Gallup first asked this question, 41% said “yes.”  That percentage dropped to 37% in 1940 and rose to 39% in 1950.  It continued to climb, reaching as high as 49% at multiple points in the 1950s.  Attendance then settled down to figures around 40% for decades, before dropping to 36% for the past three years.

3.  A majority still say religion is important in their lives.  A majority of Americans (53%) say that religion is “very important” in their lives.  This is down marginally from recent years, but the trend over time has shown less of a decline than have other religious indicators such as religious identification or church membership.  In 1965, 70% said that religion was “very important” in their lives, but figures have since ranged from 52% to 61%.  The percentage reporting that religion is “very important” hit the low end of this range in the 1980s and has done so again in more recent years.  The 53% who say religion is “very important” this year is low on a relative basis but is similar to what Gallup measured in 1978 and 1987.

A different question included on Gallup Daily tracking since 2008 offers two choices, asking if religion is “important in your daily life” or not.  Sixty-four percent of those interviewed in 2016 say that religion is important, down two points since 2008.

4.  Americans continue to say that religion is losing its influence in American society.  Americans continue to perceive that religion is less influential than it used to be, with 72% in 2016 say that religion is losing its influence on American life.

The perception that religion is losing influence in the U.S. has been fairly constant over the past eight years or so.  Before that, the figure fluctuated over time.  For example, in 1957 and shortly after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, a majority of Americans said that religion was increasing its influence on American life.  During the Reagan administration, the percentages saying that religion was increasing in influence and those saying it was decreasing in influence were roughly equal.

Before 2009, there were only two times in Gallup’s history when more than seven in 10 Americans thought religion was losing its influence:  in 1969 and 1970.

5.  Religion remains intertwined with political self-identification.  Religiosity continued in 2016 to significantly correlate with partisan identification.  Slightly more than half of Republicans this year are “highly religious,” based on a combination of their self-reported religious service attendance and the importance of religion in their daily life.  That compares with a third of independents and Democrats who say the same.  By contrast, 20% of Republicans are not religious, compared with 37% of the two other political groups.

Political Party Identification Within Partisan Groups in the U.S.: 2016

	Republicans	Independents	Democrats
	%	%	%
Highly religious	51	33	33
Moderately religious	29	30	30
Not religious	20	37	37
Based on 173,229 interviews conducted Jan. 2-Dec. 19, 2016
Gallup

Gallup began tracking religiosity on a continual basis in 2008, and although overall religiosity is down across all political groups since then, it remains much higher among Republicans than among the other two political groups.

The connection between religion and politics manifested itself in the presidential election this fall.  Exit poll data showed that among those who reported attending religious services weekly, 55% voted for Donald Trump and 41% voted for Hillary Clinton.  Among those who never attend religious services, 62% voted for Clinton and 30% voted for Trump.

Bottom Line

Gallup data in 2016 show a leveling off in downward trends in church attendance, the importance of religion and the perception that religion is losing influence in society.  This may be a short-term phenomenon or an indication of a more lasting pattern.  Demographics in a broad sense could predict an uptick in religiosity if the same historical patterns continue to hold.  Large numbers of baby boomers and millennials are entering the age ranges in which religiosity has traditionally been higher.  But these patterns may change, and it will take years of data collection to determine if formal religiosity will continue to decrease or level off.

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The Spiritual John Glenn

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Alan B. Shepard, American flag, capabilities, Christian Science, Christianity, Church of Christ, conquest of space, cosmonauts, David, Donald K. Slayton, flying jock, God, Goliath, greater power, Islam, Israelites, John H. Glenn, Leroy G. Cooper, Lutherans, Malcolm S. Carpenter, media, Mercury astronauts, NASA, Nietzsche, Old Testament, opportunities, Philistines, piety, Presbyterians, press, religiosity, religious affiliations, role models, space race, Sunday school, talents, The Kingdom Of Speech, The Right Stuff, Tom Wolfe, U.S. space program, Virgil I. Grissom, Wall Street Journal, Walter M. Schirra, World War I

Wall Street Journal

http://www.wsj.com/articles/tom-wolfe-the-faith-of-john-glenn-1481325139

• Life
• Ideas
• Essay

Tom Wolfe:  The Faith of John Glenn

The first American to orbit the Earth brought his religiosity to the U.S. space program—and that made many astronauts bristle

NASA introduces its original seven Mercury astronauts at a news conference, Washington, D.C., April 9, 1959.  Marine Lt. Col. John Glenn is fifth from the left.  Photo:  Bettmann Archive/Getty Images

By

Tom Wolfe

Updated Dec. 9, 2016 6:10 p.m. ET

Ready or not, it took how long—20 minutes, maybe?— on Day One, April 9, 1959, for John Glenn to become the role model for every American astronaut of the 20th century.  The problem was, most of them hated the role.

The scene is a press conference convened in the new NASA headquarters in Washington to introduce the first seven astronauts chosen for the U.S. space program.  A mass of reporters and photographers are writhing like weevils among one another to get better angles on the seven men at a table onstage—including, in the middle, Glenn, who died Thursday in Columbus, Ohio, at the age of 95.

[For video, see: http://www.wsj.com/articles/tom-wolfe-the-faith-of-john-glenn-1481325139 ]

The head of NASA gets up and says, “It is my pleasure to introduce to you—and I consider it a very real honor, gentlemen—from your right, Malcolm S. Carpenter, Leroy G. Cooper, John H. Glenn, Virgil I. Grissom, Walter M. Schirra, Alan B. Shepard, Donald K. Slayton…the nation’s Mercury astronauts!”

With that, the press rise to their feet like a single ecstatic animal.  They cheer, scream, clap, shout and weep sublime tears…The press…the press…would they ever stop?

That was the first indication that even the media was succumbing to the single-combat mania that seemed to have died out many centuries ago.  In single combat, two armies confront each other in the battlefield.  But before the all-out battle, each sends out a champion…and the two fight to the death to find out whose side the gods are on.  The most famous tale of single combat is the Old Testament story of David and Goliath.  Little David, the Israelite, slays Goliath, the giant Philistine with a slingshot, and cuts his head off.  The Philistines are so demoralized that they flee, and the Israelites decimate them.

At the time, no one realized that the space race was single combat revived in a slightly, but only slightly, new form.  The American astronauts and the Russian cosmonauts vied with one another for the conquest of space, as it was thought to be.  There was no earthly reason why the conquest of space, so-called, would have any direct effect upon the conquest of Earth, but there was no one old enough to remember that single combat was never constrained by logic.

Once the giddy noise dies down, the first reporter to raise his hand wants to know from each of the seven whether or not his wife and children “had anything to say about this.”  The boys begin answering in typical military-officer fashion.  The idea is to answer personal questions as remotely and briefly and in as moribund a deadpan as possible.  That they proceed to do…until it’s John Glenn’s turn.

The others can’t believe it.  The man’s ready with a discourse on the subject, complete with sincerity-steeped rhetorical inflections.

“I don’t think any of us could really go on with something like this if we didn’t have pretty good backing at home, really,” Glenn says.  “My wife’s attitude toward this has been the same as it has been all along through all my flying.  If it is what I want to do, she is behind it, and the kids are too, a hundred percent.”

What the hell is he talking about?  I don’t think any of us could really go on with something like this… Schirra leans into his mike and says, “My wife has agreed that professional opinions are mine, career is mine.”  What possible difference could a wife’s attitude make about an opportunity this big?  What was with this guy?

It keeps on in that fashion.  Some reporter gets up and asks them all about their religious affiliations (religious affiliations?)—and Glenn tees off again.

“I am a Presbyterian,” he says, “a Protestant Presbyterian, and I take my religion very seriously, as a matter of fact.”  He starts telling them about all the Sunday schools he has taught at and the church boards he has served on and all the church work that he and his wife and his children have done.  “I was brought up believing that you are placed on Earth here more or less with sort of a 50-50 proposition, and this is what I still believe.  We are placed here with certain talents and capabilities.  It is up to each of us to use those talents and capabilities as best you can.  If you do that, I think there is a power greater than any of us that will place the opportunities in our way, and if we use our talents properly, we will be living the kind of life we should live.”

A power greater than any of us!  From the lips of a flying jock!  The others do their best to locate some piety and stay in the game.  Gus Grissom says, “I consider myself religious.  I am a Protestant and belong to the Church of Christ.  I am not real active in church, as Mr. Glenn is”—Mister Glenn—“but I consider myself a good Christian still.”  Deke Slayton says, “As far as my religious faith is concerned, I am a Lutheran, and I go to church periodically.”  Alan Shepard says, “I am not a member of any church.  I attend the Christian Science Church regularly.”  He doesn’t feel compelled to mention that when he went to church, it was because his wife was an ardent member.  It was hard slogging, but Glenn had given them no choice.  The wise thing was to imply somehow that you had piety to burn.

Glenn never gave up.  He kept the pressure on.  In his speech to Congress after the historic flight that made him the first American to orbit the Earth, he said some things that nobody else in the world could have gotten away with, even in 1962.  He said, “I still get a lump in my throat when I see the American flag passing by.”

Yet for all of this, I never see mention of Glenn’s importance in the religious history of the United States.  In the late 19th century, Nietzsche uttered his famous dictum “God is dead,” referring to the decline of Christianity among educated, well-to-do people in Europe, and the death throes had spread to America after World War I.  Here, religion limped osteoporotically through the rest of the century, but America remains the most religious country outside of the nations of Islam.  Glenn’s religiosity, amplified by the tremendous, Zeus-like success of the space program—which became his voice—may have slowed down the grim slide.  Where it will all come out, of course, God only knows.

—Mr. Wolfe’s books include “The Right Stuff” and, most recently, “The Kingdom of Speech.”