A growing number of Americans believe religion is on its way back, a new study from Pew Research Centre suggests. Source: NCR Online.
The report, published yesterday, found that about a third of Americans (31 per cent) said religion is gaining influence in the country – up from 18 per cent a year ago.
“While this remains a minority view, it is increasingly held by adults across several demographic groups – with gains of at least 10 percentage points among Democrats and Republicans, adults in every age category and in most large religious groups,” the report described.
Jewish Americans (44 per cent) were most likely to say religion’s influence is on the rise, followed by white evangelicals (36 per cent) and atheists (38 per cent). Black Protestants (26 per cent), Catholics (27 per cent) and those with no particular religion (27 per cent) were less likely to agree.
The idea that the influence of religion is declining in American culture has paralleled the rise of so-called nones, or those who have no religious affiliation. In 2007, 16 per cent of Americans claimed no religion, according to Pew. That number continued to climb until leveling off at about 30 per cent in recent years.
In 2002, 52 per cent of Americans said that religion’s influence was declining. That number reached 80 per cent last year before dropping to 68 per cent this year.
The report, based on data from Pew’s American Trends Panel collected in February and May, also found that a growing number of Americans (59 per cent) said they have a net-positive view of religion’s role in society, up from 49 per cent in 2022. Twenty per cent have a net negative view, while 21 per cent indicated an unclear or neutral view.
Overall, positive views of religion were on the rise.
“The share of Americans expressing positive views of religion in 2024 and 2025 are up significantly from 2022 and 2019, indicating an overall shift toward more positive views about religion’s role in American life over the past five years or so,” researchers wrote.
FULL STORY
Is religion’s power on its way back in the USA? A growing number of Americans say yes (By Bob Smietana, NCR Online)
