United States
RNS
In the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, religious leaders worried that lockdowns and the move to online services would accelerate already declining church attendance and usher in what some called a “religion recession“.
A new study from Pew Research suggests that’s probably overstated.
PICTURE: Gabriella Clare Marino/Unsplash
The study found that the share of US adults who generally say they attend religious services at least once a month dropped from 33 per cent in 2019, before the COVID-19 outbreak, to 30 per cent in 2022.
That may be more consistent with a longer-term trend of gradual religious decline than a dramatic change in people’s churchgoing habits.
Or, the researchers speculated, it may also be due to a short-term impact of the pandemic on Black Protestants, who saw the biggest decline in attendance of all religious groups surveyed. The share of Black Protestants who say they generally attend religious services at least once a month was 15 points lower between 2022 and 2019 (46 per cent vs 61 per cent then).
The study’s last survey, in November, surveyed 11,377 US adults. Its margin of error was plus or minus 1.5 percentage points.
Beginning in July, 2020, Pew began asking US adults whether they attended religious services in person in the prior month and, separately, whether they took part in services virtually.
In five surveys taken between July, 2020, and November, 2022, attendance remained consistent: 41 per cent of US adults said they participated in religious services in person or online in July, 2020, and 40 per cent said they participated in services in person or online in November, 2022, when the last survey was taken. (As the pandemic ran its course, the percentage of Americans participating virtually dropped and in-person attendance rebounded and then appears to have plateaued.)
Over the course of 2022, about 28 per cent of Americans said they participated in religious services in person.
But the definitive answer as to the effect of the pandemic on religious service attendance may not yet be known.
Another national study of 20 denominational groups now being conducted by the Hartford Institute for Religion Research looks at the question differently. It asks congregational leaders about attendance rather than individuals.
So far, that study, called Exploring the Pandemic Impact on Congregations, or EPIC, has found that congregational attendance (both in person and virtual) is down 12 per cent from 2019.
One reason for the difference in methodology? Researchers have long known that people tend to inflate reports of their religious attendance. In a 2014 study – humourously titled “I Know What You Did Last Sunday” – the Public Religion Research Institute found that “every subgroup of Americans inflates their levels of religious participation”.
“We ask pastors and church leaders what it looks like for them. What’s the reality when they look out at the church pews?” said Scott Thumma, the principal investigator. “That’s not always the same picture.”
