She notes that despite "steep declines in attendance at churches, synagogues, and mosques – trends that have captured far more headlines in recent years than the nation’s enduring faith," America remains a very religious nation.
Before proceeding I want to quibble a bit with terminology. Crabtree seems to conflate being "religious" with belief in God or some deity, but in fact, my sense is that even though a significant number of people claim to believe in God and even identify with some religion, I suspect that many of these folks are functionally secular.
The survey's statistics appear to support this suspician since only 30% of those surveyed who consider themselves members of a religion regularly attend worship services once a week or more. Another 12% reported attending once a month, 19% said they go a few times a year, and 11% said they show up once a year. Twenty-nine percent reported never attending formal worship services.
Their belief, I would guess, has little impact on how they live.
But setting that aside, she also notes that the survey shows that America is still a majority Christian nation, though other religious groups and affiliations and those identifying as non-believers are growing.
Here are some other interesting excerpts from her summary:
Respondents were asked a series of questions about their beliefs in religious, spiritual, and mystical entities: God, the devil, miracles, heaven, hell, reincarnation, ghosts, witches, and aliens.There's much more in her column. One rather surprising statistics that she cites is that, an overwhelming majority of all Americans – 94% – said they believe religious freedom is a fundamental human right. That figure is 10 points higher than those who view healthcare as a basic human right.
Of the topics listed, respondents were most likely to believe in God, with 85% reporting they believe in a creator, compared to just 15% who don’t believe. The exact amount – 85% – also reported a belief in heaven, with just slightly less – 83% – believing in miracles. Of those surveyed, 80% also reported that they believe “Jesus is God or the son of God.”
A smaller majority of those surveyed – 72% – say they believe in hell, while 70% report belief in the devil. “Self-reported belief in God is highest in the South, at 89%, followed by the Midwest (85%), Northeast (83%), and West (81%),” said Spencer Kimball, who directed the survey.
A solid majority of Americans surveyed – 58.3% – identified as Christian, with 36.3% saying they consider themselves Protestant and 22% identifying as Catholic. Americans who said they belong to other religions or were non-believers were all in the low single digits: 3.2% said they are Muslim; 2.9% consider themselves Mormon; 1.9% identified as Jewish; Buddhists made up 1.6%; and Hindus accounted for just 0.5%. Meanwhile, 3.8% reported they are atheist and 3.7% identified as agnostic.
Anyway, although the numbers are encouraging to those of us who believe religion is a crucial aspect of a healthy society, stating a belief in the basic tenets of Christianity is not, unfortunately, the same as living by them. Hopefully, the apparent gap between the two will close in the years ahead and American society and culture will recover some of the moral vitality it seems to have frittered away over the last century or so.
