Gallup Study: Under Half of American Adults Value Religion in Daily Life

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Less than half of Americans consider religion an important part of their daily life, according to a new Gallup poll.

The results, released by Gallup last Thursday, found that (49%) of American adults now consider religion important in their daily lives, a 17-point drop from 66% in 2015. The decline is one of the largest declines seen by Gallup since 2007, as reported by The Christian Post.

Nevertheless, the U.S. remains more religious than countries, including the UK and Germany, with religiosity levels comparable to countries like Argentina and Poland.

According to Gallup, America is described as having a “medium-high” Christian identity but “middling” religiosity.

There is a similarity between the proportion of Americans professing to be Christians and the United Kingdom, Germany, Finland, and Denmark, which have strong Protestant traditions. However, the role religion plays for Americans exceeds how it is in those countries and is more similar to countries like Argentina, Ireland, Poland, and Italy, where Catholicism is more prominent.

Since 2007, Gallup has surveyed more than 160 countries, and only 14 of them have seen a decline of more than 15 percentage points in the significance of religion over any decade.

A few nations have also seen greater declines in religiosity, including Greece, which saw a decline of 28 points from 2013 to 2023; Italy, which dropped by 23% from 2012 to 2022; and Poland, which experienced a 22% decrease in religiosity. Chile, Turkey, and Portugal likewise experienced declines in religiosity comparable to that of the U.S.

A 2021 Gallup analysis revealed that for the first time in nearly 80 years, less than half reported having a formal membership in a specific house of worship, even though the U.S. remains a highly religious country, with seven out of ten individuals claiming affiliation with some form of organized religion.

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Milton Quintanilla is a freelance writer and content creator. He is a contributing writer for CrosswalkHeadlines and the host of the For Your Soul Podcast, a podcast devoted to sound doctrine and biblical truth. He holds a Masters of Divinity from Alliance Theological Seminary.