Regular religious attendance falls to 30%
One of America’s old community anchors keeps weakening, leaving more people to build belonging on their own.
Old anchors used to give people a calendar, a community, a moral language and a place to belong. Fewer Americans now get that from weekly religious life.
Regular religious attendance fell from 42% of U.S. adults two decades ago to 30% in 2021-2023.
- more people claim no religious affiliation
- younger adults are less tied to inherited institutions
- community is moving from place-based to choice-based
- trust in institutions is weaker
If you detach from old institutions, you still need replacement anchors: people, rituals, standards, service, and places where you are expected to show up.
Behind the numbersOpen
Gallup defines regular attendance as attending religious services every week or nearly every week. Gallup compared aggregated survey periods: 2000-2003, 2011-2013, and 2021-2023. The decline is partly driven by the rise in Americans with no religious affiliation, from 9% in 2000-2003 to 21% in 2021-2023. This does not mean every religious group is declining equally; Gallup notes Muslim and Jewish Americans showed increases in regular attendance over the same broad period.