(OPINION) Only half of Americans now say they are sure God exists. That finding, from the closely watched General Social Survey, stands out among several nuggets of new data about religion in America.
Not quite 50 percent of Americans say they have no doubt about the existence of God, according to the 2022 survey, released Wednesday by NORC, the University of Chicago research organization. As recently as 2008, the share of sure-believers topped 60 percent.
Thirty-four percent of Americans never go to church, NORC found, the highest figure recorded in five decades of surveys. Another new report, from the Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI), said that 27 percent of Americans claimed no religion in 2022, up from 19 percent in 2012 and 16 percent in 2006.
The PRRI report tracks a historic decline in the nation’s Christian population, especially among white people. The share of Americans who identify as white evangelical Protestants has dwindled from 23 percent to 14 percent since 2006. The share of mainline white Protestants has fallen from 18 percent to 14 percent. White Catholics have declined from 16 percent of the population to 13 percent.
The report indicated that Religion is less important for Americans today than it was a decade ago. Today, 16% of Americans say that religion is the most important thing in their life, 36% say religion is one among many important things, 18% say religion is not as important as other things, and 29% say religion is not important to them.
In 2013, Americans were more likely to say that religion was either the most important thing in their life (20%) or one among many important things (43%), while 15% said that religion was not as important as other things and 19% said religion was not important.
In the 2022 survey, white evangelical Protestants (42%), Black Protestants (38%), and other Christians (37%) are groups the most likely to say that religion is the most important thing in their lives, compared with 28% of Hispanic Protestants, 27% of Latter-day Saints, and 22% of other Protestants of color.
Lower proportions of Hispanic Catholics (14%), Jewish Americans (13%), other non-Christians (11%), white Catholics (9%), white mainline/non-evangelical Protestants (6%), and religiously unaffiliated Americans (2%) say religion is the most important thing in their lives. Catholics in particular have seen a significant shift in the number who say religion is not important in their lives.
White Catholics (16%) are twice as likely in 2022 as they were in 2013 to say religion is not important (16% vs. 7%), and this gap is larger among Hispanic Catholics (13% vs. 2%). Not surprisingly, 78% of religiously unaffiliated Americans say that religion is not important in their lives, up from 73% in 2013.
