Poll: Under 50% of Americans belong to a church

For the first time in eight decades, fewer than 50% of Americans say they belong to a church, synagogue or mosque amid an ongoing steep decline in religious attendance, according to a new biannual Gallup poll.

Gallup first began polling Americans on church membership in 1937. In the six decades that followed, between 68% and 76% of Americans said they belonged to a place of worship. Then, at the turn of the century, a persistent decline in religious membership began — and has continued for 20 years.

More than 6,000 Americans were polled in the latest Gallup poll, and 47% now say they are a member of a church, synagogue or mosque. It’s the first time the percentage dipped below 50% since Gallup was founded in 1935.

About 70% of Americans identify as Christian, the Pew Research Center found. About 2% of Americans identify as Jewish and nearly 1% are Muslim. Those represent the largest religious groups in the United States.

The decline in membership coincides with an increase in the number of Americans who do not identify with a particular religion, according to Gallup.

In the past three years, about 21% of Americans say they do not have a religious preference. This is a sharp increase from the 8% mark from 1998 to 2000.

There is also a decline in church membership among U.S. adults who are religious. From 1998 to 2000, about 73% of Americans who have a religious preference went to church, but that number has dropped to 60%, according to Gallup.

“Church attendance is the first thing that goes, then belonging and finally belief — in that order. Belief goes last,” Ryan Burge, a political scientist at Eastern Illinois University and a Baptist minister, told Religion News.

A 2019 Pew Research poll supports Gallup’s new findings. Pew found that 65% of adults in the country described themselves as Christian — down 12 percentage points from a decade prior.