EDITORIAL: Numbers point to individual beliefs

America is growing more secular, but don’t start writing a eulogy for the church.

A new report produced by the National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago compares at least 17 studies that have examined religious trends in the United States during the past 40 years. The 346-page report acknowledges the national tilt toward secularism but notes the overall shifts in Americans’ attitudes and feelings toward religion are “quite varied.”

The surveys show declines in four religious factors over the past four decades:

Editor Marv Kox

• Identification with a religion. Citing “none” as a person’s religious preference was stable from 1972 to 1991, ranging from 5 percent to 7 percent of the population. But the “nones” more than doubled—to 16 percent—by 2006.

• Attendance at religious services. Around 36 percent to 37 percent of Americans claimed to attend church about weekly in the early 1970s. The size of that group dropped to as low as 30 percent by 2006. Meanwhile, survey respondents who said they never go to church climbed from 9 percent in 1972 to 22.5 percent in 2006.

• Religious attachment. People who said they were “strong” members of their faith included 40 percent of respondents in 1974-75, peaked at 45 percent in 1984 and declined to as low as 35 percent to 36 percent in both 2000 and 2006.

• Belief in God. The report notes the “basic level of belief in God is high” but points to a “moderate, but clear” decline over 50 years. Belief in God registered 95 percent of respondents in the 1940s, 99 percent in the ’50s, 97.5 percent in the ’60s, 96 percent in the ’80s, 95 percent to 93 percent in the ’90s, and 92 percent in this decade.

But the surveys show a couple of faith-based increases:

• Belief in an afterlife. The proportion of Americans who believed in life after death grew from 69.3 percent in 1973 to 73.0 percent in 2006, with the increases occurring by the end of the mid-’80s.

• Frequency of prayer. The practice of daily prayer fell from 54 percent of Americans in 1983 to 52 percent in 1989-90, but rose to 59 percent in 2004-06.

The surveys also turned up three other positive factors about Americans’ beliefs:

• Centrality of God. In both 1999 and 2005, polls showed about 75 percent of respondents said “having faith in God” was “very important” to them, contrasted with about 8 percent to 9 percent who said faith is “not very important” or “not important at all.”

• Contact with God. Americans’ sense of God’s presence on most days rose from 57 percent in 1998 to 62 percent in 2004.

• God’s closeness. In 1981, 80 percent of Americans said they felt extremely or somewhat close to God. By 2004, 17 percent said they were “as close as possible” to God, 36 percent were very close and 89.5 percent were at least somewhat close.

The National Opinion Research Center report calls the changes in Americans’ faith patterns “complex and nuanced.” It also notes the research results question belief in the “inevitability of secularization.” And it observes Americans have shifted toward a perspective in which they describe themselves as “spiritual, but not religious.”

The numbers can help us on a couple of levels.

First, they reveal trends. We can do a better job of developing and implementing our evangelistic and mission strategies when we study our culture.

But second, they reveal people. Beyond the statistics, they remind us our fellow Americans individually determine their religious beliefs. The true study of culture is the study of our friends and neighbors. And we can guide them to faith when we know them so well we understand them.

Marv Knox is editor of the Baptist Standard. Visit his FaithWorks blog.