We’ve all seen the graphs tracking the decline of U.S. Christianity, with a trendline plunging downward. But a new study from the Pew Research Center, “Decline of Christianity in the U.S. Has Slowed, May Have Leveled Off,” has elicited reactions of encouragement in some church circles.
Released in late February, a Pew report on the center’s latest Religious Landscape Study finds that “for the last five years, between 2019 and 2024, the Christian share of the adult population has been relatively stable, hovering between 60% and 64%. The 62% figure in the new Religious Landscape Study is smack in the middle of that recent range.”
Christian Scharen, an associate professor and the Gordon Braatz Chair of Worship at the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago thinks the study’s title may inspire false hope—as well as obscure some good news.
“There’s pretty substantial evidence that the decline will likely continue to occur, across every religious body, all racial and ethnic groups, across all levels of American Christianity,” Scharen said.
However, he said, “from a theological perspective, the Spirit is up to something.”
This is the third Religious Landscape Study. The first, released in 2007, reported that 78% of adults in the U.S. identify as Christian, whereas the second, released in 2014, indicated a drop to 71%. Each study draws on data gathered from more than 35,000 randomly sampled respondents, and the center conducts smaller surveys in non-RLS years.
The most recent study indicates that:
- 40% of Christians are Protestant, 19% are Catholic and 3% identify with all other Christian groups.
- 5% of U.S. adults are atheist, 6% are agnostic and 7% belong to religions other than Christianity.
- 44% of U.S. adults pray at least once a day.
- 86% believe people have a soul or spirit.
- 83% believe in God or a universal spirit.
- 70% believe in heaven, hell or both.
Scharen finds opportunities for ELCA communities in the data. “There’s a lot of spiritual dynamism out there,” he said. “I just wonder how traditional churches are positioning themselves to connect with that spirituality, with the different ways people experience the Holy Spirit—like experiences of awe and practices people associate with spirituality, which very likely may not be in the context of what we typically think of as religious.”
Seeking a place to belong
Adam DeHoek, senior director of ELCA Research and Evaluation, was struck by data regarding the “stickiness” of religious upbringing. Compared with older adults, fewer young adults raised in a “highly religious” environment still identify as highly religious. At the same time, fewer people who grew up without religion are exploring it later in life.
DeHoek said that ELCA data regarding congregation size and people’s association with the ELCA do not synchronize with Pew’s generalized findings about the decline of organized religion. “There’s an ongoing 3% annual drop in baptized membership,” he said, “and a 2% decline in active participation at the congregation level,” following a 9% decline during the peak years of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Between 2012 and 2019, ELCA worship attendance fell between 3% and 4% every year. The rate of decline grew to 54% during the pandemic but has decreased since then, though post-pandemic data is still being gathered.
A sobering but potentially edifying statistic from the Pew report concerns arrivals and departures: for every convert to Christianity, there are six former Christians.
“By far, the largest switching movement shown in the study was from participating in a traditional religion to not participating,” said Scharen. Scholar Elizabeth Drescher, he notes, has identified three reasons why people quit church: they’re bored, they’ve been hurt or they’re disconnected from the faith intellectually.
“Are we surprised they left? We shouldn’t be.”
“Theologically, we need to look at it from a perspective of confession,” Scharen said. “We’ve bored people, we’ve hurt people, we’ve forced them to believe certain things. Are we surprised they left? We shouldn’t be.”
Both Scharen and DeHoek see hope, however, in alternatives to traditional worship such as the ELCA’s synod-authorized worshiping communities and similar groups in which the participants focus less on doctrine and more on, as DeHoek puts it, “Let’s go play volleyball and talk about Jesus, or let’s share a meal and talk about what’s going on in your life.”
“Many people are looking for a place to belong, to gather, to act on their concern for creation, and there are religious reasons for doing those things, but they’re not defined by traditional belief categories,” said Scharen. “Doctrinal strictness makes some churches grow in certain contexts, but for people who experienced reasons to leave the church, strictness is not going to bring them back.”
Thus an optimal structure for ELCA congregations might be what Scharen describes as a strong center and porous boundaries.
“Maybe [people new to a congregation] join in an activity that’s meaningful to them, an environmental project or a meal or a book study,” he said.
“If boundaries are porous, people can come in through things they’re drawn to, and then later, they can learn that the reason this institution is here, the reason this tradition exists, is our convictions about grace and reforming.”
