Latest Gallup Poll Shows Startling Decline of Religion in America

The latest results of a new Gallup poll released last Friday show a startling decline in the number of Americans who believe in God, the effectiveness of prayer, and numbers who attend church. See what’s declining the most.

Gallup poll: Religious belief in US continues to decline

Gallup released the results of its latest poll on June 17, 2022, which found that religious belief continues to decline at a startling, rapid pace in the United States, with a drop of 11 percent in the last decade.

Although the majority of Americans still believe in God, fewer do, fewer attend church, and a shocking majority have no faith in prayer.

USA: Who still believes in God?

Only 81% of Americans say they believe in God in the latest Gallup poll. That figure was 92% in 2011, which was a new low at the time.

In the 2022 Gallup poll, 17% of Americans said they don’t believe in God, while 1% had “no opinion.”

But other surveys show a more startling decline, with numbers far lower.

A Pew Research Center survey from December 2021, found that self-identified Christians only made up 63% of the US population, down 75% from a decade earlier.

The Pew Research study found that 29% of Americans had no religious affiliation, describing themselves as atheists, agnostics, or “nothing in particular.”

The Gallup poll showed that the main groups who are least likely to believe in God are Democrats (72%), young adults (68%), and liberals (62%).

Conversely, political conservatives (94%) and Republicans (92%) say they believe in God, with Gallup declaring these numbers reflect why religiosity is a major determining factor in the political divisions within the U.S.

Declining church attendance

In a 2021 Gallup survey, only 47% of Americans said they were members of a church, with the pollsters noting that this is the first time ever that this number has dropped below 50 percent.

A January 2021 survey by the Pew Research Center found only 43% of Americans say they attend church monthly or more, 31% attend at least once a week, 13% attend once or twice a month, and 55% a few times a year or less, and 18% never.

Loss of faith in prayer

The Gallup survey also posed a series of different questions concerning the efficacy of prayer.

Four in ten Americans believed “God can hear prayers and intervene.” This means the majority do not believe in the effectiveness of prayer.

However, 28% of Americans said, “God can hear prayers but cannot intervene.”

Eleven percent of Americans believe “God does not hear prayers and does not intervene.”