VOA News | Tuesday, April 23, 2023 
Why Americans are Losing Their Religion

A decades-long trend toward secularization, which has come more slowly to America than many other developed countries, appears to be picking up speed in the United States, according to polling and other evidence. In 1965, a Gallup poll found that 70% of respondents said religion is “very important” in their lives. Today, fewer than half of Americans (45%) say religion is “very important.” “Younger generations probably weren’t really brought up in a faith tradition, or maybe if they were, they didn’t go to church that often … so I think that’s a big reason,” Jeff Jones, a senior editor at Gallup, says. One-fourth of Americans (26%) said they were religiously unaffiliated in 2023, which is up from 21% in 2013, according to the Public Religion Research Institute. The same study suggests that these religiously unaffiliated folks are not looking to get more religion. Only 9% say they are interested in finding a new religious or spiritual home. The decline in church attendance points to a major change in American civic life and engagement, according to political scientist David Campbell, who says Americans pulled away from other types of groups in the past but were still affiliated with organized religion. “Americans are less likely to be spending time with one another in the kinds of groups and the kinds of organizations where they learn to cooperate with one another — they get things done, they come together to mobilize on an issue,” Campbell says…Read more