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Growing Share of Americans Don’t Attend Church, Believe God Had No Part in Human Origins: Gallup

Jul 24, 2024Jerry CoxChristianityChristianity, Church, Church Statistics

A growing share of Americans believe God had no role in the origins of human beings, according to Gallup. A separate poll released this year found weekly church attendance is declining in America. Together, the findings underscore how Americans’ religious beliefs have shifted over the years.

In a report released Monday, pollsters at Gallup found the percentage of Americans who agree with the statement, “Human beings have developed over millions of years from less advanced forms of life, but God had no part in this process,” has risen from 9% in 1999 to 24% this year.

Despite this increase, most Americans surveyed still said they believe God either created human beings in their present form or that God guided the evolutionary process.

The rise in support for atheistic evolution in America tracks with decline we have witnessed in church membership and attendance.

A 2013 Gallup Poll found most Americans believe religion is losing influence in America — but a majority of Americans also believe the nation would be better off if Americans were more religious. Another Gallup survey published that year found weekly church attendance in America had decreased to levels roughly on par with where it was in the 1940s.

In 2017, Pew Research Center found a growing share of Americans identify as “spiritual but not religious.”

And earlier this year, Gallup reported that weekly church attendance has declined in America since 2000.

Along the way, pundits and pollsters have also noticed growing interest in the occult — especially among young people.

It’s worth pointing out that a large number of people still attend church, and most Americans still profess to be Christians, but the changes our country is seeing are still significant.

We have written before how — contrary to popular belief — the so-called “culture wars” are not prompting people to stop going to church. Churches have opposed abortion and infanticide for the better part of the past 2,000 years, and Christians have affirmed that marriage ought to be the union of one man to one woman since the first century. Believers have addressed these topics and others publicly for the past two millennia.

Unfortunately, declining church attendance and shifting religious views could be a symptom of people simply seeing church gatherings — and faith in general — as inconvenient, unnecessary, and irrelevant. In fact, many believers think they can follow Christ without the church. But being part of a local group of believers isn’t optional. It’s an important part of discipleship. Christians help each other grow in the faith.

Articles appearing on this website are written with the aid of Family Council’s researchers and writers.

Young Men Now Outnumber Women in Church

Aug 29, 2022Jerry CoxFaithChristianity, Church, Church Statistics, Faith, Religion

In September of 1989, Rev. Billy Graham preached to tens of thousands of people gathered at War Memorial Stadium in Little Rock over the course of several nights.

In one of his sermons — which you can listen to hear — Rev. Graham shared these words:

Christ did more to liberate women than any other person who ever lived. Women in many cultures today are exploited … It was Jesus Christ who treated women with honor and courtesy in a nation in which they were despised.

Theologians have noted over the centuries that the gospels list several different women as some Christ’s prominent followers during his earthly ministry and in the New Testament Church.

For many years church in attendance in America has been higher among women than among men. Today, however, young women seem to be leaving the church.

Christianity Today reports that women born after 1990 — women in their 20s and early 30s today — are no more likely to attend church than men their age, and women born after 2000 are actually less likely to attend church than men.

Among Americans age 18-25, 49% of women identify as non-religious, compared to just 46% of men.

John Stonestreet at the Colson Center recently addressed this trend, writing,

Battered by church controversies and scandals, and shaped by cultural messages, women are increasingly heading for the exit. In doing so, they are rejecting a faith that, in the words of my colleague Glenn Sunshine, has done “more to improve the status of women than any other historical force.” The Church is meant to enable and empower men and women to live as image bearers, according to God’s design. 

In this day and age, there are even many believers who think they can follow Christ without the church.

But being part of a local group of believers is an important part of discipleship. Christians help each other grow in the faith.

Put simply, men and women both need the church.

Articles appearing on this website are written with the aid of Family Council’s researchers and writers.

Intentionally Empty Churches?

Jan 31, 2022John StonestreetChristianityChristianity, Church, COVID-19

*John Stonestreet, Radio Host and Director of the Colson Center for Christian Worldview*

Many churches have shut their doors in the face of Covid, but one large church in Denver hasn’t just shut their doors; they’ve sold them. According to Christianity Today, “The Potter’s House Denver will sell its property in Arapahoe County and continue to worship exclusively online.”

We often hear that because the Church isn’t a building, it doesn’t matter whether it meets in one. But trading in-person worship for an online experience misses what the Church actually is. It isn’t just a place for individual contemplation on “spiritual things.” That’s not the Christianity of the Bible but the pietism of Gnosticism. Embodied worship is an essential part of a Christian worldview.

If our faith is the sort of thing we can live out alone, never needing the presence of others, then are we truly still the Church? The Church is the ecclesia, the called ones, the gathered ones, the community of the saints of God. If we aren’t a “we,” we are not the Church.