By Jon Davis
As we head into Easter and Passover this week, a new Gallup survey shows New Yorkers aren’t attending religious services like they used to. In fact, for the first time in Gallup’s 80-year history, the number of Americans going to church dropped below 50 percent.
When Gallup first began their surveys on church membership back in 1937, more than 73 percent of the country said they belong to a church, synagogue or mosque. Today, only 47 percent say they attend a religious service.
In Bed Stuy – and other parts of Brooklyn – it seems like there is a religious center on every other corner. Now, we might have a better idea of who is making the effort to make it good with God.
Who is Going to Church?
It turns out age is the biggest predictor of who goes to church, according to the survey. Church membership is strongly correlated with age. They older you are, the more likely you will go to a weekly religious service.
Roughly 66 percent of Americans born before 1946 say they belong to a church. 58 percent of baby boomers, 50 percent of Generation X and 36 percent of Millennials say they go to service. Generation Z wasn’t included in the sample pool since Gallup said they had limited data on this age group born after 1997.
The survey also found Americans are less likely to identify with any religion. Over the past 20 years, Americans who say they don’t identify with any religion has increased from 8 percent to 21 percent over the last 20 years.
You might have thought the pandemic would have changed our views on religion. I mean, if you’re close to dying or seeing friends around you in the hospital, you would think it would alter your views on God. Or does it? Here’s a journal from a New Yorker on how his views changed after going to his uncle’s funeral.
