Religion Surveys in the News

Two reputable polls related to religion in the United States have been released in the past week, one by Gallup and one by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life. Perhaps you heard mention of them, either on the evening news or elsewhere. For example, here's a little coverage in The Gray Lady by the Times current religion reporter Neela Banerjee.

The Gallup poll is an annual survey measuring American confidence in various institutions. Per usual, Congress enjoys the least confidence among the main institutions -- only 12% of respondents expressed "a great deal" or "quite a lot" of confidence. And the military enjoys the most confidence -- 71% of responses are significantly confident.

Of interest to me was the confidence in "The Church or organized religion": 26% expressed "a great deal" of confidence and 22% expressed "quite a lot" of confidence in organized religion. According to Gallup's reporting (see their release here) confidence in religion has dropped by roughly 25% in 25 years. Also -- and this is more significant -- the church is no longer anywhere close to being the top rated institution in the poll, as it was from 1973 to 1985. It places fourth this year, behind the military, small business, and the police.

Certainly, there have been some significant challenges to our confidence in organized religion in the past quarter century -- prominent religious figures have been embroiled in criminal and ethical scandals; sexual abuse has been a prominent issue in the Roman Catholic Church; some religious leaders are frequently seen or heard on the media saying offensive things. When these things happen -- either on a large or a small scale -- all Christians pay a price. Our community is seen more cynically, especially by outsiders, who anticipate that we may make terrible headlines in the newspaper one day.

This is the challenge for all congregations and for the church as a whole. 48% of Americans have significant confidence in organized religion; 52% do not have confidence. Put bluntly, more than half of Americans have doubts about us -- yes, even about our specific congregation. They don't know whether they can trust us or not. They don't know if they can trust the pastor or not. They don't know if they can trust the members or not. This is a hard reality for every religious congregation in the United States. To be sure, many of these doubters only have vague doubts about churches, or doubts about specific religious groups. But the survey also reveals that roughly 20% of respondents had strong mistrust of organized religion -- 1 of every 5 people.

The Gallup numbers are probably pretty simple, though, especially when viewed in conjunction with the other survey released this week, part two of the Pew Forum's extensive U.S. Religious Landscape Survey. This survey, at least the two parts released thus far (with one more to come later this year, I believe), demonstrates the common personal religious belief and practice in the United States. While people distrust the organized church, they still overwhelmingly believe in God.

The most surprising result in the survey (at least the one that has grabbed most of the attention, and the one I'm going to comment on given that I haven't had the time to pore over this report) is that Americans are surprisingly open-minded toward various different religious beliefs. At the very least, most Americans (70%) believe that many different religions (or denominations) can lead to eternal life, and 68% believe that "there is more than one true way to interpret the teachings of my religion." In fact, the percentages on these issues are pretty surprising across denominational/religious groupings. With the exception of Jehovah's Witnesses, who have a low percentage of agreement with those statements, and Mormons (around 40% agree on those issues), strong majorities of other groups demonstrate this religious tolerance/open-mindedness.

To see the Pew report for yourself, click here (or to go to a page with several graphic resources about the report, click here).

The significance of polls such as these for the church is important. If we are truly called to represent our faith, these polls remind us to ask ourselves what we actually think about our faith practices and beliefs -- and to be honest with ourselves about our answers, including our doubts, our frustrations and disappointments, and our questions. More than this, though, it reminds us that our neighborhoods are changing before our eyes -- if we don't pay attention to what we might learn from these surveys (such as the high level of distrust in organized churches), we aren't going to understand the spiritual needs and questions of our neighbors. And Jesus calls us to try to understand those needs and questions and to reach out to others in his name.