September 18, 2025 • 45 mins
A little more than half (52 percent) of Americans say they would allow public school teachers to lead their students in prayers to Jesus in taxpayer-funded public schools. This is according to the latest Religious Landscape Study from the Pew Research Center.
In this episode, that study's author, Chip Rotolo, reveals how Americans have changed in both religious and spiritual beliefs and practices since Pew started researching them in 2007. While it may come as no surprise that Americans' adherence to, and participation in, organized religion has declined, Pew's research shows that the newest generation of Americans is showing signs of more openness than preceding ones.
Rotolo unpacks this and more data from the Pew report. What might these trends mean to Church of Christ congregations, their leaders and their members?
Link to the Pew Research Center's Religious Life Survey
Link to Chip Rotolo's site (referenced in the interview)
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
family and friends, neighbors and, most of all,
strangers.
Welcome to the christianchronicle podcast.
We're bringing you the storiesshaping church of christ,
congregations and members aroundthe world.
I'm bt erwin, and what you areabout to hear bless you and
honor god.
What place, if any, should thepractices and teachings of
Christianity have intaxpayer-funded institutions
(00:25):
like public schools?
This has been a debate since,well, at least when I wrote a
thesis paper about it back in myhigh school advanced
composition class.
For Americans in general, thequestion turns on the meaning of
the First Amendment of the USConstitution, which states that,
quote Congress shall make nolaw respecting an establishment
of religion or prohibiting thefree exercise thereof.
(00:46):
End quote.
So then, if public schools paidfor by religious and
non-religious taxpayers promoteor teach religion of any kind,
does that qualify as an quoteestablishment of religion end
quote.
That infringes on the libertiesof non-religious students and
their families?
That infringes on the libertiesof non-religious students and
(01:07):
their families.
What is more likely to be themotive behind the First
Amendment is the foundingframers' memories of the wars of
religion that devastated Europein the 16th, 17th and early
18th centuries.
Those were wars thatChrist-claimers waged against
Christ-claimers.
You could call them Christiancivil wars in which as many as
18 million people who claimedChrist died at the hands of
other people who claimed Christ.
(01:28):
Those wars were not aboutChristianity versus other
religions, but which form ofChristianity would amass the
most power over all other formsof Christianity.
It was these religious warsthat led our Church of Christ
ancestors to flee Europe, wherethey were often persecuted by
fellow Christ claimers.
They came to the North Americanfrontier, where they could
(01:49):
practice primitive Christianitywithout fear of oppression and
persecution by Christ claimerswho had more economic and
political power than they did.
So perhaps they thanked Godwhen the founding framers of the
US federal government forbidCongress from establishing a
state religion.
That establishment clauseprotected our Church of Christ
ancestors from the federalgovernment establishing what
(02:11):
surely would have been aChristian state religion, one
that could have used state powerto force our ancestors to
comply with the federal form ofChristianity.
Or else Imagine how thingscould have turned out different
for the United States and theChurch of Christ if the founding
framers chose to allow thefederal government to establish
as the state religion a certainform of Christianity other than
(02:35):
what our ancestors practiced.
However, those who claim thatthe United States is a Christian
nation are not all wrong.
Since the beginning, the vastmajority of Americans claim
Christianity as their religionand system of beliefs, and
Christian customs, images andlanguage permeate our civil
institutions because for so longChristianity was just kind of
(02:56):
assumed.
The founding framers didbelieve that Americans must be a
moral people in order for theirexperiment and self-government
to succeed and to be a moralpeople.
Order for their experiment andself-government to succeed and
to be a moral people, theframers believed that we have to
be a religious people, which isthe basis from which many
Christ-claimers in the UnitedStates argue for religion in
public institutions liketaxpayer-funded schools.
(03:19):
And because the majority ofAmericans have always claimed to
be Christians, some among themargue that Christianity should
be the basis for religiousexpression and instruction in
public institutions.
This may be at least part ofthe reasoning behind a recent
surge in Christ-claimingofficials passing laws that put
Christian practices and symbolsback in taxpayer-funded public
(03:42):
schools back in taxpayer-fundedpublic schools.
For example, Louisiana andTexas passed laws this year that
require taxpayer-funded publicschools to post the Ten
Commandments in every classroomand the Church of Christ's own.
Ryan Walters, the statesuperintendent in Oklahoma,
mandated that all public schoolsin his state must incorporate
the Bible in their instructionfrom grades 5 through 12.
(04:03):
Of course, these new laws andmandates are facing serious
challenges in court, withplaintiffs seeking to halt their
implementation on FirstAmendment grounds.
But what do the American peoplethink of all this?
In the end, the law shouldconform to the contours of we,
the people, and our will.
That's the way the UnitedStates of America is supposed to
work, right our will.
(04:25):
That's the way the UnitedStates of America is supposed to
work, right.
So how do Americans feel about,say, Christian practices like
prayer and taxpayer-fundedpublic schools?
The folks at Pew Research Centerwanted to know this.
In fact, they wanted to know alot more.
They recently finished theirthird religious landscape study,
arguably the most far-rangingand thorough research project on
Americans' religious beliefsand lives.
Pew completed its firstreligious landscape study in
(04:47):
2007, followed it up with asecond in 2014, and recently
finished the third in 2024.
Earlier this summer, Pewreleased some interesting
findings on what Americansbelieve about school prayer.
Here today, to explain what Pewfound is Dr Chip Rotolo.
Dr Rotolo is a researchassociate with the Pew Research
Center, where he focuses onreligious identities, beliefs
(05:08):
and practices in the UnitedStates, with a particular focus
on the role of religion inAmerican society.
He is the lead author on theReligious Landscape Study Report
.
Dr Rotolo, thank you for beingour distinguished guest today.
Speaker 2 (05:20):
It's great to be here , thank you.
Speaker 1 (05:22):
All right.
So before we get into this,we're going to use a couple of
terms that some people may thinkof as being interchangeable,
and I feel like if we don'tdefine them right here at the
front of the conversation,people may get confused as we go
along.
So could you explain for us thedifference between religious
and spiritual in the Pew report?
Speaker 2 (05:45):
Absolutely, and I love how you caveated it in the
Pew report, because these termsare notoriously hard to define,
and I'll say that we at Pewreally don't put definitions on
religion or spirituality often,but we certainly ask about
questions commonly associatedwith each category.
Just put you in our position Inour work we're often most
(06:07):
interested in seeing howprevalent both of these things
are in society and how thatmight be changing over time and
what difference it makes onoutcomes like political views.
So we're interested in it alland there's not really a need in
our work to pit the two againsteach other.
But starting with the easierone, when we're analyzing
religion, we spend a great dealof time talking about our core
(06:29):
measures of religion, which arereligious affiliation, belief in
God or a higher power,attendance at religious services
, frequency of prayer andimportance of religion.
These are measures that we'veasked about for a long time and
they are common and traditionalways of engaging with religion
in America.
Of course, we look at manyother religious things, like
(06:51):
saying grace and being part of asmall group or Bible study, but
these measures probably giveyou the strongest sense of what
we mean typically by religion.
Spirituality is a bit morecomplicated.
Spirituality is a bit morecomplicated, but when we study
spirituality, we're tending tolook at things that involve some
perception that there'ssomething beyond just the
(07:11):
natural empirical world.
On the belief front, that canbe belief in souls or spirits,
belief in an afterlife, evenbelief in astrology.
We look at experiences likefeeling the presence of someone
who has passed away, and so youcan probably easily see that
many things could be consideredboth religion and spiritual.
(07:33):
But the big thing is thereligion bucket tends to be more
organized, traditional andcommunal in nature, and
spiritual doesn't necessitateany of those things.
It can be those things, but itcan be unorganized,
non-traditional and personal.
Speaker 1 (07:49):
Okay, great definitions there.
Thank you, now we can proceed.
So my big takeaway from thereligious landscape study is
that Americans are, in general,spiritual people and they seem
to be getting more spiritual, ifI'm reading the report
correctly.
More spiritual we're alsochoosing, it seems more of us
(08:16):
are choosing to get out of whatPew calls religion.
Could you paint us a picture ofyou know, first of all, am I
getting that correctly in myread of the report?
And then, second, could youpaint us a picture of what that
looks like in the real world?
Speaker 2 (08:27):
Sure.
So, first off, it is very clearthat over the past few decades
religion has generally been in astate of decline.
Affiliation has gone down,attendance has gone down, the
share who regularly pray hasgone down.
So here you see some of thosemeasures I mentioned earlier.
Most Americans are stillreligious About 70% claim some
(08:49):
religious identity, but this isdown quite a bit from a few
decades ago.
And it's also the case thatyounger Americans are less
religious on average than olderAmericans.
So as time passes and olderAmericans who are more religious
pass away and younger Americansmake up a greater share of the
population, we would expect tosee more religious decline in
(09:11):
the future, and I think a lot ofpeople see that and sense that,
and that's not a particularlysurprising claim.
We can't actually say thatAmericans are becoming more
spiritual, and the reason isthat most of our questions about
spirituality are newer.
So we don't actually havetrends yet to see that we will
eventually.
(09:32):
And we do ask respondentswhether they think they've
become more or less spiritualover the course of their
lifetime, in which case fourtimes as many Americans say
they've become more spiritual.
But one subjective evaluationof their spirituality can be a
little bit different fromlooking at a population level.
So, for example, about equalshares of Americans say they've
(09:53):
become more or less religiousover their lifetime.
But you know, in all thesereligion measures we see some
pretty sharp signals of decline,and so, but trends aside,
americans in general are stillpretty spiritual people.
When we look at the share ofAmericans who believe in God, a
(10:13):
higher power, an afterlife,souls or spirits or that there's
something spiritual beyond thenatural world, 92% of Americans
have a spiritual outlook.
And so, in the face ofreligious decline, there seems
to at least be a continuedopenness to the spiritual realm.
Part of that might be becausespirituality is broader.
(10:36):
Religion tends to have sometradition, a basis of authority,
some teachings, and when welook at our data on people who
are not religious, these aresome of the top reasons they
offer for not being religiousQuestioning religious teachings,
not liking religiousorganizations, rather than
complete disbelief or lack oftime and interest.
And so, you said, to paint aportrait, I guess I'd say
(10:59):
religion has always been a majorpart of American life and it
continues to be in many ways,but in general, people sense
that religion has lost a lot ofits influence, and while many
still say religion brings peopletogether.
It helps the poor and the needy.
Many also think religion is toorigid, it's too rules-focused
(11:20):
and it's concerned with power,and so for these reasons and
others, some people have leftreligion.
Some have dropped spirituality,but broadly there's still a lot
of belief in something biggerin our society.
Speaker 1 (11:33):
Yeah, and you mentioned something just now
that I was going to ask about alittle while later.
I'm reading Bowling Alone byRobert Putnam right now and
never thought about this before,but he points out that so many
changes in social norms havecome about because older
generations have died off andyounger generations have become
(11:53):
the majority population.
So I think you just said it amoment ago yourself Some of the
changes that we've seen inreligion the decline of
attendance or membership in achurch, for example, over the
last 17 years can be attributedto older generations that were
more you know what we might saybrand loyal to their
denomination.
(12:14):
For example, those generationsdying off and these younger
generations have a differentopinion about religion coming
into the majority.
Is that at least one of themajor drivers behind the change?
Speaker 2 (12:25):
Yes, social scientists who have been
studying this, and we see thisin our data.
One of the big drivers ofreligious decline over the past
few decades is definitely whatwe call generational replacement
.
Each generation or age cohort,or basically the decade you were
born in, is, on average, alittle bit less religious than
the group before it.
(12:46):
But that being said, it's alsothe case that in general we see
in our religious landscapestudies, people do become
slightly less religious over thecourse of their lifetime, and
when we look at these differentage cohorts, young people are
becoming less religious at afaster rate, and so you have
(13:07):
three things happening kind ofsimultaneously.
Speaker 1 (13:10):
But the generational replacement is definitely a big
part of the story, kind ofsimultaneously, but the
generational replacement isdefinitely a big part of the
story.
Yeah, so before I get too faralong, I want to ask you did
religious landscape studies in07, I believe, 14, and then 2023
to 2024.
(13:30):
Just in general, what are someof the most remarkable changes
that y'all observe aboutAmericans, religious practices
and spirituality?
Anything that you haven'tshared yet that you think is
something our audience reallyneeds to know about?
Speaker 2 (13:39):
Religious decline has certainly been a big part of
the picture and continues to be,but one of our biggest emphases
of our latest religiouslandscape study from 2023 and 24
that adds nuance to all of thisis that, even though we've seen
declines on several coremeasures of religion, we've seen
almost complete stability inthe past five years.
(14:00):
Religious affiliation has beenvirtually unchanged, daily
prayer has been virtuallyunchanged and, when we account
for virtual options on religiousservice attendance because of
the pandemic, attendance hasbeen almost unchanged.
So, in the face of this hugepandemic that forced many
churches to close their doorssome permanently, some
(14:21):
temporarily and that caused manyother congregations to start
live streaming and to adjust howthey do worship some are
worshiping outside we saw allthis religious decline come to a
halt and you could have easilyimagined the decline escalating.
So that's one definitelystriking thing to me that we'll
have to continue to follow up on.
Speaker 1 (14:43):
I know you people don't speculate, but the
headlines for years for those ofus that follow the headlines,
so certainly from your firstreligious landscape report in 07
to the last one the headlinefor years was Christianity is in
free fall, christianity is indecline, and then over this last
year the headlines have beenwell, maybe that's stabilized.
(15:04):
You brought up the pandemic,you brought up some of the
things that have happened overthe last five years, and so
those made headlines.
That news made headlinesbecause I think people were
surprised that the decline didnot continue, that it evened out
.
Is there anything in the data?
Is there anything in the datathat would point to why that
(15:24):
might be?
Speaker 2 (15:27):
It's very it's a tough question and, yeah, we are
definitely still looking ateverything we can and we have
some new 2025 data that we'rekind of poking through now, and
so each time we get new roundsof data, we're hoping it can
shed light on the story, and Iknow there's lots of articles
out there claiming that areligious revival is happening
and we haven't quite seen signsof that in our data.
(15:49):
But I guess one otherinteresting thing I'd add to the
story of stability we've seen,and going back to what we were
talking about, generationalreplacement.
So each decade of people borntends to be a little less
religious than the one before it.
Another interesting thing we dosee in our data is that our
youngest age cohort, those bornin the 2000s, actually aren't
(16:10):
less religious than those bornin the 90s.
They, on all of our standardmeasures we look at, they look
very, very similar.
So we have to qualify what wesay about that group.
That's definitely not cause forany claims of revival
necessarily, but if we'relooking at how things have
stabilized, it's interesting tosee that that cohort isn't
(16:33):
necessarily less religious thanthe millennials that came before
them.
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (16:37):
Can't wait to see how y'all study that as time goes
by.
Well, there may be apresumption that younger
generations are leavingChristianity in the church
because there's something wrongwith them.
That kind of goes back to thelast question.
It's like what's wrong withkids these days?
But one of Pew's findings thatis interesting to me in
particular because I've grown upin the church, we're a
(17:00):
multi-generational church family.
I've been in ministry, I'vebeen in youth ministry, I've
been in children's ministry,I've worked with parents.
One of the findings that'sinteresting to me is it seems
that children who grow up toprioritize active participation
in a congregation, for example,have parents who prioritize it
(17:34):
sake of this conversation, theattending services, the
traditions of the church, theteachings of the church, then
kids are more likely.
I'm not saying there's causationthere, but there's a
correlation that their kids aremore likely to grow up and also
prioritize religion as theyreceived it from their parents.
And yet, in the same report,one in four parents these days
take their kids to religiousservices each week.
(17:55):
So that means the vast majorityof parents don't take their
kids to church or to religiousservices and only two in five US
adults participate in religiousgatherings as much as they used
to.
So if the decline of churchmembership and participation is
down among our youngergenerations, it seems like the
data reveals not that there'ssomething wrong with the younger
(18:17):
generations, but maybe oldergenerations might need to have a
look at themselves in themirror for the example that
they're setting and theprioritizing that they're
failing to do for religion.
Can you just talk a little bitabout that data for us?
Speaker 2 (18:31):
Yeah, that's really, really interesting way to pull
all that data together and in myrole at Pew, I can't put blame
on anybody, but you're right.
So the RLS shows that peoplewho were raised in religious
homes are much more likely, onaverage, to be religious as
adults.
Those who said religion wasimportant to their families
during childhood are more likelyto say it was important as
(18:52):
adults.
Those who attended servicesregularly as children are much
more likely to as adults.
So there's definitely aconnection there and, as you
suggest, there are bigdifferences across generations
in terms of having religiousupbringings.
So let's talk some numbersAmong those born in the 1940s or
earlier.
(19:17):
Among those born in the 1940s orearlier, 94% were raised with a
religion.
That number is 75% among thoseborn in the 2000s.
Similarly, among those born inthe 1940s or earlier, 68%.
So they attended servicesweekly when they were children.
That number is 48% among thoseborn in the 2000s.
So this suggests considerabledifferences in the amount of
religious parenting andeducation and socialization.
(19:38):
That's happening acrossgenerations and when we look
across all age squirts, we seethese numbers drop each decade.
So it's not that parents todayhave just dropped the ball all
of a sudden on this front, ifyou will.
It's that, over time, parentsof each generation have
seemingly had gradually lessreligious households.
(19:59):
It's more of like a systemicthing.
There is one important caveat toall of this, though.
Our RLS shows that religiousupbringings today are less
sticky.
So while it may be the casethat a person is way more likely
to be religious as an adult ifthey had a religious upbringing,
(20:19):
and fewer young people aregetting religious upbringings,
it's also the case that youngpeople that do get the religious
upbringings are still way morelikely to drop it.
So here's a data point for that.
If we focus just on people inour survey who told us they grew
up going to services every weekand that religion is very
(20:39):
important to their life, 51% ofthose born in the 40s still
attend weekly and say religionis very important.
That number is just 28% amongthose born in the 2000s.
So these young people that arehaving religious upbringing are
still way more likely to shed itsometime during, you know,
young adulthood.
Speaker 1 (21:01):
I have two follow-up questions to that.
One is I'm able to understandthings better if I visualize
them.
So what the research is showingus is that children who grow up
in homes where their parentsprioritize religious
participation.
I'll just put it that way.
So, just going to church andbeing active in church would be
(21:23):
one really important measure ofthat.
Those children are more likelyto prioritize religion as adults
than those who do not grow upin a household where the parents
prioritize religion.
I think I've got that downright, but you said that it's
not sticky, so it goes back to.
(21:43):
We sometimes use the term brandloyalty, and what I mean by
that is a lot of the kids I grewup with in the Church of Christ
that are still very religious.
They still go to church.
They're very activeparticipants in a Christian
community.
The majority of them are nolonger members of a Church of
Christ congregation.
They've moved to otherreligious affiliations.
(22:05):
Is that kind of what you'retalking about?
So, yeah, their parents raisedthem and they prioritized church
attendance, for example, butthey don't necessarily belong to
the same church in which theirparents raised them and they
prioritized church attendance,for example, but they don't
necessarily belong to the samechurch in which their parents
raised them.
Speaker 2 (22:19):
That would certainly be the case for some people, but
the vast majority who areshedding their religious
identity are switching to noreligion.
Our numbers show.
We asked people in this surveyabout their childhood religion
and then we know their adultreligion.
80% of Americans say they wereraised as Christians, but of
(22:41):
that 80%, 58% are stillChristian and the other 22% have
left Christianity.
Of those 22% who have leftChristianity, 19% are no
religion now and just 2% haveswitched to a different
Christian or a differentreligion.
Speaker 1 (22:58):
Okay, Okay, Wow, One of the interesting things.
They're Two things that standalongside each other in the
research here.
One is that personal privateprayer is on the decline among
all American cohorts.
So when I say all Americancohorts, I mean the different
generations.
(23:19):
Personal private prayer is indecline Even though, as you said
earlier, something like nineout of 10 Americans still
believe in God the vast majoritystill believe in heaven and so
personal prayers on the decline.
But here's the most recentheadline that's made the news
from your research 52% ofAmericans more than half favor
(23:43):
teachers leading prayers toJesus.
And I need to be clear on that,because you make a distinction
between prayers to Jesus andprayers to God in public schools
.
So I don't know what you wantto do with that, but I'm sure
you've answered a lot ofquestions the last few weeks
about prayer in public schools.
Can you talk, can you unpackthis a little for us?
Speaker 2 (24:09):
schools.
Can you talk, can you unpackthis a little for us?
Absolutely.
We are really digging in hereand I love it.
It is true that religion hasbeen on decline.
Belief in God has been indecline.
Belief in heaven has been indecline.
Regular prayer has been indecline.
At the same time, majorities ofAmericans still believe in God,
believe in heaven and prayregularly.
I mean remember about seven in10 Americans are still
(24:31):
affiliated with a religion.
Church and state questions areextremely difficult to ask and
to report on because I can tellyou people have complex ideas
about it, and so even theslightest change in question
wording or question structurecan make a big difference.
So, on the RLS survey you'rereferring to, we ask people
(24:53):
whether they favor or opposeallowing public school teachers
to lead their classes in prayersthat refer to Jesus.
52% say they favor Christianprayer in school, while 46%
oppose it.
I think there's a few thingsworth pointing out here.
As we hear about all kinds oflegislation involving religion
in schools, it's important tonote that there is a substantive
(25:15):
difference in meaning betweenallowing certain religious
things and requiring religiousthings.
This question asks aboutallowing them, so that produces
numbers I would expect to behigher than requiring them.
Another thing that's you knowwe've been thinking a lot about
in the past few years withquestions on church and state.
This question format is what wecall forced choice, which means
(25:37):
respondents have to go one wayor the other.
There's no middle option.
In 2021, we asked a highlysimilar question but gave
respondents a neutral option andthey could say you know, I
don't favor or oppose, or I haveno opinion, and ultimately, the
same share 46% say they wereopposed to Christian prayer in
school, but instead of 52%favoring it, just 30% said they
(26:00):
favored it and 24% chose thatmiddle option.
So this suggests to me that asignificant share of Americans
may say they favor allowingChristian prayer in school when
forced to take a side, but theymay not feel particularly strong
about the issue.
You know we also asked on thatsurvey a question about whether
(26:20):
people favor or oppose thefederal government being allowed
to declare the US a Christiannation, and very similar shares
nearly half of Americans say yes, they do favor the government
being allowed to declare the USa Christian nation, and we've
seen that on previous surveys.
But we've also asked on othersurveys open-ended questions
(26:41):
where we let people tell us whatdoes it mean to be a Christian
nation, and we hear people saythings like it means having good
values, it means being a goodperson, and so it goes to show
when we ask about church-staterelations, people have very
different ideas about what itmeans in practice.
And one counterpoint I like tothink about not a counterpoint,
(27:04):
but just an interestingreference we see a considerable
number of non-religiousAmericans, or people who are
Muslim, buddhist, hindu, who sayyou know, I support Christian
prayer in schools, and so thatjust makes me wonder.
You know what is it?
You know, as a data analyst,we're trying to figure out what
are.
How are people reading thisquestion?
(27:25):
What are they hearing?
What are they thinking whenthey say they favor or oppose it
?
Speaker 1 (27:29):
I don't remember if you asked this question in 07
and 14.
Did you ask this question?
No, this is the first time.
That's right, okay, because Iam automatically number one.
I was surprised.
I was a little surprised at the52%.
I'll just admit that here.
I didn't expect that a littlemore than half of Americans
would say they favor allowingChristian prayer in public
(27:52):
schools.
I thought it would be less than50%, so my mind automatically
goes to well, has that changedsince 07?
And you don't know, because youasked it for the first time in
2023, 2024.
I'm blanking, and that's okaybecause I can edit this out.
(28:12):
Oh, one of the things I shouldpoint out about that 52% that I
noticed is that is not 52%spread equally across the
country.
There are big differencesdepending on where people live,
how they respond to thatquestion.
You want to talk about that?
Speaker 2 (28:32):
Yeah, so I published a piece on our website not too
long ago, a few weeks on this.
One great thing about thisreligious landscape study we did
is it's so massive.
We can actually look at allthese religion questions not
just at the national level butin all 50 states plus DC, and we
can even look at these religionmeasures in 34 of the country's
(28:53):
largest metro areas, and all ofthat's available on our website
.
We continue to produce analysesbut, as you mentioned, we see a
wide range in terms of supportfor Christian prayer and school
across the 50 states.
I believe it's in the 80%, interms of around 80%, who support
it in some states likeMississippi, alabama, and it's
(29:16):
closer to 30% in states likeVermont and the District of
Columbia.
Short answer is that the statesthat are most in favor of
allowing Christian prayer inschools are the states that are
the most religious, the statesyou know when you look at
attendance and prayer andaffiliation.
Those are a lot of the samestates and likewise, the states
(29:37):
that are most opposed to it arethe least religious states.
You can imagine a lot of otherfactors that play a role,
probably party lines and, youknow, maybe age or education
factors in some way, but I thinkthe clearest correlation there
is religious religiosity.
Speaker 1 (29:59):
I like how you made a distinction in your questions
about prayers to Jesus andprayers to God.
Right and I'll say generic GodHope.
No one takes offense at that.
You know Jesus.
Being very specific, this is aChristian prayer to Jesus Christ
and God can almost lapse overinto the realm of civil religion
(30:23):
, you know.
So our coinage says in God, wetrust Well, which God right.
So talk about how you came upwith the idea to write those two
different questions prayers toJesus versus prayers to God and
what were the differences in howpeople responded to each one of
those.
Speaker 2 (30:42):
Right.
So I'm sure many of yourlisteners are familiar with
different conversations aboutChristian nationalism or
religious nationalism broadly,and we at Pew have tried to ask
questions along the lines ofthis subject, engaging church
and state from different angles.
We don't say that Christiannationalism is or isn't a thing.
(31:03):
We ask people how many peoplehave heard of Christian
nationalism, those kinds ofthings.
We definitely tread lightly inthis area, but we did think it
was important.
If we're going to ask aboutChristian prayer in school and
then we get that percentage back, x percent of Americans believe
this.
It's nice to have a comparisonof who might be in favor or
(31:24):
opposed to some religiousexpression beyond just
Christianity, and so that's whywe asked this question about
allowing teachers to leadstudents in prayers referring to
Jesus and then allowingteachers to lead prayers to God
but to no specific religion.
I think that's how the actualquestion is worded.
So, as we mentioned earlier,52% essentially favor allowing
(31:48):
Christian prayer.
That number rises to 57% forprayers to God but to no
specific religion.
So it's slightly higher.
5%.
It's not dramatic, but thatwould at least suggest to me
that you know people have prettysimilar ideas reacting to this
question and you know a majorityare in slight favor of both.
(32:12):
So sentiment is pretty similar.
I was mentioning that somenon-Christian people end up
being in favor of these thingsearlier.
22% of non-religious Americanssay they favor allowing
Christian prayer in school andthat number rises to 28% of
non-religious Americans whofavor, you know, more generic
(32:35):
prayers to God.
So you could imagine why thenumbers will be slightly higher
for non-Christian groups whenwe're talking about the broader
category.
But sentiment seems to bepretty similar for these
questions.
I've had some other interestingpercentages here.
So, going back to that questionabout Christian prayer, 31% of
Hindus support Christian prayerin school, 27% of Buddhists, 23%
(32:59):
of Muslims.
So I just, you know, shed somelight on the different ways
people might be hearing thisquestion.
Speaker 1 (33:07):
And you don't have to comment on what I'm about to
say because you stick to thedata.
But you're making me think ofour interview with Dr Christina
Littlefield where we did a showon Christian nationalism.
This was maybe back in thespring, and she talked a lot
about the civil religion of theUnited States.
And the civil religion is, I'llcall it, kind of the generic
(33:30):
religion that the majority ofAmericans kind of hold to, the
generic belief in God, thegeneric belief in Providence, if
you will, and that God isinvolved in the affairs of the
United States.
And so what you're describingsounds to me a little bit like
what she was talking about withcivil religion People who are
(33:54):
maybe not Christians at all,they are religious people, they
are spiritual people, but theyseem to recognize that there's
kind of a place for civilreligion in American life, which
could include praying in apublic institution like a school
, and it sounds like they don'tmind that because they maybe
(34:15):
subconsciously not consciouslyunderstand that there's a civil
religion at work in our country.
You don't have to talk aboutthat at all, but you're
reminding me of thatconversation that we had.
Speaker 2 (34:25):
Going back to when we asked people to tell us what a
Christian nation meant to them.
Among all those people who saidthey do support declaring the
US asa Christian nation yeah,those are the people that said
it means being a good person,having good values, having good
morals.
On the other side, you know thelarge share that said they did
(34:45):
not support, or they wereopposed to, declaring the US a
Christian nation.
We heard pretty differentresponses.
It's not that they were opposedto people being good persons or
good morals.
When they hear the termChristian nation, they were more
likely to say that means the USas a theocracy and where
religion is forced on people.
And so when we see people ondifferent sides of these sorts
(35:10):
of issues, it's not uncommon tosee they have pretty different
ideas about what they might meanin practice.
Speaker 1 (35:17):
Yeah, I think that's a really, really good point and
I'm glad you brought thatforward.
That's something that I believea lot of Christians miss in the
discussion about what it meansto be a Christian nation, and so
that's a very importantdistinction there.
I want to end on a high notehere.
We've talked a little bit aboutgenerations, and I spend a lot
(35:40):
of time in churches.
I spend a lot of time, as muchas I can, with Christians of
different generations, a lot oftime as much as I can, with
Christians of differentgenerations, and I hear a lot of
lament from older generationsthat have seen the glory years
in the Church of Christ, whichis our tradition, and they worry
about the younger generations.
They ask you know what's wrongwith kids these days, like I
(36:02):
said, and there's a piece ofdata that came up in your
research and it seems toindicate that let's see if I can
find it here, no-transcript.
(36:29):
So, whether you're in an olderage cohort or a younger age
cohort, the Pew data seems topoint to all Americans really,
regardless of their age, report,or the majority of Americans
report growing more spiritualthroughout their lives, which to
me seems like a really positivething and a good opportunity
(36:49):
for religion, for a church.
Could you share more about thatfact and then tell us a little
more about what you've gotcoming up?
We hear you've got some moreexciting projects coming up
after this.
Speaker 2 (37:01):
Sure.
So on that question, when weask people about whether they
become more or less spiritualover the course of their
lifetime, I think I might havesuggested this earlier there are
four times as many people whosay they become more spiritual
over the course of theirlifetime.
I mean, I think that actualnumber it's somewhere in the 40%
range, whereas in the 10% rangesay they become less spiritual,
(37:22):
and then the remainder, whichis probably a little less than
50% I don't have the table upright now say they become less
spiritual and then the remainder, which is, you know, probably a
little less than 50% I don'thave the table up right now Say
they've stayed the same level ofspirituality throughout their
life.
So you're absolutely right, thebalance of opinion there leans
towards people becoming morespiritual.
(37:42):
We can ask what that means, youknow, is that a spiritual
maturity, even as spiritualpractices decline?
Or, you know, people embracingspirituality in a deep way?
Is the idea of spiritual growthjust so inherent to what?
Spirituality means that peoplesee it that way?
But it is interesting tocontrast that to you know, the
(38:04):
numbers about people becomingmore or less religious, which
about equal share, say they'rebecoming more or less religious,
but we've definitely seenreligious decline in recent
years.
The fact that we see non-majordifferences among the youngest
cohorts on religion andspirituality measures I think
(38:25):
that's really interesting, andjust the stability we've seen in
the past five years.
All of these things kind ofshake up what I think all of us
thought we knew about religion,which is largely that story of
decline.
I think it's important to bearin mind.
Like we said, as oldergenerations pass away and less
religious younger generationscome up, all the data would tell
(38:47):
us we are going to see somemore religious decline in the
future, unless something majorhappens.
But just the fact that there'sso many atypical patterns right
now kind of, I think, haseverybody brainstorming and
thinking and wondering what'sreally going on, and so for many
people who are interested inreligion, as religious persons
or as religion scholars I thinkit's an opportunity and it
(39:11):
definitely inspires me to wantto go deeper and ask a lot of
questions In terms of what weare working on next.
We just got back new 2025 dataand so when we're looking at
these trend lines, it's religiongoing up, down, staying the
same.
Pretty soon Not quite yet,we're still analyzing the data
We'll be able to add one newyear to that and see what's
(39:32):
happening, and we can, you know,we'll be able to look among age
groups too to see if there isanything like a religious
revival happening.
So I'm super excited about that.
I have a few new reports comingout on religion and public life
in the next couple of weeks,including one about religion in
the 2024 election, so stay tunedfor that, and I just think
(39:53):
there's a lot more to learnabout how the fine ways that
religion and spirituality play arole in people's daily lives.
So, always looking forward tocoming up with new questions, I
would encourage any listenerswho want to stay more in touch
with this stuff to check out ourPew Research Center website.
You can subscribe to a weeklyemail newsletter from the
(40:16):
religion team specifically, soit'll show you what's in the
headlines more broadly and alsowhat we're working on at Pew.
And if you're on social media,on Instagram, I'd encourage you
to follow my page.
I have been trying to makeshort 30 second clips or so that
highlight our latest and mostimportant findings and that
(40:36):
break it down in a practical wayand tries to get to that.
So what question?
My page is just chipratolo, soyou can find me on Instagram.
Speaker 1 (40:45):
Links will be in the show notes and when that report
comes out in a couple of weeks,we'll link that to the show
notes too.
I subscribe to the newsletter.
I highly recommend it.
Dr Chip Rotello is the leadauthor on the Pew Research
Center's Religious LandscapesStudy, which is a deep, deep
dive into the religious beliefs,lives and practices of
Americans.
You don't have to be a datanerd like me to find lots of
(41:05):
fascinating stuff in that study.
Have to be a data nerd like meto find lots of fascinating
stuff in that study.
So we will post a link to it inthe show notes and encourage
you to go check it out.
Dr Rotello, thank you for beingour guest today.
Speaker 2 (41:14):
Really enjoyed the conversation, thanks for having
me.
Speaker 1 (41:16):
Thank you, it's been a pleasure.
We hope that something youheard in this episode encouraged
, enlightened or enriched you insome way.
If it did, thanks be to God andplease pay it forward.
Subscribe to this podcast andshare it with a friend.
Recommend and review itwherever you listen to your
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(41:39):
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The Christian Chronicle podcastis a production of the
(42:02):
Christian Chronicle Incorporated, informing and inspiring Church
of Christ congregations,members and ministries around
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The Christian Chronicle'smanaging editor is Calvin
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The Christian Chronicle podcastis written, directed, hosted
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(42:26):
Podcast your Voice Studios inthe Motor City, detroit,
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Until next time, may grace andpeace be yours in abundance.
family and friends, neighbors and, most of all,
strangers.
Welcome to the christianchronicle podcast.
We're bringing you the storiesshaping church of christ,
congregations and members aroundthe world.
I'm bt erwin, and what you areabout to hear bless you and
honor god.
What place, if any, should thepractices and teachings of
Christianity have intaxpayer-funded institutions
(00:25):
like public schools?
This has been a debate since,well, at least when I wrote a
thesis paper about it back in myhigh school advanced
composition class.
For Americans in general, thequestion turns on the meaning of
the First Amendment of the USConstitution, which states that,
quote Congress shall make nolaw respecting an establishment
of religion or prohibiting thefree exercise thereof.
(00:46):
End quote.
So then, if public schools paidfor by religious and
non-religious taxpayers promoteor teach religion of any kind,
does that qualify as an quoteestablishment of religion end
quote.
That infringes on the libertiesof non-religious students and
their families?
That infringes on the libertiesof non-religious students and
(01:07):
their families.
What is more likely to be themotive behind the First
Amendment is the foundingframers' memories of the wars of
religion that devastated Europein the 16th, 17th and early
18th centuries.
Those were wars thatChrist-claimers waged against
Christ-claimers.
You could call them Christiancivil wars in which as many as
18 million people who claimedChrist died at the hands of
other people who claimed Christ.
(01:28):
Those wars were not aboutChristianity versus other
religions, but which form ofChristianity would amass the
most power over all other formsof Christianity.
It was these religious warsthat led our Church of Christ
ancestors to flee Europe, wherethey were often persecuted by
fellow Christ claimers.
They came to the North Americanfrontier, where they could
(01:49):
practice primitive Christianitywithout fear of oppression and
persecution by Christ claimerswho had more economic and
political power than they did.
So perhaps they thanked Godwhen the founding framers of the
US federal government forbidCongress from establishing a
state religion.
That establishment clauseprotected our Church of Christ
ancestors from the federalgovernment establishing what
(02:11):
surely would have been aChristian state religion, one
that could have used state powerto force our ancestors to
comply with the federal form ofChristianity.
Or else Imagine how thingscould have turned out different
for the United States and theChurch of Christ if the founding
framers chose to allow thefederal government to establish
as the state religion a certainform of Christianity other than
(02:35):
what our ancestors practiced.
However, those who claim thatthe United States is a Christian
nation are not all wrong.
Since the beginning, the vastmajority of Americans claim
Christianity as their religionand system of beliefs, and
Christian customs, images andlanguage permeate our civil
institutions because for so longChristianity was just kind of
(02:56):
assumed.
The founding framers didbelieve that Americans must be a
moral people in order for theirexperiment and self-government
to succeed and to be a moralpeople.
Order for their experiment andself-government to succeed and
to be a moral people, theframers believed that we have to
be a religious people, which isthe basis from which many
Christ-claimers in the UnitedStates argue for religion in
public institutions liketaxpayer-funded schools.
(03:19):
And because the majority ofAmericans have always claimed to
be Christians, some among themargue that Christianity should
be the basis for religiousexpression and instruction in
public institutions.
This may be at least part ofthe reasoning behind a recent
surge in Christ-claimingofficials passing laws that put
Christian practices and symbolsback in taxpayer-funded public
(03:42):
schools back in taxpayer-fundedpublic schools.
For example, Louisiana andTexas passed laws this year that
require taxpayer-funded publicschools to post the Ten
Commandments in every classroomand the Church of Christ's own.
Ryan Walters, the statesuperintendent in Oklahoma,
mandated that all public schoolsin his state must incorporate
the Bible in their instructionfrom grades 5 through 12.
(04:03):
Of course, these new laws andmandates are facing serious
challenges in court, withplaintiffs seeking to halt their
implementation on FirstAmendment grounds.
But what do the American peoplethink of all this?
In the end, the law shouldconform to the contours of we,
the people, and our will.
That's the way the UnitedStates of America is supposed to
work, right our will.
(04:25):
That's the way the UnitedStates of America is supposed to
work, right.
So how do Americans feel about,say, Christian practices like
prayer and taxpayer-fundedpublic schools?
The folks at Pew Research Centerwanted to know this.
In fact, they wanted to know alot more.
They recently finished theirthird religious landscape study,
arguably the most far-rangingand thorough research project on
Americans' religious beliefsand lives.
Pew completed its firstreligious landscape study in
(04:47):
2007, followed it up with asecond in 2014, and recently
finished the third in 2024.
Earlier this summer, Pewreleased some interesting
findings on what Americansbelieve about school prayer.
Here today, to explain what Pewfound is Dr Chip Rotolo.
Dr Rotolo is a researchassociate with the Pew Research
Center, where he focuses onreligious identities, beliefs
(05:08):
and practices in the UnitedStates, with a particular focus
on the role of religion inAmerican society.
He is the lead author on theReligious Landscape Study Report
.
Dr Rotolo, thank you for beingour distinguished guest today.
Speaker 2 (05:20):
It's great to be here , thank you.
Speaker 1 (05:22):
All right.
So before we get into this,we're going to use a couple of
terms that some people may thinkof as being interchangeable,
and I feel like if we don'tdefine them right here at the
front of the conversation,people may get confused as we go
along.
So could you explain for us thedifference between religious
and spiritual in the Pew report?
Speaker 2 (05:45):
Absolutely, and I love how you caveated it in the
Pew report, because these termsare notoriously hard to define,
and I'll say that we at Pewreally don't put definitions on
religion or spirituality often,but we certainly ask about
questions commonly associatedwith each category.
Just put you in our position Inour work we're often most
(06:07):
interested in seeing howprevalent both of these things
are in society and how thatmight be changing over time and
what difference it makes onoutcomes like political views.
So we're interested in it alland there's not really a need in
our work to pit the two againsteach other.
But starting with the easierone, when we're analyzing
religion, we spend a great dealof time talking about our core
(06:29):
measures of religion, which arereligious affiliation, belief in
God or a higher power,attendance at religious services
, frequency of prayer andimportance of religion.
These are measures that we'veasked about for a long time and
they are common and traditionalways of engaging with religion
in America.
Of course, we look at manyother religious things, like
(06:51):
saying grace and being part of asmall group or Bible study, but
these measures probably giveyou the strongest sense of what
we mean typically by religion.
Spirituality is a bit morecomplicated.
Spirituality is a bit morecomplicated, but when we study
spirituality, we're tending tolook at things that involve some
perception that there'ssomething beyond just the
(07:11):
natural empirical world.
On the belief front, that canbe belief in souls or spirits,
belief in an afterlife, evenbelief in astrology.
We look at experiences likefeeling the presence of someone
who has passed away, and so youcan probably easily see that
many things could be consideredboth religion and spiritual.
(07:33):
But the big thing is thereligion bucket tends to be more
organized, traditional andcommunal in nature, and
spiritual doesn't necessitateany of those things.
It can be those things, but itcan be unorganized,
non-traditional and personal.
Speaker 1 (07:49):
Okay, great definitions there.
Thank you, now we can proceed.
So my big takeaway from thereligious landscape study is
that Americans are, in general,spiritual people and they seem
to be getting more spiritual, ifI'm reading the report
correctly.
More spiritual we're alsochoosing, it seems more of us
(08:16):
are choosing to get out of whatPew calls religion.
Could you paint us a picture ofyou know, first of all, am I
getting that correctly in myread of the report?
And then, second, could youpaint us a picture of what that
looks like in the real world?
Speaker 2 (08:27):
Sure.
So, first off, it is very clearthat over the past few decades
religion has generally been in astate of decline.
Affiliation has gone down,attendance has gone down, the
share who regularly pray hasgone down.
So here you see some of thosemeasures I mentioned earlier.
Most Americans are stillreligious About 70% claim some
(08:49):
religious identity, but this isdown quite a bit from a few
decades ago.
And it's also the case thatyounger Americans are less
religious on average than olderAmericans.
So as time passes and olderAmericans who are more religious
pass away and younger Americansmake up a greater share of the
population, we would expect tosee more religious decline in
(09:11):
the future, and I think a lot ofpeople see that and sense that,
and that's not a particularlysurprising claim.
We can't actually say thatAmericans are becoming more
spiritual, and the reason isthat most of our questions about
spirituality are newer.
So we don't actually havetrends yet to see that we will
eventually.
(09:32):
And we do ask respondentswhether they think they've
become more or less spiritualover the course of their
lifetime, in which case fourtimes as many Americans say
they've become more spiritual.
But one subjective evaluationof their spirituality can be a
little bit different fromlooking at a population level.
So, for example, about equalshares of Americans say they've
(09:53):
become more or less religiousover their lifetime.
But you know, in all thesereligion measures we see some
pretty sharp signals of decline,and so, but trends aside,
americans in general are stillpretty spiritual people.
When we look at the share ofAmericans who believe in God, a
(10:13):
higher power, an afterlife,souls or spirits or that there's
something spiritual beyond thenatural world, 92% of Americans
have a spiritual outlook.
And so, in the face ofreligious decline, there seems
to at least be a continuedopenness to the spiritual realm.
Part of that might be becausespirituality is broader.
(10:36):
Religion tends to have sometradition, a basis of authority,
some teachings, and when welook at our data on people who
are not religious, these aresome of the top reasons they
offer for not being religiousQuestioning religious teachings,
not liking religiousorganizations, rather than
complete disbelief or lack oftime and interest.
And so, you said, to paint aportrait, I guess I'd say
(10:59):
religion has always been a majorpart of American life and it
continues to be in many ways,but in general, people sense
that religion has lost a lot ofits influence, and while many
still say religion brings peopletogether.
It helps the poor and the needy.
Many also think religion is toorigid, it's too rules-focused
(11:20):
and it's concerned with power,and so for these reasons and
others, some people have leftreligion.
Some have dropped spirituality,but broadly there's still a lot
of belief in something biggerin our society.
Speaker 1 (11:33):
Yeah, and you mentioned something just now
that I was going to ask about alittle while later.
I'm reading Bowling Alone byRobert Putnam right now and
never thought about this before,but he points out that so many
changes in social norms havecome about because older
generations have died off andyounger generations have become
(11:53):
the majority population.
So I think you just said it amoment ago yourself Some of the
changes that we've seen inreligion the decline of
attendance or membership in achurch, for example, over the
last 17 years can be attributedto older generations that were
more you know what we might saybrand loyal to their
denomination.
(12:14):
For example, those generationsdying off and these younger
generations have a differentopinion about religion coming
into the majority.
Is that at least one of themajor drivers behind the change?
Speaker 2 (12:25):
Yes, social scientists who have been
studying this, and we see thisin our data.
One of the big drivers ofreligious decline over the past
few decades is definitely whatwe call generational replacement
.
Each generation or age cohort,or basically the decade you were
born in, is, on average, alittle bit less religious than
the group before it.
(12:46):
But that being said, it's alsothe case that in general we see
in our religious landscapestudies, people do become
slightly less religious over thecourse of their lifetime, and
when we look at these differentage cohorts, young people are
becoming less religious at afaster rate, and so you have
(13:07):
three things happening kind ofsimultaneously.
Speaker 1 (13:10):
But the generational replacement is definitely a big
part of the story, kind ofsimultaneously, but the
generational replacement isdefinitely a big part of the
story.
Yeah, so before I get too faralong, I want to ask you did
religious landscape studies in07, I believe, 14, and then 2023
to 2024.
(13:30):
Just in general, what are someof the most remarkable changes
that y'all observe aboutAmericans, religious practices
and spirituality?
Anything that you haven'tshared yet that you think is
something our audience reallyneeds to know about?
Speaker 2 (13:39):
Religious decline has certainly been a big part of
the picture and continues to be,but one of our biggest emphases
of our latest religiouslandscape study from 2023 and 24
that adds nuance to all of thisis that, even though we've seen
declines on several coremeasures of religion, we've seen
almost complete stability inthe past five years.
(14:00):
Religious affiliation has beenvirtually unchanged, daily
prayer has been virtuallyunchanged and, when we account
for virtual options on religiousservice attendance because of
the pandemic, attendance hasbeen almost unchanged.
So, in the face of this hugepandemic that forced many
churches to close their doorssome permanently, some
(14:21):
temporarily and that caused manyother congregations to start
live streaming and to adjust howthey do worship some are
worshiping outside we saw allthis religious decline come to a
halt and you could have easilyimagined the decline escalating.
So that's one definitelystriking thing to me that we'll
have to continue to follow up on.
Speaker 1 (14:43):
I know you people don't speculate, but the
headlines for years for those ofus that follow the headlines,
so certainly from your firstreligious landscape report in 07
to the last one the headlinefor years was Christianity is in
free fall, christianity is indecline, and then over this last
year the headlines have beenwell, maybe that's stabilized.
(15:04):
You brought up the pandemic,you brought up some of the
things that have happened overthe last five years, and so
those made headlines.
That news made headlinesbecause I think people were
surprised that the decline didnot continue, that it evened out
.
Is there anything in the data?
Is there anything in the datathat would point to why that
(15:24):
might be?
Speaker 2 (15:27):
It's very it's a tough question and, yeah, we are
definitely still looking ateverything we can and we have
some new 2025 data that we'rekind of poking through now, and
so each time we get new roundsof data, we're hoping it can
shed light on the story, and Iknow there's lots of articles
out there claiming that areligious revival is happening
and we haven't quite seen signsof that in our data.
(15:49):
But I guess one otherinteresting thing I'd add to the
story of stability we've seen,and going back to what we were
talking about, generationalreplacement.
So each decade of people borntends to be a little less
religious than the one before it.
Another interesting thing we dosee in our data is that our
youngest age cohort, those bornin the 2000s, actually aren't
(16:10):
less religious than those bornin the 90s.
They, on all of our standardmeasures we look at, they look
very, very similar.
So we have to qualify what wesay about that group.
That's definitely not cause forany claims of revival
necessarily, but if we'relooking at how things have
stabilized, it's interesting tosee that that cohort isn't
(16:33):
necessarily less religious thanthe millennials that came before
them.
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (16:37):
Can't wait to see how y'all study that as time goes
by.
Well, there may be apresumption that younger
generations are leavingChristianity in the church
because there's something wrongwith them.
That kind of goes back to thelast question.
It's like what's wrong withkids these days?
But one of Pew's findings thatis interesting to me in
particular because I've grown upin the church, we're a
(17:00):
multi-generational church family.
I've been in ministry, I'vebeen in youth ministry, I've
been in children's ministry,I've worked with parents.
One of the findings that'sinteresting to me is it seems
that children who grow up toprioritize active participation
in a congregation, for example,have parents who prioritize it
(17:34):
sake of this conversation, theattending services, the
traditions of the church, theteachings of the church, then
kids are more likely.
I'm not saying there's causationthere, but there's a
correlation that their kids aremore likely to grow up and also
prioritize religion as theyreceived it from their parents.
And yet, in the same report,one in four parents these days
take their kids to religiousservices each week.
(17:55):
So that means the vast majorityof parents don't take their
kids to church or to religiousservices and only two in five US
adults participate in religiousgatherings as much as they used
to.
So if the decline of churchmembership and participation is
down among our youngergenerations, it seems like the
data reveals not that there'ssomething wrong with the younger
(18:17):
generations, but maybe oldergenerations might need to have a
look at themselves in themirror for the example that
they're setting and theprioritizing that they're
failing to do for religion.
Can you just talk a little bitabout that data for us?
Speaker 2 (18:31):
Yeah, that's really, really interesting way to pull
all that data together and in myrole at Pew, I can't put blame
on anybody, but you're right.
So the RLS shows that peoplewho were raised in religious
homes are much more likely, onaverage, to be religious as
adults.
Those who said religion wasimportant to their families
during childhood are more likelyto say it was important as
(18:52):
adults.
Those who attended servicesregularly as children are much
more likely to as adults.
So there's definitely aconnection there and, as you
suggest, there are bigdifferences across generations
in terms of having religiousupbringings.
So let's talk some numbersAmong those born in the 1940s or
earlier.
(19:17):
Among those born in the 1940s orearlier, 94% were raised with a
religion.
That number is 75% among thoseborn in the 2000s.
Similarly, among those born inthe 1940s or earlier, 68%.
So they attended servicesweekly when they were children.
That number is 48% among thoseborn in the 2000s.
So this suggests considerabledifferences in the amount of
religious parenting andeducation and socialization.
(19:38):
That's happening acrossgenerations and when we look
across all age squirts, we seethese numbers drop each decade.
So it's not that parents todayhave just dropped the ball all
of a sudden on this front, ifyou will.
It's that, over time, parentsof each generation have
seemingly had gradually lessreligious households.
(19:59):
It's more of like a systemicthing.
There is one important caveat toall of this, though.
Our RLS shows that religiousupbringings today are less
sticky.
So while it may be the casethat a person is way more likely
to be religious as an adult ifthey had a religious upbringing,
(20:19):
and fewer young people aregetting religious upbringings,
it's also the case that youngpeople that do get the religious
upbringings are still way morelikely to drop it.
So here's a data point for that.
If we focus just on people inour survey who told us they grew
up going to services every weekand that religion is very
(20:39):
important to their life, 51% ofthose born in the 40s still
attend weekly and say religionis very important.
That number is just 28% amongthose born in the 2000s.
So these young people that arehaving religious upbringing are
still way more likely to shed itsometime during, you know,
young adulthood.
Speaker 1 (21:01):
I have two follow-up questions to that.
One is I'm able to understandthings better if I visualize
them.
So what the research is showingus is that children who grow up
in homes where their parentsprioritize religious
participation.
I'll just put it that way.
So, just going to church andbeing active in church would be
(21:23):
one really important measure ofthat.
Those children are more likelyto prioritize religion as adults
than those who do not grow upin a household where the parents
prioritize religion.
I think I've got that downright, but you said that it's
not sticky, so it goes back to.
(21:43):
We sometimes use the term brandloyalty, and what I mean by
that is a lot of the kids I grewup with in the Church of Christ
that are still very religious.
They still go to church.
They're very activeparticipants in a Christian
community.
The majority of them are nolonger members of a Church of
Christ congregation.
They've moved to otherreligious affiliations.
(22:05):
Is that kind of what you'retalking about?
So, yeah, their parents raisedthem and they prioritized church
attendance, for example, butthey don't necessarily belong to
the same church in which theirparents raised them and they
prioritized church attendance,for example, but they don't
necessarily belong to the samechurch in which their parents
raised them.
Speaker 2 (22:19):
That would certainly be the case for some people, but
the vast majority who areshedding their religious
identity are switching to noreligion.
Our numbers show.
We asked people in this surveyabout their childhood religion
and then we know their adultreligion.
80% of Americans say they wereraised as Christians, but of
(22:41):
that 80%, 58% are stillChristian and the other 22% have
left Christianity.
Of those 22% who have leftChristianity, 19% are no
religion now and just 2% haveswitched to a different
Christian or a differentreligion.
Speaker 1 (22:58):
Okay, Okay, Wow, One of the interesting things.
They're Two things that standalongside each other in the
research here.
One is that personal privateprayer is on the decline among
all American cohorts.
So when I say all Americancohorts, I mean the different
generations.
(23:19):
Personal private prayer is indecline Even though, as you said
earlier, something like nineout of 10 Americans still
believe in God the vast majoritystill believe in heaven and so
personal prayers on the decline.
But here's the most recentheadline that's made the news
from your research 52% ofAmericans more than half favor
(23:43):
teachers leading prayers toJesus.
And I need to be clear on that,because you make a distinction
between prayers to Jesus andprayers to God in public schools
.
So I don't know what you wantto do with that, but I'm sure
you've answered a lot ofquestions the last few weeks
about prayer in public schools.
Can you talk, can you unpackthis a little for us?
Speaker 2 (24:09):
schools.
Can you talk, can you unpackthis a little for us?
Absolutely.
We are really digging in hereand I love it.
It is true that religion hasbeen on decline.
Belief in God has been indecline.
Belief in heaven has been indecline.
Regular prayer has been indecline.
At the same time, majorities ofAmericans still believe in God,
believe in heaven and prayregularly.
I mean remember about seven in10 Americans are still
(24:31):
affiliated with a religion.
Church and state questions areextremely difficult to ask and
to report on because I can tellyou people have complex ideas
about it, and so even theslightest change in question
wording or question structurecan make a big difference.
So, on the RLS survey you'rereferring to, we ask people
(24:53):
whether they favor or opposeallowing public school teachers
to lead their classes in prayersthat refer to Jesus.
52% say they favor Christianprayer in school, while 46%
oppose it.
I think there's a few thingsworth pointing out here.
As we hear about all kinds oflegislation involving religion
in schools, it's important tonote that there is a substantive
(25:15):
difference in meaning betweenallowing certain religious
things and requiring religiousthings.
This question asks aboutallowing them, so that produces
numbers I would expect to behigher than requiring them.
Another thing that's you knowwe've been thinking a lot about
in the past few years withquestions on church and state.
This question format is what wecall forced choice, which means
(25:37):
respondents have to go one wayor the other.
There's no middle option.
In 2021, we asked a highlysimilar question but gave
respondents a neutral option andthey could say you know, I
don't favor or oppose, or I haveno opinion, and ultimately, the
same share 46% say they wereopposed to Christian prayer in
school, but instead of 52%favoring it, just 30% said they
(26:00):
favored it and 24% chose thatmiddle option.
So this suggests to me that asignificant share of Americans
may say they favor allowingChristian prayer in school when
forced to take a side, but theymay not feel particularly strong
about the issue.
You know we also asked on thatsurvey a question about whether
(26:20):
people favor or oppose thefederal government being allowed
to declare the US a Christiannation, and very similar shares
nearly half of Americans say yes, they do favor the government
being allowed to declare the USa Christian nation, and we've
seen that on previous surveys.
But we've also asked on othersurveys open-ended questions
(26:41):
where we let people tell us whatdoes it mean to be a Christian
nation, and we hear people saythings like it means having good
values, it means being a goodperson, and so it goes to show
when we ask about church-staterelations, people have very
different ideas about what itmeans in practice.
And one counterpoint I like tothink about not a counterpoint,
(27:04):
but just an interestingreference we see a considerable
number of non-religiousAmericans, or people who are
Muslim, buddhist, hindu, who sayyou know, I support Christian
prayer in schools, and so thatjust makes me wonder.
You know what is it?
You know, as a data analyst,we're trying to figure out what
are.
How are people reading thisquestion?
(27:25):
What are they hearing?
What are they thinking whenthey say they favor or oppose it
?
Speaker 1 (27:29):
I don't remember if you asked this question in 07
and 14.
Did you ask this question?
No, this is the first time.
That's right, okay, because Iam automatically number one.
I was surprised.
I was a little surprised at the52%.
I'll just admit that here.
I didn't expect that a littlemore than half of Americans
would say they favor allowingChristian prayer in public
(27:52):
schools.
I thought it would be less than50%, so my mind automatically
goes to well, has that changedsince 07?
And you don't know, because youasked it for the first time in
2023, 2024.
I'm blanking, and that's okaybecause I can edit this out.
(28:12):
Oh, one of the things I shouldpoint out about that 52% that I
noticed is that is not 52%spread equally across the
country.
There are big differencesdepending on where people live,
how they respond to thatquestion.
You want to talk about that?
Speaker 2 (28:32):
Yeah, so I published a piece on our website not too
long ago, a few weeks on this.
One great thing about thisreligious landscape study we did
is it's so massive.
We can actually look at allthese religion questions not
just at the national level butin all 50 states plus DC, and we
can even look at these religionmeasures in 34 of the country's
(28:53):
largest metro areas, and all ofthat's available on our website
.
We continue to produce analysesbut, as you mentioned, we see a
wide range in terms of supportfor Christian prayer and school
across the 50 states.
I believe it's in the 80%, interms of around 80%, who support
it in some states likeMississippi, alabama, and it's
(29:16):
closer to 30% in states likeVermont and the District of
Columbia.
Short answer is that the statesthat are most in favor of
allowing Christian prayer inschools are the states that are
the most religious, the statesyou know when you look at
attendance and prayer andaffiliation.
Those are a lot of the samestates and likewise, the states
(29:37):
that are most opposed to it arethe least religious states.
You can imagine a lot of otherfactors that play a role,
probably party lines and, youknow, maybe age or education
factors in some way, but I thinkthe clearest correlation there
is religious religiosity.
Speaker 1 (29:59):
I like how you made a distinction in your questions
about prayers to Jesus andprayers to God.
Right and I'll say generic GodHope.
No one takes offense at that.
You know Jesus.
Being very specific, this is aChristian prayer to Jesus Christ
and God can almost lapse overinto the realm of civil religion
(30:23):
, you know.
So our coinage says in God, wetrust Well, which God right.
So talk about how you came upwith the idea to write those two
different questions prayers toJesus versus prayers to God and
what were the differences in howpeople responded to each one of
those.
Speaker 2 (30:42):
Right.
So I'm sure many of yourlisteners are familiar with
different conversations aboutChristian nationalism or
religious nationalism broadly,and we at Pew have tried to ask
questions along the lines ofthis subject, engaging church
and state from different angles.
We don't say that Christiannationalism is or isn't a thing.
(31:03):
We ask people how many peoplehave heard of Christian
nationalism, those kinds ofthings.
We definitely tread lightly inthis area, but we did think it
was important.
If we're going to ask aboutChristian prayer in school and
then we get that percentage back, x percent of Americans believe
this.
It's nice to have a comparisonof who might be in favor or
(31:24):
opposed to some religiousexpression beyond just
Christianity, and so that's whywe asked this question about
allowing teachers to leadstudents in prayers referring to
Jesus and then allowingteachers to lead prayers to God
but to no specific religion.
I think that's how the actualquestion is worded.
So, as we mentioned earlier,52% essentially favor allowing
(31:48):
Christian prayer.
That number rises to 57% forprayers to God but to no
specific religion.
So it's slightly higher.
5%.
It's not dramatic, but thatwould at least suggest to me
that you know people have prettysimilar ideas reacting to this
question and you know a majorityare in slight favor of both.
(32:12):
So sentiment is pretty similar.
I was mentioning that somenon-Christian people end up
being in favor of these thingsearlier.
22% of non-religious Americanssay they favor allowing
Christian prayer in school andthat number rises to 28% of
non-religious Americans whofavor, you know, more generic
(32:35):
prayers to God.
So you could imagine why thenumbers will be slightly higher
for non-Christian groups whenwe're talking about the broader
category.
But sentiment seems to bepretty similar for these
questions.
I've had some other interestingpercentages here.
So, going back to that questionabout Christian prayer, 31% of
Hindus support Christian prayerin school, 27% of Buddhists, 23%
(32:59):
of Muslims.
So I just, you know, shed somelight on the different ways
people might be hearing thisquestion.
Speaker 1 (33:07):
And you don't have to comment on what I'm about to
say because you stick to thedata.
But you're making me think ofour interview with Dr Christina
Littlefield where we did a showon Christian nationalism.
This was maybe back in thespring, and she talked a lot
about the civil religion of theUnited States.
And the civil religion is, I'llcall it, kind of the generic
(33:30):
religion that the majority ofAmericans kind of hold to, the
generic belief in God, thegeneric belief in Providence, if
you will, and that God isinvolved in the affairs of the
United States.
And so what you're describingsounds to me a little bit like
what she was talking about withcivil religion People who are
(33:54):
maybe not Christians at all,they are religious people, they
are spiritual people, but theyseem to recognize that there's
kind of a place for civilreligion in American life, which
could include praying in apublic institution like a school
, and it sounds like they don'tmind that because they maybe
(34:15):
subconsciously not consciouslyunderstand that there's a civil
religion at work in our country.
You don't have to talk aboutthat at all, but you're
reminding me of thatconversation that we had.
Speaker 2 (34:25):
Going back to when we asked people to tell us what a
Christian nation meant to them.
Among all those people who saidthey do support declaring the
US asa Christian nation yeah,those are the people that said
it means being a good person,having good values, having good
morals.
On the other side, you know thelarge share that said they did
(34:45):
not support, or they wereopposed to, declaring the US a
Christian nation.
We heard pretty differentresponses.
It's not that they were opposedto people being good persons or
good morals.
When they hear the termChristian nation, they were more
likely to say that means the USas a theocracy and where
religion is forced on people.
And so when we see people ondifferent sides of these sorts
(35:10):
of issues, it's not uncommon tosee they have pretty different
ideas about what they might meanin practice.
Speaker 1 (35:17):
Yeah, I think that's a really, really good point and
I'm glad you brought thatforward.
That's something that I believea lot of Christians miss in the
discussion about what it meansto be a Christian nation, and so
that's a very importantdistinction there.
I want to end on a high notehere.
We've talked a little bit aboutgenerations, and I spend a lot
(35:40):
of time in churches.
I spend a lot of time, as muchas I can, with Christians of
different generations, a lot oftime as much as I can, with
Christians of differentgenerations, and I hear a lot of
lament from older generationsthat have seen the glory years
in the Church of Christ, whichis our tradition, and they worry
about the younger generations.
They ask you know what's wrongwith kids these days, like I
(36:02):
said, and there's a piece ofdata that came up in your
research and it seems toindicate that let's see if I can
find it here, no-transcript.
(36:29):
So, whether you're in an olderage cohort or a younger age
cohort, the Pew data seems topoint to all Americans really,
regardless of their age, report,or the majority of Americans
report growing more spiritualthroughout their lives, which to
me seems like a really positivething and a good opportunity
(36:49):
for religion, for a church.
Could you share more about thatfact and then tell us a little
more about what you've gotcoming up?
We hear you've got some moreexciting projects coming up
after this.
Speaker 2 (37:01):
Sure.
So on that question, when weask people about whether they
become more or less spiritualover the course of their
lifetime, I think I might havesuggested this earlier there are
four times as many people whosay they become more spiritual
over the course of theirlifetime.
I mean, I think that actualnumber it's somewhere in the 40%
range, whereas in the 10% rangesay they become less spiritual,
(37:22):
and then the remainder, whichis probably a little less than
50% I don't have the table upright now say they become less
spiritual and then the remainder, which is, you know, probably a
little less than 50% I don'thave the table up right now Say
they've stayed the same level ofspirituality throughout their
life.
So you're absolutely right, thebalance of opinion there leans
towards people becoming morespiritual.
(37:42):
We can ask what that means, youknow, is that a spiritual
maturity, even as spiritualpractices decline?
Or, you know, people embracingspirituality in a deep way?
Is the idea of spiritual growthjust so inherent to what?
Spirituality means that peoplesee it that way?
But it is interesting tocontrast that to you know, the
(38:04):
numbers about people becomingmore or less religious, which
about equal share, say they'rebecoming more or less religious,
but we've definitely seenreligious decline in recent
years.
The fact that we see non-majordifferences among the youngest
cohorts on religion andspirituality measures I think
(38:25):
that's really interesting, andjust the stability we've seen in
the past five years.
All of these things kind ofshake up what I think all of us
thought we knew about religion,which is largely that story of
decline.
I think it's important to bearin mind.
Like we said, as oldergenerations pass away and less
religious younger generationscome up, all the data would tell
(38:47):
us we are going to see somemore religious decline in the
future, unless something majorhappens.
But just the fact that there'sso many atypical patterns right
now kind of, I think, haseverybody brainstorming and
thinking and wondering what'sreally going on, and so for many
people who are interested inreligion, as religious persons
or as religion scholars I thinkit's an opportunity and it
(39:11):
definitely inspires me to wantto go deeper and ask a lot of
questions In terms of what weare working on next.
We just got back new 2025 dataand so when we're looking at
these trend lines, it's religiongoing up, down, staying the
same.
Pretty soon Not quite yet,we're still analyzing the data
We'll be able to add one newyear to that and see what's
(39:32):
happening, and we can, you know,we'll be able to look among age
groups too to see if there isanything like a religious
revival happening.
So I'm super excited about that.
I have a few new reports comingout on religion and public life
in the next couple of weeks,including one about religion in
the 2024 election, so stay tunedfor that, and I just think
(39:53):
there's a lot more to learnabout how the fine ways that
religion and spirituality play arole in people's daily lives.
So, always looking forward tocoming up with new questions, I
would encourage any listenerswho want to stay more in touch
with this stuff to check out ourPew Research Center website.
You can subscribe to a weeklyemail newsletter from the
(40:16):
religion team specifically, soit'll show you what's in the
headlines more broadly and alsowhat we're working on at Pew.
And if you're on social media,on Instagram, I'd encourage you
to follow my page.
I have been trying to makeshort 30 second clips or so that
highlight our latest and mostimportant findings and that
(40:36):
break it down in a practical wayand tries to get to that.
So what question?
My page is just chipratolo, soyou can find me on Instagram.
Speaker 1 (40:45):
Links will be in the show notes and when that report
comes out in a couple of weeks,we'll link that to the show
notes too.
I subscribe to the newsletter.
I highly recommend it.
Dr Chip Rotello is the leadauthor on the Pew Research
Center's Religious LandscapesStudy, which is a deep, deep
dive into the religious beliefs,lives and practices of
Americans.
You don't have to be a datanerd like me to find lots of
(41:05):
fascinating stuff in that study.
Have to be a data nerd like meto find lots of fascinating
stuff in that study.
So we will post a link to it inthe show notes and encourage
you to go check it out.
Dr Rotello, thank you for beingour guest today.
Speaker 2 (41:14):
Really enjoyed the conversation, thanks for having
me.
Speaker 1 (41:16):
Thank you, it's been a pleasure.
We hope that something youheard in this episode encouraged
, enlightened or enriched you insome way.
If it did, thanks be to God andplease pay it forward.
Subscribe to this podcast andshare it with a friend.
Recommend and review itwherever you listen to your
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Please send your comments,ideas and suggestions to podcast
(41:39):
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The Christian Chronicle podcastis a production of the
(42:02):
Christian Chronicle Incorporated, informing and inspiring Church
of Christ congregations,members and ministries around
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The Christian Chronicle'smanaging editor is Calvin
Cockrell, editor-in-chief BobbyRoss Jr and president and CEO
Eric Trigestad.
The Christian Chronicle podcastis written, directed, hosted
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(42:26):
Podcast your Voice Studios inthe Motor City, detroit,
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Until next time, may grace andpeace be yours in abundance.
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