26 S C I E N T I F I C A M E R I C A N F E B R U A R Y 2 0 0 3

RO

DG

ER

DO

YLE

newsSCAN

The Demographic Imperative inReligious Change in the United

States. Michael Hout, AndrewGreeley and Melissa J. Wilde inAmerican Journal of Sociology,

Vol. 107, No. 2; 2001.

Persistence and Change in theProtestant Establishment,

1930–1992. James D. Davidson,Ralph E. Pyle and David V. Reyes inSocial Forces, Vol. 74, No. 1; 1995.

Why More Americans Have NoReligious Preference: Politicsand Generations. Michael Hout

and Claude S. Fischer inAmerican Sociological Review,

Vol. 67, No. 2; 2002.

Yearbook of American andCanadian Churches 2002.

Edited by Eileen W. Lindner. Abingdon Press, 2002.

Handbook of Denominations inthe United States. 11th edition.

Frank S. Mead and Samuel S. Hill.Abingdon Press, 2001.

FURTHERREADING

Percent of U.S. adults surveyedsaying they attend church:

At least weekly: 24 to 30

Less than once a week: 54 to 58

As a group, respondents typically overstate their attendance by

up to 70 percent.

SUNDAYSERMONS Not long ago many believed that the

spread of science and education wouldcause religion to wither, but although

churchgoing has diminished, Americans gen-erally retain their religious affiliations. Churchattendance in the U.S. is higher than in anyEuropean country except Ireland and Poland[see By the Numbers, July 1999].

Since at least the end of World War II,Protestantism has declined, reflecting a weak-

ening of mainline denominations. A likelycause may be the lower fertility seen since theearly 20th century, when women from thesedenominations became active in the family-planning movement. In comparison withevangelicals, who emphasize saving souls,mainline Protestants have been less active inrecruiting new members. Despite the decline,members of the “Protestant establishment”churches—Episcopalians, Congregationalists,Presbyterians, Quakers and Unitarians—con-tinue to hold positions of power in business,government, white-collar professions and thearts far out of keeping with their numbers. Al-though their importance, as measured by list-ings in Who’s Who, fell during the 20th cen-

tury, in the early 1990s they still had more en-tries than Catholics and Jews combined.

Despite a long-standing schism betweenchurch doctrine and lay practice, particularlyon abortion and contraception, Catholicismhas managed to maintain the allegiance ofabout a quarter of Americans over the pastfive decades. That is in part a result of higherlevels of natural increase and the reinforcingeffect of Catholic education. According to so-cial scientist Father Andrew M. Greeley of theUniversity of Chicago, Catholics remain loy-al because they are powerfully attracted by theexperiences, images and traditions of theChurch. The pedophile priest scandal, how-ever, has taxed that loyalty: a Gallup poll inJune 2002 reported that 22 percent of Catho-lics said that they questioned whether theywould remain in the fold.

The proportion of those adhering to Ju-daism has declined since World War II, inpart because of low fertility and because mar-riages outside the faith (aided in part by ashift from Orthodox toward Reform syna-gogues) frequently result in disaffiliation.Nevertheless, Judaism, at an estimated sixmillion affiliates, remains the largest of thenon-Christian religions, followed by Islam at1.9 million, Buddhism at 1.5 million andHinduism at about one million.

The 1990s saw a substantial increase inthe proportion of Americans with no religiouspreference, mostly because of a shift in de-mographics, not a rise in religious skepticism.Young adults frequently disengage from reli-gion when leaving the parental home butreengage after forming a family, but as a re-sult of the recent trend toward marrying lat-er in life, for many that reengagement hasn’thappened yet. The percentage of adults raisedwith no religion rose from 3 to 6 percent overthe past 30 years, but only about one third ofthose without a religious preference can becounted as nonbelievers.

Next month: Fundamentalism.

Rodger Doyle can be reached atrdoyle2@adelphia.net

Religion in AmericaCHURCH ATTENDANCE HAS DIPPED, BUT FAITH REMAINS STRONG BY RODGER DOYLE

BY

THE

NU

MB

ER

S

1940 1960Year

1980 2000

80

70

60

50

40

30

20

10

0

Protestant

Catholic

No religious preference

JewishOther

Relig

ious

Pre

fere

nce

of A

mer

ican

s (p

erce

nt)

SOURCE: National Opinion Research Center, General Social Survey

COPYRIGHT 2003 SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN, INC.