Greg Smith

Bar chart showing that in a 2022 Pew Research Center survey, 77% of U.S. adults said churches and other houses of worship should not come out in favor of one political candidate over another.

With the IRS planning to let churches endorse political candidates, past surveys show that a majority of Americans oppose the idea. In 2022, 77% of US adults – including 84% of Democrats and 70% of Republicans – said churches shouldn't endorse candidates. www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/...

it's been 10 years since the last @pewresearch.org Religious Landscape Study, but the release of a new study gave Caroline Soler a chance to see how the CES stacked up against this benchmark. overall, the surveys produce very similar portraits of religion in America!
sites.tufts.edu/cooperativee...

New @pewresearch.org report takes a deep look at Catholic life in U.S. It finds

20% of U.S. adults are Catholic (religiously speaking)
9% are "cultural Catholics"
9% are former Catholics
9% are connected to Catholicism in other ways (through spouse, parent, etc.)

Much more: pewrsr.ch/4eaMtk2

The Bible Society recently published a report claiming that church attendance in England and Wales increased by more than half between 2018 and 2024. The revival was especially striking among young men, with reported church attendance jumping from 4% to 21% over this short period. As a quantitative social scientist who has studied religious change in modern societies for more than 25 years, I’m surprised – and sceptical. I do not doubt that the Bible Society acted in good faith, but they haven’t engaged with the mountain of evidence, some of it very recent, pointing to religious decline. The annual British Social Attitudes survey – widely regarded as the best and most reliable source of data on such matters – shows that the share of adults in England and Wales who said that they were Christian and went to church at least monthly fell by nearly a quarter (from 12.2% to 9.3%) between 2018 and 2023, the last year available. The Bible Society surveys suggest that churchgoers were 8% of the adult population in 2018 and 12% in 2024. The main Christian denominations (Anglican, Catholic, Methodist, Baptist) conduct and publish their own attendance counts every year. Those show that while churchgoing continues to rebound from the lows of the COVID lockdown, attendance at worship services remains substantially lower than it was in 2019, before the pandemic. In the Church of England, average weekly attendance is down about 20% from pre-pandemic levels, and the story is similar in other denominations.

What could be the problem with the data? Gold standard social surveys are based on random (probability) samples of the population: everyone has a chance to be included. The British Social Attitudes survey is one such example – and found that churchgoing fell by nearly a quarter from 2018-23. By contrast, people opt in to YouGov’s survey panel and are rewarded after completing a certain number of surveys. The risk of low-quality or even bogus responses is considerable. YouGov creates a quota sample from its large self-selected panel. The sample will match the population on a number of key characteristics, such as age and sex, but that does not make it representative in all respects. As quota samples do not give each person in the population a known chance of being selected, statistical inference is not possible and findings cannot be reliably generalised. To write (as in the Bible Society report) that because thousands of people participated in the two surveys, they “give a 1% margin of error at a 99% confidence level” is misleading. This study is not the first time such non-probability sampling has led to dubious findings. In late 2023, the Economist ran the story that one in five young Americans believed that the Holocaust was a myth, based on another YouGov poll. A study by the Pew Research Center showed that that finding was almost certainly fallacious, and the Economist added a disclaimer acknowledging the problem.

England is experiencing a churchgoing revival, according to a recent report based on nonprobability polls.

David Voas is skeptical. He explains that probability-based survey data doesn't point to a revival. Nor does data from Christian denominations.
theconversation.com/is-there-rea...

Hi Sam, is there something particular you need? We do our best to make our data publicly available while also doing our best to protect respondent privacy!

Today at noon! @sssreligion.bsky.social is hosting a webinar on "From Francis to Leo XIV: Looking into a Post "Who Am I to Judge?" Catholic Church" feat. 2024 Student Paper Award winner Fr. Lucas Sharma S.J. w/ Tia Noelle Pratt & Tricia Bruce, moderated by Ariela Keysar.

Come work with me!

The Experiences of LGBTQ Americans Today How lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer adults view the impact of Obergefell and social acceptance for LGBTQ people more broadly 10 years after the Supreme Court decision legalizing same-sex...

Today we released a major @pewresearch.org survey of LGBTQ adults looking at:

▶️ Views of social acceptance for LGBTQ people
▶️ Personal experiences with acceptance, discrimination
▶️ Experiences with coming out
▶️ Identity
▶️ Community, friends and LGBTQ spaces

Read on for findings from each section.

Interested in trends in the makeup of the US Catholic population?

20% of U.S. adults are Catholic, a figure that's been stable for years.

A growing share are Latinos, and upwards of 4-in-10 Catholics are immigrants or the children of immigrants.

Much more from @pewresearch.org pewrsr.ch/3VRqirS

Americans’ Trust in One Another Americans trust each other less than they did a few decades ago. We explore why this is, and why some are more trusting than others.

We took a broad look at social trust in America today. With a survey of almost 37,000 people we were able to look at levels of trust across the states and even in metro areas. Check out our new report here www.pewresearch.org/SocialTrust

New @pewresearch.org

60% of US Catholics say the Church should be more inclusive even if that means changing some teachings. 37% say Church should stick to traditional teachings even if gets smaller.

Big differences on this & other questions by Mass attendance.

Much more pewrsr.ch/44AA8mv

White evangelicals continue to stand out in their support for Trump Most White evangelicals (72%) say they approve of how Trump is doing as president. Other religious groups are more divided or disapprove.

NEW: White evangelicals continue to stand out in their support for Trump, including 72% who approve of the way Trump is currently handling his job as president.

Here's how White evangelicals and other major U.S. religious groups view the second Trump administration.
pewrsr.ch/42L6bNS

YouTube video by The Aspen Institute Faith Angle Forum: A New US Religious Landscape

You can watch Alan Cooperman of @pewresearch.org ‘s opening presentation at Faith Angle Miami here youtu.be/yYM75CDZ4m0?...

Our recent post includes our latest info on the size of the U.S. Catholic population and data about their demographics, beliefs and practices.

One interesting finding - more than four-in-ten U.S. Catholics are immigrants (29%) or the children of immigrants (14%).

Much more here: pewrsr.ch/3VRqirS

Catholicism at a Crossroads Offers a big picture analysis of American CatholicismThe Catholic Church is at a crossroads. In the United States alone there are many challenges facing the ...

New @nyupress.bsky.social book is "the latest in a series of important sociological overviews drawing on nation-wide surveys administered every six years, Catholicism at a Crossroads charts this new era of Catholic worship, belonging, and identity in America today." nyupress.org/978147983218...

Nonreligion and the Pew Religious Landscape Study In this webinar, Gregory A. Smith (Pew Research Center) will discuss findings from the Pew Religious Landscape Study 2023-2024, followed by commentary from Kati Tervo-Niemelä (University of Eastern Finland), Peter Beyer (University of Ottawa), and Ryan Cragun (University of Tampa). Date: April 22, 2025 Time: 11:00 am ET

Register now for our upcoming webinar where @gregsmithpolls.bsky.social (Pew Research) will discuss findings from the Pew Religious Landscape Study 2023-2024, with comments by Kati Tervo-Niemelä, Peter Beyer, and Ryan Cragun

Date: Apr. 22
Time: 11 am ET

Register uottawa-ca.zoom.us/meeting/regi...

New on the ARDA: American Trends Panel Wave 99 — Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Human Enhancement

This survey concentrates on public views about six developments related to AI applications and human enhancements.

Dive into the dataset at thearda.com/data-archive?fid=ATPW99.

How a glitch in an online survey replaced the word ‘yes’ with ‘forks’ Dating back to at least early 2023, a bizarre and alarming technical glitch started popping up in some organizations’ online surveys and forms.

Last year we encountered a strange glitch in one of our surveys…the word “yes” was being replaced with the word “forks” in response options. Read on to learn how we unraveled what was causing it, how we ensured it didn’t impact the data quality, and what to do if it happens to you!

How a glitch in an online survey replaced the word ‘yes’ with ‘forks’ Dating back to at least early 2023, a bizarre and alarming technical glitch started popping up in some organizations’ online surveys and forms.

You probably don't often turn to the survey methodology world for a good detective story, but here is one from my colleague Anna Brown pewrsr.ch/4isAu2s

I really enjoyed this discussion.

Just noting that the public use dataset from the 2023-24 RLS is available for download www.pewresearch.org/dataset/2023...

A "restricted" file with more granular religious and geographic variables is under review & will be available soon through ICPSR.

The Gender Gap in Teen Experiences Teen girls and boys in the U.S. face different pressures and report different experiences at school, though they have many of the same goals in life.

We released a new report yesterday looking at the pressures teens face, their future aspirations, and how they see the experiences of boys and girls at their school. Among many important findings: 60% of teen girls - vs. 46% of boys - say they plan to attend a 4-year college. pewrsr.ch/4kKMHRC

Wheatley Seminar on Religion and Politics

Are you a PhD student in Political Science or Sociology interested in religion & public life? Apply for a *fully funded* opportunity to join us this summer (June 16-21) as part of the inaugural Wheatley Seminar in Religion & Politics. Apply by March 31. Details here:
wheatley.byu.edu/religionsemi...

Catholics | Religious Landscape Study | Pew Research Center The Religious Landscape Study is a comprehensive survey of more than 35,000 Americans’ religious identities, beliefs and practices that’s been conducted in 2007, 2014 and 2023-24. Pew Research Center.

For additional information about U.S. Catholics (and many other groups!), check out the Religious Landscape Study's interactive website.

www.pewresearch.org/religious-la...

Just updated with new data from the Religious Landscape Study: 10 Facts about U.S. Catholics

pewrsr.ch/3F4edcw

One interesting finding: about 4-in-10 U.S. Catholics are immigrants or the children of immigrants

In the new Religious Landscape Study, women are more religious than men, on average. But the gender gap shows signs of narrowing. It's a bit smaller now than before, and it's smaller among young adults than among older people.

pewrsr.ch/4inD0X8

Appendix A: Comparing results across Religious Landscape Studies Many questions in the 2023-24 Religious Landscape Study (RLS) previously were asked in the 2007 and 2014 landscape studies. Measuring change over time on

But the mode switch between 2007 and now means those numbers are not comparable. The earlier studies were done by phone. This one was done mostly online/on paper. Phone produces higher estimates of attendance than self administered studies, and can't be directly compared.

Refer to pewrsr.ch/41dpqyJ

The ARDA is the world's largest online religion data archive, with a lot of really great resources that bring that data to life for those who are interested in their communities, states, our nation, and the world.

Subscribing to our newsletter (2 emails a month) will keep you up to date!

The report shows that rates of prayer, self-assessments of religion's importance, and religious attendance also show signs of stabilizing in recent years. There's a ton in the report beyond religious identity!

Religious Landscape Study | Pew Research Center The Religious Landscape Study is a comprehensive survey of more than 35,000 Americans’ religious identities, beliefs and practices that’s been conducted in 2007, 2014 and 2023-24. Pew Research Center.

Yes, there is LOTS of trend data available, even if not everything is trendable. And as John said, there's a LOT in here beyond religious identity.

Check out the interactive website: www.pewresearch.org/religious-la...

A slightly different take from the folks at Axios. It's a great study, lots of rich data. Check it out, in print or at Pew's website.

www.axios.com/2025/02/26/u...