Many posts have discussed the role of religion in American life.
A release from the Public Religion Research Institute:
The annual PRRI Census of American Religion finds no evidence that Americans are returning to church in higher numbers – and little change in Americans’ religious affiliation in the past year.
Surveying a random sample of 40,000 adults throughout 2025, PRRI finds that two-thirds of Americans (66%) identify as Christian, including 41% who are white Christians and 25% who are Christians of color. Roughly three in ten Americans (28%) are religiously unaffiliated, and 6% identify with a non-Christian religion. All percentages closely mirror those from 2024.
“Despite anecdotal claims of a religious revival, our data show that Americans’ religious affiliation held steady in 2025 while worship weekly attendance did not increase,” said Melissa Deckman, CEO of PRRI. “Looking at young adults, there is a shift happening – but it’s not Gen Z men becoming more religious, as some suggest. Instead, young women’s declining religiosity has brought them on par with their male counterparts for the first time.”
Young women (18-29) have shed religious labels steadily since 2013, when 29% identified as religiously unaffiliated. By 2024, that figure grew to 40%, and in 2025, it increased to 43%.
While there has been a slight pause in the overall rate of religious disaffiliation, religious affiliation did not grow in 2025. The percent of Americans who identify as members of white Christian traditions saw little change between 2024 and 2025.
In 2025, 13% of Americans identify as white evangelical Protestants, 13% as white mainline/non-evangelical Protestants, and 12% as white Catholics — all unchanged from 2024. Fewer than 1% of Americans identify as Orthodox Christian in 2025, also unchanged from 2024. Among Americans ages 18-29, the percentage of white Christians has remained stable between 2024 and 2025 (28% both years).
“Today, white evangelical Protestants comprise just 13% of the American population, and all white Christians together only account for four in ten Americans today,” said Robert P. Jones, president and founder of PRRI. “These changing demographics help explain why — in a desperate gambit to hold onto power — white evangelicals have been willing to give themselves over to the MAGA movement and to turn against the principles of a pluralistic democracy.”
There is little evidence that Americans are returning to church in higher numbers. In 2025, 26% of Americans attend church weekly (unchanged from 2024). More than ten years prior, in 2013, 31% of Americans attended church weekly. The share of Americans who seldom or never attend religious services has increased substantially in the past decade, rising from 42% in 2013 to 53% in 2025.
Just one in five young women (21%) and men (20%) attended church weekly in 2025, which matched their rates of weekly church attendance in 2024. Rates of church attendance among younger Americans have remained largely unchanged since 2013. Younger Americans continue to be less religious than older Americans, in terms of both religious affiliation and regular church attendance
After years of consistent growth, the percentage of religiously unaffiliated Americans has plateaued. In both 2024 and 2025, 28% of Americans did not identify with a religious tradition. Among young Americans (ages 18-29), there is a significant gender gap: 43% of young women identify as unaffiliated in 2025, compared with 35% of young men.
The religious makeup of the two major political parties differs dramatically. White Christians account for a much larger percentage of the Republican Party (68%) than the Democratic Party (23%). Around one-third of Democrats are Christians of color (34%) compared with 16% of Republicans. Democrats are more likely to identify as religiously unaffiliated (34%) or with a non-Christian religion (8%) than Republicans (13% and 4%, respectively). Independents are 36% white Christian, 33% unaffiliated, 24% Christians of color, and 7% non-Christian.
