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7 - Church Attendance in the United States

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 June 2012

Mark Chaves
Affiliation:
Department of Sociology, University of Arizona, P.O. Box 210027, Tucson, AZ 85721-0027
Laura Stephens
Affiliation:
Department of Sociology, University of Arizona, P.O. Box 210027, Tucson, AZ 85721-0027
Michele Dillon
Affiliation:
University of New Hampshire
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Summary

Although there is more to religious belief and practice than participation in organized religion, and although media reports sometimes make it appear that new and unconventional forms of religiosity are swamping more traditional practice, the collective expression of religion in the United States still mainly means attendance at weekend religious services. When people who say they did not attend religious services in the past week are asked in surveys whether they participated in some other type of religious event or meeting, only 2 percent say yes. If other sorts of religious activity have increased, that increase is not much at the expense of traditional weekend attendance at religious services. For this reason, the level of participation in traditional worship services – church and synagogue attendance – and trends in those levels, remain valuable, if mundane, windows onto American religion and its collective expression.

For many years scholars of American religion agreed on two basic facts about church attendance: (a) on any given weekend approximately 40 percent of Americans attend religious services, and (b) this rate has been essentially stable at least since the 1950s. In this chapter, we review the evidence about the contemporary level of attendance at religious services, and we review the evidence about trends in that participation. Regarding the first, recent research has shown that weekly attendance in the United States is significantly lower than 40 percent. Regarding the second, recent research has unsettled the previous consensus about stability in attendance over time.

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Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2003

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  • Church Attendance in the United States
    • By Mark Chaves, Department of Sociology, University of Arizona, P.O. Box 210027, Tucson, AZ 85721-0027, Laura Stephens, Department of Sociology, University of Arizona, P.O. Box 210027, Tucson, AZ 85721-0027
  • Edited by Michele Dillon, University of New Hampshire
  • Book: Handbook of the Sociology of Religion
  • Online publication: 05 June 2012
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511807961.007
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  • Church Attendance in the United States
    • By Mark Chaves, Department of Sociology, University of Arizona, P.O. Box 210027, Tucson, AZ 85721-0027, Laura Stephens, Department of Sociology, University of Arizona, P.O. Box 210027, Tucson, AZ 85721-0027
  • Edited by Michele Dillon, University of New Hampshire
  • Book: Handbook of the Sociology of Religion
  • Online publication: 05 June 2012
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511807961.007
Available formats
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Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • Church Attendance in the United States
    • By Mark Chaves, Department of Sociology, University of Arizona, P.O. Box 210027, Tucson, AZ 85721-0027, Laura Stephens, Department of Sociology, University of Arizona, P.O. Box 210027, Tucson, AZ 85721-0027
  • Edited by Michele Dillon, University of New Hampshire
  • Book: Handbook of the Sociology of Religion
  • Online publication: 05 June 2012
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511807961.007
Available formats
×