Plus: U.S. Denominations, Service Attendance, Global Trends, Confidence in the Church
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| The voice of the world in numbers | | | March 10, 2026 | | | Welcome to Front Page, Gallup's indispensable intelligence distilled into five charts that give leaders the insights they need to make their most important decisions. | | | 1. Religion's Role in American Life | | | | The Data: After plunging in the 1960s and 1970s, the percentage of Americans for whom religion is “very important” has varied but has generally trended downward since 2012. In 2025, 47% of Americans said religion is very important in their lives, down from 58% in 2012 and well below the 75% recorded in the 1950s. Meanwhile, a trend high of 28% in 2025 said religion is “not very important” in their lives, more than double the rate seen in the early 2000s. The Trend: With a quarter of Americans still saying religion is “fairly important” to them, there has not been a wholesale rejection of religion. Rather, the long-term pattern shows a shift away from the “very important” category, with the “not very important” group absorbing most of the change. Nearly three-quarters remain religious to some degree. Latest Data | | | 2. The Rise of the Religious Nones | | | | The Data: In 2025, 24% of Americans said they have no religious affiliation, a new high in Gallup's trend and up from 2% in 1948. The figure held between 21% and 22% for four years before rising last year, based on interviews with more than 13,000 U.S. adults across Gallup's monthly 2025 surveys. Age Differences: Adults younger than 30 are the age group least likely to identify with a religion, with 35% reporting no affiliation, compared with 29% of those aged 30 to 49, 18% of 50- to 64-year-olds and 14% of adults aged 65 and older. Among U.S. adults who do have a religious preference, 44% identify as Protestant or nondenominational Christian, 20% as Catholic and 9% as another religion. Read More | | | 3. Religious Service Attendance Remains Low | | | | The Data: In 2025, 57% of Americans said they seldom or never attend religious services, while 31% reported attending weekly or nearly weekly and 10% said they attend about once a month. The Changes: Monthly attendance has been relatively steady since 1992, hovering near 10%. The long-term shift has occurred primarily between the “weekly/almost weekly” and “seldom/never” groups, with regular attendance declining and infrequent attendance rising steadily over the past two decades. Latest Data | | | 4. Religiosity Gap Divides OECD and Rest of World | | | | The Data: Globally, religion remains central to daily life in most of the world. In 2025, a median of 82% of adults across 135 countries surveyed by Gallup said religion is an important part of their daily lives. Among the 38 mostly high-income OECD member states, that figure stood at 37%, in line with where it has been for much of the past decade. Country-Specific Drops: Large declines in religiosity over any 10-year period are rare across the more than 160 countries in Gallup's World Poll. Since 2007, only 14 countries (mostly wealthier nations) have seen drops of more than 15 percentage points in religious importance over any 10-year span. Among OECD members, Greece recorded the largest such decline, falling 28 points between 2013 and 2023, from 77% to 49%. Read More | | | 5. Confidence in the Church Joins a Broader Institutional Decline | | | | The Data: In 2025, 36% of Americans said they have a great deal or quite a lot of confidence in the church or organized religion, near the record low of 31% recorded in 2022. The figure has fallen by approximately 30 percentage points since the mid-1970s, when about 65% had confidence in religious institutions. More Context: The decline in confidence in organized religion is part of a broader pattern of diminished trust. Americans' average confidence across nine institutions Gallup has tracked consistently since 1979 stands at 28%, down from 48% in 1979. Of 18 institutions included in Gallup's most recent survey, only three earn majority-level confidence: small business (70%), the military (62%) and science (61%). Congress and television news rank at the bottom, each with confidence ratings near 10%. Explore More Institutions | | | | | |
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