The Decline of Christianity in the U.S.

Christianity is on the decline in the United States. New data from Gallup shows that church attendance has dropped across all polled Christian groups. As the following chart shows, the biggest drop in attendance in the past 20 years has been amongst Catholics, which has fallen from 45 percent of U.S. adults self-identifying as Catholic saying that they go to religious services weekly or at least every week in 2000-2003, down to 33 percent saying the same in 2021-2023. This is a decrease of 12 percentage points. Catholics’ attendance is lower than their Protestant counterparts, which saw a drop of 4 percentage points in that time frame from 48 percent of worshippers to 44 percent.

According to Gallup’s data, this decline in church attendance among Christians speaks to a wider pattern across religion in the U.S. generally. Where an average of 42 percent of U.S. adults attended religious services every week or nearly every week 20 years ago, now this figure is just 30 percent. This is largely due to an increase in the share of U.S. adults who self-identify as having no religious affiliation.