The most reputable pollsters in the world, Gallup, reports the grim statistics since Vatican II. Only a bishop, priests, deacon, religious, layman or laywoman, inquirer, catechumen, elect and neophyte who like an ostrich, has his/her head buried in the sand, would think that the Church is better today in terms of evangelizing the culture than she was in 1957 and 1962. Ostriches don't really bury their head in the sand, why do so many Catholics, especially those nostalgic for the good old post 1962 days do so? It just doesn't make sense. It is sad indeed!
May 29, 2013
Most Americans Say Religion Is Losing Influence in U.S.
But 75% say American society would be better off if more Americans were religious
by Frank Newport
PRINCETON, NJ -- Over three-quarters of Americans (77%) say religion is losing its influence on American life, while 20% say religion's influence is increasing. These represent Americans' most negative evaluations of the impact of religion since 1970, although similar to the views measured in recent years.
Trend: At the present time, do you think religion as a whole is increasing its influence on American life or losing its influence?
Americans over the years have generally been more likely to say religion is losing rather than increasing its influence in American life. In addition to the previous peak in views that religion was losing its influence measured in 1969 and 1970, at least 60% of Americans thought religion was losing its influence in 1991-1994, in 1997 and 1999, in 2003, and from 2007 to the present.
Americans were more likely to say religion was increasing rather than decreasing its influence when the question was first asked in 1957, in 1962, at a few points in the 1980s during the Reagan administration, after the 9/11 terrorist attacks in late 2001 and early 2002, and in 2005. The high point for Americans' belief that religion is increasing its influence, 71%, came in December 2001.
These perceptions of religion's influence in American society are not related to Americans' personal religiosity, as measured by church attendance or the self-reported importance of religion in one's life. In general, highly religious Americans are neither more nor less likely to say religion is losing its influence than those who are not religious. There is, however, a modest relationship between Americans' ideology as well as partisanship and their views of the influence of religion, with liberals and Democrats more likely than conservatives and Republicans to say religion's influence is increasing in American society.
At the present time, do you think religion as a whole is increasing its influence on American life or losing its influence? By religiosity, ideology, party ID, May 2013
Most Americans Also Say U.S. Would Be Better Off if More Americans Were Religious
A separate question found much more positive views of the potential for religion to have an impact on the country, with 75% of Americans saying they think it would be positive for American society if more Americans were religious.
If more Americans were religious, would that be positive or negative for American society? May 2013 results
Americans who attend church regularly and who say religion is important in their own lives are far more likely than others to say it would be positive for American society if more Americans were religious. Even so, over half of those who seldom or never attend and close to one in three Americans who say religion is not important to them personally still say it would be positive for society if more Americans were religious.
Implications
The view most Americans hold -- that religion is losing its influence on American life -- does not appear to reflect personal religiousness, but rather appears to reflect widely shared judgments on factors relating to the course of events in the U.S. In 1969 and 1970, with the Vietnam War raging in controversial fashion and with the cultural and sexual revolutions underway, and to a lesser degree at times in the 1990s, Americans held negative views similar to those they hold today. The degree to which these views changed during the Reagan years, and after 9/11, suggest that they could change again in the years ahead. The fact that most Americans think the country would be better off if more Americans were religious shows that many of those who believe religion is losing its influence may think this is a negative state of affairs.
Survey Methods
Results for this Gallup poll are based on telephone interviews conducted May 2-7, 2013, with a random sample of 1,535 adults, aged 18 and older, living in all 50 U.S. states and the District of Columbia.
For results based on the total sample of national adults, one can say with 95% confidence that the margin of sampling error is ±3 percentage points.
Interviews are conducted with respondents on landline telephones and cellular phones, with interviews conducted in Spanish for respondents who are primarily Spanish-speaking. Each sample of national adults includes a minimum quota of 50% cellphone respondents and 50% landline respondents, with additional minimum quotas by region. Landline telephone numbers are chosen at random among listed telephone numbers. Cellphone numbers are selected using random digit dial methods. Landline respondents are chosen at random within each household on the basis of which member had the most recent birthday.
Samples are weighted to correct for unequal selection probability, nonresponse, and double coverage of landline and cell users in the two sampling frames. They are also weighted to match the national demographics of gender, age, race, Hispanic ethnicity, education, region, population density, and phone status (cellphone only/landline only/both, cellphone mostly, and having an unlisted landline number). Demographic weighting targets are based on the March 2012 Current Population Survey figures for the aged 18 and older U.S. population. Phone status targets are based on the July-December 2011 National Health Interview Survey. Population density targets are based on the 2010 census. All reported margins of sampling error include the computed design effects for weighting.
In addition to sampling error, question wording and practical difficulties in conducting surveys can introduce error or bias into the findings of public opinion polls.
View methodology, full question results, and trend data.
For more details on Gallup's polling methodology, visit www.gallup.com.
12 comments:
"Religious" is a vague and non-specific term that can mean most anything. In fact, when I was in grad school, many of us who were believing Christians always explained to people that Christianity was a "faith" and not a religion. Religion, in those neo-protestant days of liberal theology, was too closely associated with Schleiermacher, Ritschl, and Harnack who identified the "Christian religion" with subjective personal experience leading to exiatential self-renewal.
Things are little better today, with the exception that at least those neo-prots were theologically aware and analytical to a degree. Today's new issue theologians, not to mention laity, have little doctrinal training and almost no analytical ability. Seminaries have sold out to two-penny existentialism and cheesy social ethics. Biblical theology has become a sad re-hash of the post-war neo-prot/German Idealist schema for Biblical study. They find everything in Scripture from Marxist social theory and post-modern literary criticism to Process Philosophy. When their Jesus returns, he will be wearing a Che t-shirt, holding hands with Mary Magdalene, and Bogarting a joint...
So, religious polls...I don't think so...
The 1960s really were the ****stain of history of the AD years.
We can thank our post-Vatican II mindset for this cliche:
"I'm not religious but I'm very spiritual."
Islam has more influence than Christianity. How many muslims are pro-choice, how many are for gay "marriage"? none and none. No one dare say anything derogatory about Islam. but its always open season on Christianity. Islam has more influence than Christianity.
Lambeth 1930 was the beginning of the end of Western Civilization. I met an Irish guy on a airplane once that said all the world's problems can be traced back to the English.
"All the world's problems can be traced back to the English". I assume he was referring to the existence of the United States, which I have always regarded as one of the more positive legacies of English expansionism (the indigenous inhabitants of North America might disagree).
Anon. said: “I met an Irish guy on a airplane once that said all the world's problems can be traced back to the English.”
No comment. =)
An Irish guy...LOL! You know they invented whiskey to keep the Irish from ruling the world...
There is a modern tendency to want to run the world according to popular opinion. I am pretty sure the English thought of that, but the King made them quit.
Consider a poll, if there had been one asking exactly the same questions of the general population during the time of, say, St Augustine, or even Saint Thomas Aquinas. The world was at least as miserable as it is today, and generally as lost.
What this means, for my course of actions, is that should not rely on popular support to do God's will any more than those earlier gentlemen.
I suppose we have to blame the Germans for the Reformation, but it was the Tudors who forced it on the English, and they were Welsh usurpers. Pray for the soul of Richard III, the last English king.
That wasn't about the English but about Lambeth. No comment on that?
Just a funny comment on English.
The Lambeth conference concerned the schismatic and heretical ecclesial community which calls itself the Church of England. It doesn't amount to a hill of beans, let alone the future of western civilization.
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