What percentage of people attend church in the US?

Answer 1

Not counting weddings and funerals, 38% of Americans say they attend church at least once a week, with self-reported attendance peaking among women, older people, Southerners and Baptists. 47% of Republicans attend church regularly compared to 38% of Democrats and 29% of Independents. This ABC Belief/Net poll was conducted by telephone Feb. 19-20, 2008 among a random national samples of 1008 adults. The results have a three-point margin of error. Fieldwork was conducted by TNS Intersearch of Horsham, PA. March 1, 2008 Copyright © 2008 ABC News internet Ventures.

Unfortunately, the above data only reflects what those polled said was their church attendance. County-wide counting of actual attendance revealed that the true values were about half these values. See "How many North Americans attend religious services (and how many lie about going)? at http://www.religioustolerance.org/rel_rate.htm

The ABC poll suggests that church attendance may have increased slightly in recent years. An article published by the Pew Forum at pewforum.org, January 7, 2005, reported on faith and religious behavior differences between Americans and Canadians. The poll noted that Americans are twice as likely as Canadians to attend church every week -- 35 percent compared to 18 percent. In general, Americans attend church more regularly and interpret The Bible more literally than Canadians, according to a Gallup Poll published at that time, reinforcing earlier surveys that consistently showed higher levels of religious observance in the United States than in Canada.


Answer 2

No one knows what percentage of people actually attend church in the US. The statistics given by polling organizations are crazy. If all the people in Richmond, Virginia, who reported to a polling organization they attended church every Sunday actually went there, the churches could not hold them. Enough seats simply do not exist. Most of the churches were about 1/4 full on a given Sunday. Protestant Churches have an active and inactive roll. The inactive roll consists of people who have not been seen in the church in the past few years or given any money to the local congregation. Close to half of the membership of any church is on that roll. Roughly the same percentage applies to Catholics. That is about 30% of the population. Of those about 25% will be in church on any given Sunday. That means about 8 to 10% will be in church on a particular Sunday. You can count the seats in the churches in your town.

Answer 3

http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/rel_chu_att-religion-church-attendance