In short
About 62% of US adults identify as Christian in Pew's 2023-24 Religious Landscape Study, down from 78% in 2007 but roughly stable since 2019, when the share has stayed between 60% and 64%. Pew reports the decades-long decline has slowed and may have leveled off. PRRI's Census of American Religion puts the Christian share near two-thirds (66% in 2025), and finds the religiously unaffiliated have plateaued at about 28%. Gallup adds long-run context: weekly-or-nearly-weekly worship attendance is about 30% and 45% call religion very important. Belief in God and the soul stays high even as certainty and practice soften.
- Pew reports the decades-long Christian decline has slowed and may have leveled off since 2019.
- PRRI finds the religiously unaffiliated have plateaued at about 28%, with no return to church.
- Belief runs ahead of practice: 83% believe in God, but only 44% pray daily and 30% attend weekly.
- The generational gap is wide, yet the youngest cohort is not markedly less religious than the one before it.
About 62% of US adults identify as Christian in the 2023-24 Pew Research Center Religious Landscape Study, down from 78% in 2007 but roughly stable since 2019, when the Christian share has hovered between 60% and 64%. Pew reports the decades-long decline has slowed and may have leveled off. PRRI's Census of American Religion, which uses a slightly different definition, puts the Christian share near two-thirds (66% in 2025). Gallup adds long-run context: weekly-or-nearly-weekly worship attendance is about 30%, and 45% of Americans now call religion very important. This page draws on Pew, PRRI, and Gallup, the three marquee sources for American religion.
the Christian share range since 2019 (decline leveled off)
Key findings at a glance
| Metric | Value | Year | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| US adults who identify as Christian | 62% | 2023-24 | Pew Research Center |
| Christian share (PRRI measure) | 66% | 2025 | PRRI |
| Christian share in 2007 | 78% | 2007 | Pew Research Center |
| US adults who pray daily | 44% | 2023-24 | Pew Research Center |
| Weekly-or-nearly-weekly worship attendance | 30% | 2021-2023 | Gallup |
| Religiously unaffiliated | 29% | 2023-24 | Pew Research Center |
How many Americans are Christian
The headline number depends on who is asking. Pew's 2023-24 Religious Landscape Study puts the Christian share of US adults at 62%, split mainly between Protestants and Catholics. PRRI's Census of American Religion, using a slightly different definition and weighting, runs a few points higher at around two-thirds.
The Christian share of US adults is 62% (2023-24), according to Pew Research Center's Religious Landscape Study.
The Christian share of Americans is 66% (2025), according to PRRI's Census of American Religion, whose measure runs modestly above Pew's.
| Statistic | Value | Year | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Protestants | 40% | 2023-24 | Pew Research Center |
| Catholics | 19% | 2023-24 | Pew Research Center |
| Evangelical Protestants (down from 26% in 2007) | 23% | 2023-24 | Pew Research Center |
| Mainline Protestants (down from 18% in 2007) | 11% | 2023-24 | Pew Research Center |
| Christian share (PRRI measure) | 65% | 2024 | PRRI |
The decline that leveled off
The Christian share fell steeply from 2007 through the mid-2010s. But Pew's most striking finding is that the slide has stalled: since 2019 the Christian share has stayed in a narrow band, a stability Pew frames as a possible plateau rather than a confirmed reversal. PRRI reaches a similar conclusion about the religiously unaffiliated.
The Christian share of US adults was 78% in 2007, according to Pew Research Center.
Since 2019 the Christian share of US adults has stayed between 60% and 64% (2019-2024), a stability Pew Research Center describes as the decline slowing and possibly leveling off.
The religiously unaffiliated share of Americans stood at about 28% in both 2024 and 2025, a level PRRI describes as having plateaued, with no evidence Americans are returning to church in higher numbers.
| Statistic | Value | Year | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Christian share in 2014 | 71% | 2014 | Pew Research Center |
| White Christians (down from a peak of 46% in 2013) | 41% | 2025 | PRRI |
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Belief and spirituality
Belief remains far more widespread than formal practice. Large majorities of US adults still say they believe in God, a soul, and a spiritual reality beyond the natural world. What has softened is certainty: the share who believe in God with absolute certainty has fallen sharply since 2007, and Gallup's simpler question shows belief at its lowest in its trend.
83% of US adults believe in God or a universal spirit at any level of certainty (2023-24), according to Pew Research Center.
54% of US adults believe in God with absolute certainty (2023-24), down about 17 points from 2007, according to Pew Research Center.
| Statistic | Value | Year | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Believe humans have a soul or spirit | 86% | 2023-24 | Pew Research Center |
| Believe there is something spiritual beyond the natural world | 79% | 2023-24 | Pew Research Center |
| Believe in heaven | 67% | 2023-24 | Pew Research Center |
| Believe in hell | 55% | 2023-24 | Pew Research Center |
| Believe in God (Gallup wording, lowest in its trend) | 81% | 2022 | Gallup |
Prayer and practice
Personal and communal practice sits well below stated belief. About 44% of US adults pray daily and roughly a fifth read scripture weekly on their own, while weekly worship attendance has fallen to about 30% and a majority seldom or never attend. The importance Americans place on religion has also declined over two decades, though the sources differ on the exact level.
44% of US adults say they pray daily (2023-24), down from 58% in 2007 but steady in recent years, according to Pew Research Center.
About 30% of US adults attend religious services every week or almost every week (2021-2023), down from 42% in 2000-2003, according to Gallup.
| Statistic | Value | Year | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Read scripture weekly outside services | 22% | 2023-24 | Pew Research Center |
| Attend religious services at least monthly | 33% | 2023-24 | Pew Research Center |
| Seldom or never attend services | 56% | 2021-2023 | Gallup |
| Say religion is very important (Pew, down from 56% in 2007) | 38% | 2023-24 | Pew Research Center |
| Say religion is very important (Gallup, 70% in 1965) | 45% | 2023 | Gallup |
| Say the Bible is extremely or very important | 44% | 2023-24 | Pew Research Center |
The generational gap
The distance between the youngest and oldest adults is stark on every measure of identity and practice. Yet Pew notes an important nuance: the very youngest cohort is not markedly less religious than the one just before it, one of the signals behind its leveling-off conclusion. On some spiritual measures, the young even score higher.
46% of US adults ages 18 to 24 identify as Christian (2023-24), compared with 80% of adults ages 74 and older, according to Pew Research Center.
| Statistic | Value | Year | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ages 18-24 who pray daily (vs 58% of oldest adults) | 27% | 2023-24 | Pew Research Center |
| Ages 18-24 religiously unaffiliated (vs 13% of oldest adults) | 43% | 2023-24 | Pew Research Center |
| Ages 18-24 feeling deep wonder about the universe monthly | 63% | 2023-24 | Pew Research Center |
Switching and the rise of the nones
The mirror image of Christian decline is the growth of the religiously unaffiliated, the 'nones,' who now make up close to three in ten US adults. Religious switching over a lifetime has driven this shift, producing net losses for Christianity. But rising retention among those raised with no religion is one reason the nones' share may now be stabilizing.
29% of US adults are religiously unaffiliated (2023-24), comprising 19% 'nothing in particular,' 6% agnostic, and 5% atheist, according to Pew Research Center.
35% of US adults have switched away from the religion in which they were raised (2023-24), a pattern that has produced net losses for Christianity and net gains for the unaffiliated, according to Pew Research Center.
| Statistic | Value | Year | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Unaffiliated share in 2007 (rose to 29% by 2023-24) | 16% | 2007 | Pew Research Center |
| Raised unaffiliated who remain unaffiliated as adults | 73% | 2023-24 | Pew Research Center |
| Identify with a non-Christian religion (context) | 7% | 2023-24 | Pew Research Center |
How we compiled these statistics
Every figure on this page is traced to a primary source and dated to the year the data was collected. Identity, belief, prayer, attendance, generational, and switching figures come from Pew Research Center's 2023-24 Religious Landscape Study (36,908 US adults, July 2023 to March 2024) and its topical sub-reports. The Christian-share, white-Christian, and unaffiliated-plateau figures come from PRRI's Census of American Religion (roughly 40,000 Ipsos KnowledgePanel respondents). Long-run attendance, belief-in-God, and religion-importance context comes from Gallup. Where sources use different definitions, such as PRRI's higher Christian share or Gallup's simpler belief question, we say so rather than pick the most flattering number. We exclude politics and culture-war cross-tabs, church-finance figures, and the retracted UK 'Quiet Revival' data, and present non-Christian-religion figures only as comparative context.
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