But COVID-19 pandemic still a major presence in houses of worship as many Christians plan to stay home on Easter
WASHINGTON, D.C. (March 22, 2021) – As coronavirus cases, hospitalizations and deaths decline and vaccination rates rise across the United States, life in religious congregations is showing signs of slowly returning to normal. A new Pew Research Center survey finds that Americans are increasingly confident they can safely go to services at a church, temple, mosque or other house of worship. And the percentage who say they actually have attended religious services – in person – in the past month is slightly higher than it was last summer. Still, the situation in U.S. congregations remains far from ordinary, and this promises to be the second consecutive highly atypical Easter season for Christians.
Three-quarters of U.S. adults who normally attend religious services now say they are “very” or “somewhat” confident they can do so safely, without spreading or catching the coronavirus – up 12 percentage points from when this question was last asked in July 2020. Over that period, there also has been a considerable drop in the share who say they think their congregation should be closed to help stop the spread of the virus.
Roughly four-in-ten people who typically attend religious services at least once or twice a month say they actually have done so, in person, during the past month – up 9 points since last summer. And as in-person attendance has trended upward, there has been a corresponding decline in the share of regular religious attenders who recently have watched services streamed online or on television.
But while in-person religious attendance has begun to rebound, it still is far from normal. Most people who say they generally attend religious services at least once or twice a month (58%) say they have not attended during the past month. And just four-in-ten U.S. Christians (39%) plan to go in person to church services this Easter Sunday, which is sharply lower than the 62% who say they typically go to church on Easter.
Furthermore, while growing numbers of religious attenders think their congregations should be open, the clear majority continues to say that various modifications and restrictions – such as social distancing, mask-wearing and limiting the number of people who can attend at any one time – are needed to continue the fight against the spread of the virus. And these kinds of modifications remain widespread. In addition to the 17% of U.S. attenders who say their congregation currently is closed, another two-thirds say their congregation is now open but only on a modified basis due to the pandemic. Just 12% say their congregation is open and operating as usual – double the number who said this in July 2020, but still a far cry from normal.
These are among the key findings of a new Pew Research Center survey conducted March 1-7, 2021, among 12,055 U.S. adults on the Center’s online, nationally representative American Trends Panel. The margin of sampling error for the full sample of 12,055 respondents is plus or minus 1.5 percentage points. More information on how the survey was conducted is available in the methodology.
Other key findings from the new study include:
- Just as in July 2020, eight-in-ten U.S. religious attenders – ranging from 73% among Catholics to 87% among those in the evangelical and mainline Protestant traditions – say their congregation is currently recording or streaming its services so that people can watch online or on TV.
- Republicans and those who lean toward the Republican Party are far more comfortable than Democrats and Democratic leaners with returning to normal congregational life sooner rather than later. Among those who typically attend religious services on a monthly basis (or more), Republicans are more than twice as likely as Democrats to say they have attended services in person during the past month (57% vs. 26%).
- Compared with the summer of 2020, in-person religious attendance – and confidence that it is safe – is up in all regions of the country. For instance, the share of religious attenders who say they are “very confident” they can attend services safely, without catching or spreading COVID-19, has grown by 13 percentage points in both the Northeast and the West (where the shares who are now “very confident” stand at 47% and 44%, respectively), by 12 points in the Midwest (to 49% now) and by 7 points in the South (where 42% are now “very confident” they can attend services safely).
- In addition to its questions about congregational involvement, the new survey also asked Americans whether their own faith has grown stronger, weaker or not changed much as a result of the coronavirus pandemic. It finds that roughly one-quarter of U.S. adults say their religious faith has grown stronger as a result of the pandemic, while 4% say their faith has been weakened; the remainder say that their faith has not changed much, including those who say they were not religious to begin with and still are not.
- While Black Americans are among the groups least inclined to return to religious life as normal in their congregations right now (before they think it is safe to do so), they are the most inclined to say their own religious faith has grown stronger as a result of the pandemic. Overall, 38% of Black adults say their faith has grown stronger as a result of the pandemic, compared with 27% of Hispanic adults and 19% of non-Hispanic White adults who say this.
To read the report, go to: https://www.pewforum.org/2021/03/22/life-in-u-s-religious-congregations-slowly-edges-back-toward-normal
Methodology: https://www.pewforum.org/2021/03/22/methodology-38
Survey topline: https://www.pewforum.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/7/2021/03/PF_03.22.21_religion.covid_topline.pdf
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