Study finds US church membership plummeting

By Umar Farooq</p> <p>WASHINGTON (AA) – The number of Americans affiliated with a church or other religious institution has plummeted over the past two decades, hitting a low last year, according to a study released Thursday.</p> <p>The Gallup poll said that in 1999, church membership was 70% but has fallen steadily since then.</p> <p>The main reason for the decline, according to the study, is due to an overall increase in the percentage of people who do not identify with any religion.</p> <p>&quot;The decline in church membership mostly reflects the fact that fewer Americans than in the past now have any religious affiliation,&quot; Gallup said in a press release. &quot;However, even those who do identify with a particular religion are less likely to belong to a church or other place of worship than in the past.&quot;</p> <p>The number of Americans without a religious preference has doubled since 1999, rising from 8% to 19%, according to the study.</p> <p>There was a stark contrast in the decline when comparing it to political orientation. Since 1999, the number of Democrats affiliated with a church dropped from 71% to 48%, whereas among Republicans, it was a smaller drop from 77% to 69%.</p> <p>Among the various demographic groups, the drop in church membership was the largest among Hispanic Americans, falling from 68% to 45% since 2000.</p> <p>Gallup found that the drop in membership was also much more prominent among Catholics, from 76% to 63%, than Protestants, from 73% to 67%.</p> <p>&quot;Another obstacle churches face is Americans' eroding confidence in the institution of organized religion,&quot; Gallup said. &quot;While organized religion is not the only U.S. institution suffering a loss of confidence, Americans have lost more confidence in it than in most other institutions.&quot;</p> <p>The findings by Gallup are based on surveys that were conducted over the past 20 years, with most of them having at least 2,000 U.S. adults with a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points and a 95% confidence level. </p> <p>Some of the findings are based on interviews conducted from 1998-2000 and 2016-2018, and each of those periods included interviews with over 7,000 adults with a margin of error of plus or minus 1 percentage point.</p> <p>