As this country celebrates its second most popular religious holiday (behind christmas), churches are facing a serious situation -- declining membership. Church membership has declined from about 70% in 1998 to about 50% in 2018. That a huge 20 point drop in just the last 20 years.
Will this trend continue in the future? I believe it will. With the advent of the internet, the non-religious no longer feel alone and pressured to be like those around them. They now know there are millions of people just like them.
While this change is most prominent among younger Americans, with only 42% of millennials being church members, the decline in membership has been across all generations. The decline among Gen X is 8 points, Baby Boomers is 10 points, and Traditionalists (those older than the Boomers) 9 points.
These charts are from a recent Gallup Poll.
Results for the 1998-2000 aggregated data are based on interviews with 7,184 national adults and have a margin of sampling error of ±1 percentage point at the 95% confidence level.
Results for the 2016-2018 aggregated data are based on interviews with 7,688 national adults and have a margin of sampling error of ±1 percentage point at the 95% confidence level.
