Religious behavior is almost always assessed through one simple measure – frequency of religious attendance. And there’s a good reason for that: it’s included in basically every survey of American adults. So it’s easy to just copy and paste it…
The Religious Behavior Index: How Engaged Are Americans, Really?
In 1972, 41% of Americans in the General Social Survey reported that they attended religious services nearly every week or more. In 2024, that share had declined to just about 25%. At the same time, the share of those who…
Who Do You Talk to When You’re Struggling?
Who do you talk to when you’re struggling? When it feels like you’re carrying the weight of the world and there’s no way out of the mess you’re in—who can you turn to for an honest conversation? I’d bet that for a…
Why nondenominational churches aren’t Baptist churches in disguise
The data post from Ryan Burge caught my eye — as usual. But one of the comments below the post really got my attention. “Let’s be real, non-denoms are basically Baptists,” the commenter said. This was in response to Burge’s…
Built for a Church That No Longer Exists
Sometimes the doom scrolling really does pay off. I hate to admit it, but flicking through thousands of social media posts a week is a way that I can find interesting stories to write about for Graphs about Religion. And,…
The Denomination That’s Half Evangelical, Half Black Protestant — And somehow holding together
A deep dive into Seventh-day Adventists
What Ryan Burge sees in America’s megachurches
Americans are fascinated with megachurches, and that is leading some of the nation’s largest churches to keep getting larger, according to religion researcher Ryan Burge. Burge, a professor of practice at the Danforth Center on Religion and Politics at Washington University, has…
54 Countries, One Survey, A Lot of Religion
When I was in graduate school our program required each student to have two majors and a minor field. I knew one of my major fields was going to be American politics – that was an easy choice. I was…
Can Americans Still Get Ahead?
I’ve often thought that the one of the most caustic emotions that I can have is despair. For me, despair is that terrible, unwavering feeling that no matter what I do in my life, things just won’t get better. It’s…
What’s Happening with America’s Seminaries?
Fun fact — I almost went to seminary. In my last year of undergraduate I took the LSAT twice, didn’t love my scores, and applied to a handful of law schools. I didn’t get into any of them. (For those wondering, this…
“I Go to Church a Little Bit”
A couple of months ago, I wrote a post about folks who report that they attend religious services multiple times a week. They make up about 6–8% of the country, and they are a qualitatively different group than people who…
Burge documents who watches what brand of broadcast news
Ryan Burge has documented a truth of America news media consumption that has become gospel in the last 30 years: Republicans and conservative evangelicals are vastly more influenced by Fox News than other Americans. However, Burge unearthed a surprising data…