No Natural Bottom....Maybe

The decline since 2019 (WSJ graph)

The decline in the number of Americans who felt religion was personally important declined precipitously during COVID-19. Church attendance also dropped off, which was expected due to public-health prohibitions against gatherings. However, attendance has not returned to pre-pandemic levels.

A Wall Street Journal-NORC poll published last month found that only 39% of Americans described religion as “very important” to them, down from 48% in 2019, before the pandemic. That represented an accelerated drop in a longer decline, from 62% in 1998.

A study by Pew Research Center, also released last month, found that the share of U.S. adult Christians who attended worship at least once a month in 2022 was 43%, down from 49% in 2019. Twenty-two percent of Christians say they now watch online or televised services more than they did before the pandemic, though 6% say they watch less.

Unlike economic recessions or bear markets, where prices fall low enough so that people start buying again, there doesn't seem to be a natural bottom that will cause attendance decline to reverse.

However, I'm sanguine about the prospects of organized religion. The baby boomers as a group have enjoyed unprecedented longevity and secular prosperity. However, they have only delayed confronting their own mortality and its concomitant concerns.

as a young person, I was too busy making plans pursuing worldly goals, though I never completely disengaged from organized religion. I only started drifting back due to: 1) more frequent reminders of my own mortality; 2) attainment of some objectives did not achieve fulfillment and raised the is-that-all-there-is question; 3) the Christian perspective really did prove insightful at crucial turning points.

The old rules-to-live-by that were dismissed as obsolete may not be irrelevant after all.