{"id":852544,"date":"2025-06-26T05:00:38","date_gmt":"2025-06-26T10:00:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/churchanswers.com\/?p=852544"},"modified":"2025-06-25T12:07:08","modified_gmt":"2025-06-25T17:07:08","slug":"the-biggest-shift-in-american-religion-you-probably-missed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/churchanswers.com\/blog\/the-biggest-shift-in-american-religion-you-probably-missed\/","title":{"rendered":"The Biggest Shift in American Religion You Probably Missed"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\t\t<div class=\"content-restriction-preview\"><p>Sometimes a major change in society makes all the headlines. For instance, public opinion around the issue of same-sex marriage had been shifting toward support for decades, but when the Supreme Court ruled in <i>Obergefell v. Hodges<\/i> in 2015, everyone saw a tangible manifestation of that societal change. When Barack Obama was elected president in 2008, it was clear evidence that the United States had moved into a more multi-racial future, and while racism had certainly not gone extinct, it was waning.\u00a0<\/p> <p>Then, other major shifts often go almost entirely unnoticed because there is no clear inflection point. That\u2019s what happens pretty often in the world of American religion. Many changes in this arena can be described as glacial. The share of Christians drops a single percentage point every two or three years. Because it\u2019s occurring so slowly, it\u2019s hard to detect such a change. However, over time, that leads<\/p><\/div>\n\t\t<div class=\"content-restriction-block\">\n\t\t\t<div class=\"content-restriction-block-login login-toggle\">Already a member? <a href=\"#\">Log in<\/a><\/div>\n\t\t\t<div class=\"content-restriction-block-content\">\n\t\t\t\t<h2>Unlock premium content!<\/h2>\n\t\t\t\t<p>Get access to all Church Answers premium content from our expert contributors plus many other membership benefits.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t<h3>$9.97 per month<\/h3>\n\t\t\t\t<p>Unlimited access<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t<a href=\"https:\/\/churchanswers.com\/join\/\" class=\"button\">Join Now<\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\n\t\t<div class=\"content-restriction-preview\"><p>Sometimes a major change in society makes all the headlines. For instance, public opinion around the issue of same-sex marriage had been shifting toward support for decades, but when the Supreme Court ruled in <i>Obergefell v. Hodges<\/i> in 2015, everyone saw a tangible manifestation of that societal change. When Barack Obama was elected president in 2008, it was clear evidence that the United States had moved into a more multi-racial future, and while racism had certainly not gone extinct, it was waning.\u00a0<\/p> <p>Then, other major shifts often go almost entirely unnoticed because there is no clear inflection point. That\u2019s what happens pretty often in the world of American religion. Many changes in this arena can be described as glacial. The share of Christians drops a single percentage point every two or three years. Because it\u2019s occurring so slowly, it\u2019s hard to detect such a change. However, over time, that leads<\/p><\/div>\n\t\t<div class=\"content-restriction-block\">\n\t\t\t<div class=\"content-restriction-block-login login-toggle\">Already a member? <a href=\"#\">Log in<\/a><\/div>\n\t\t\t<div class=\"content-restriction-block-content\">\n\t\t\t\t<h2>Unlock premium content!<\/h2>\n\t\t\t\t<p>Get access to all Church Answers premium content from our expert contributors plus many other membership benefits.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t<h3>$9.97 per month<\/h3>\n\t\t\t\t<p>Unlimited access<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t<a href=\"https:\/\/churchanswers.com\/join\/\" class=\"button\">Join Now<\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t","protected":false},"author":17635,"featured_media":852548,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"publish_to_discourse":"0","publish_post_category":"1","wpdc_auto_publish_overridden":"","wpdc_topic_tags":"","wpdc_pin_topic":"","wpdc_pin_until":"","discourse_post_id":"","discourse_permalink":"","wpdc_publishing_response":"","wpdc_publishing_error":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[193,1,183,184,175,186,177,178,14796,180,194,18058,176,185],"tags":[20809,20807,19410,20806,20808],"class_list":["post-852544","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-administration-and-finance","category-church-answers","category-communications","category-discipleship","category-grow","category-health-and-metrics","category-lead","category-membership-and-assimilation","category-monday-wednesday-featured","category-outreach-and-evangelism","category-preaching","category-premium","category-revitalize","category-worship","tag-the-nones-by-ryan-burge","tag-american-religion","tag-religious-composition","tag-the-biggest-shift-in-american-religion-you-probably-missed","tag-weekly-religious-attendance","membership-content","access-restricted"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.7 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>The Biggest Shift in American Religion You Probably Missed | Church Answers<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Sometimes a major change in society makes all the headlines. For instance, public opinion around the issue of same-sex marriage had been shifting toward support for decades, but when the Supreme Court ruled in Obergefell v. Hodges in 2015, everyone saw a tangible manifestation of that societal change. When Barack Obama was elected president in 2008, it was clear evidence that the United States had moved into a more multi-racial future, and while racism had certainly not gone extinct, it was waning. Then, other major shifts often go almost entirely unnoticed because there is no clear inflection point. That\u2019s what happens pretty often in the world of American religion. Many changes in this arena can be described as glacial. The share of Christians drops a single percentage point every two or three years. Because it\u2019s occurring so slowly, it\u2019s hard to detect such a change. However, over time, that leads to some pretty tectonic shifts in American society. Well, I have evidence of one of those changes occurring, and to my knowledge, there were no newspaper headlines about it. The General Social Survey has been tracking trends in American society since 1972. It\u2019s always asked respondents how often they attend a house of worship. What was the most popular option between the early 1970s and 2016? Weekly religious attendance. But in 2018 that changed.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/churchanswers.com\/blog\/the-biggest-shift-in-american-religion-you-probably-missed\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Biggest Shift in American Religion You Probably Missed | Church Answers\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Sometimes a major change in society makes all the headlines. For instance, public opinion around the issue of same-sex marriage had been shifting toward support for decades, but when the Supreme Court ruled in Obergefell v. Hodges in 2015, everyone saw a tangible manifestation of that societal change. When Barack Obama was elected president in 2008, it was clear evidence that the United States had moved into a more multi-racial future, and while racism had certainly not gone extinct, it was waning. Then, other major shifts often go almost entirely unnoticed because there is no clear inflection point. That\u2019s what happens pretty often in the world of American religion. Many changes in this arena can be described as glacial. The share of Christians drops a single percentage point every two or three years. Because it\u2019s occurring so slowly, it\u2019s hard to detect such a change. However, over time, that leads to some pretty tectonic shifts in American society. Well, I have evidence of one of those changes occurring, and to my knowledge, there were no newspaper headlines about it. The General Social Survey has been tracking trends in American society since 1972. It\u2019s always asked respondents how often they attend a house of worship. What was the most popular option between the early 1970s and 2016? Weekly religious attendance. 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