The US is generally thought to be far more religious than Europe – especially Western Europe. Americans are much more likely to be “certain” that God exists, to pray every day, to say religion is “very important” in their lives, and to attend religious services on a regular basis. Here’s a chart made by the sociologist Ryan Burge, which compares weekly religious attendance in US states and European countries:
With a few notable exceptions (such as famously Catholic Poland), there is almost no overlap. US states have much higher rates of religious attendance than European countries. In fact, the least religious US state, New Hampshire, has a higher rate of religious attendance than no less than 20 European countries – including Britain, France and Germany.
But has religious attendance in the US been overestimated? A new paper suggests it might.
Economist Devin Pope obtained a large dataset comprising the locations of millions of smartphone users at various times of day. These locations were inferred based on ‘pings’ made by the smartphones at particular latitude-longitude coordinates. For example, if a user’s smartphone pinged at the coordinates of a church, it was inferred that the user was attending a religious service.
Encouragingly, the dataset looked to be reasonably representative. For example, the distribution of smartphone users across US states was similar to the actual distribution of people across states. Users in the dataset were slightly wealthier than the average American – which isn’t surprising since they were selected for owing a smartphone (though these days, the vast majority of Americans can afford one).
Using the smartphone data, Pope was able to estimate the percentage of Americans who attend religious services yearly, monthly and weekly. What did he find? The chart below compares his results with those from Pew Research surveys.
As you can see, Pope’s results suggest that yearly attendance has been underestimated but that weekly attendance has been substantially overestimated. According to Pew Research surveys, 22% of Americans attendance a religious service each week. But according to smartphone data, the figure is closer to 5%. (Pope defined ‘weekly’ attendance as going at least three times per month).
Incidentally, one reason why the smartphone data gives a higher figure for yearly attendance is that Pew Research asks about religious attendance “aside from weddings and funerals”, whereas the smartphone data makes no such distinction.
One reason surveys might overestimate religious attendance is social desirability bias. Saying you go to church regularly makes you sound like a good person, especially in a God-fearing country like the US. So some Americans might tell pollsters they go to church regularly when they actually go irregularly, or not at all.
However, it’s also possible that the smartphone data are biased and weekly attendance hasn’t been overestimated. Indeed, the sociologist Lyman Stone is not convinced by Pope’s analysis.
He gives a number of reasons why the smartphone data would yield ‘too low’ estimates of weekly attendance: some people don’t take their phones to church; some of those who do turn them off or put them on airplane mode; and older churches have poor signal quality because they’re often made of stone. (According to a survey Pope himself carried out, less than 80% of Americans “always” take their phones to church.)
For my own part, Stone’s scepticism seems justified. On the other hand, if Pope is proven correct, the US will fall down the rankings of weekly attendance to become just an ordinary European country – and a lot of our assumptions will have to be revised.
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Presumably smartphone data would also have an age bias. I imagine (though this might not be true) older worshippers are less likely to have a mobile phone and, if they have one, are less likely to take it to church. And perhaps that demographic might be expected to have the most regular church attendance.
Church goers probably have more discipline and thought for others..They might even switch their phone off our if respect for the occasion.
Nonsense. Who is Pope and why do I care? More Christophobia and fake data. Religious attendance by actually counting people in the bloody pews each week at the parish level, reveals that the US is the last bastion of mass religiosity in the soon demised ‘West’. I would guess 22% weekly attendance is low, more likely 1/3. But counting actual people is too hard. Better fake the data with surrogate markers. Einstein would approve.
I don’t care what the researcher Devil Pope thinks. He can’t do anymore harm than the real pope. The rise in young people going to Latin mass in Australia and America had to be stopped. They youngsters weren’t particularly religious people, but who doesn’t like a good old Gregorian chant.
https://quadrant.org.au/opinion/religion/2022/08/go-in-peace-but-never-in-latin/
Denmark!
Used to be one of the most God-fearing nations.
Wouldn’t a comparison have to be made with smart phones in church locations in Europe before a claim that the gap between American and European church attendance is exaggerated can be made?
This interesting article made me curious about church attendance, and I learned something new: that Catholics worldwide are OBLIGED to attend Sunday Mass every week, being told that it is a sin not to attend. At least they are not threatened like Muslims, who are told by their imams that if they don’t attend a mosque and pray 5 times a day, “something bad will happen to them”. Hence the high numbers attending mosques.
Someone mentioned that in some Catholic countries, the men stand outside smoking throughout the Sunday Mass, only entering the church during the offertory, in order to fulfil their “obligation” and “avoid going to Hell”.
As for Protestants, I was shocked to see an enthusiastic, regular church-goer today, eyes glued to her Smartphone, busily scrolling during the entire service, ignoring the hymns and prayers, never even taking her eyes off her phone for a second. So yes, she was in church, but might as well have been smoking outside like the Catholic men.
In all these cases, the idea of repentance for sin is thrown out the window. They forget what Jesus said: “Lest ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish”, and as he said to the adulterous woman, “Go, and sin no more.” He didn’t say, “Go, and sin as much as you want, go marching down the street waving banners boasting of your sin, and threaten to jail anyone who disagrees with you.”