I am a first-generation Chinese American, born in China, raised in America. In China, Christianity is a minority religion, and that is the case across East Asia. In America, it seems to me that almost everyone is Christian or comes from a Christian family or comes from a country heavily colonized by Europeans or has an Abrahamic faith background (Jews, Muslims) or has basic knowledge of the western canon (such as the Bible). And here I am, in the US, wondering where I fit in.
Whites, Blacks, Hispanics/Latinos, Indigenous, Asians. They all seem to have their own little churches. Even among the so-called non-believers, they seem to be loosely connected to the church in some way, through family members, holidays, weddings and funerals.
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It isn’t important to me and I don’t know anyone that attends, whether it be family or friends.
My parents aren’t religious and my grandparents weren’t either. At least not later in life. They didn’t attend church, and they all opted for no service after death. Straight into the incinerator. I’ve never attended a church funeral. A wake at the non-denominational funeral home, yes.
I’ve been to backyard or banquet hall weddings. No church.
To my parents it was a huge deal. To me and my kids, it is nothing we care about.
It’s not really very important for my family. We have a few family members who are somewhat religious, but most are not. I’ve been to church for a service twice in the last 10 years.
GenX, here. My parents go, but none of we kids will.
The only times I’ve set foot in a church as an adult is for weddings or funerals. And that one time my kid needed to use the bathroom during a winter festival.
Not at all. I have a few extended family who are very religious, but my immediate family is not.
I’m from New England with non-religious parents, and my partner and I also aren’t religious, so not at all for my immediate family. My SO’s mom is a raving born-again, though, and she’s constantly pressuring my SO to start going to church. There’s a reason we live 1000 miles away from her.
Not very important in my immediate family at all (Northeasterners/Catholic), but pretty important to some of my extended family (Southeastern/Catholic), and very very very important to other of my extended family (Southeastern/Evangelical). The answer to this question is very geographically specific. Some places, like the northeast and west coast, have a culture that keeps religion firmly in the private sphere. Some places like the southeast, have a culture where it’s not strange to ask “what church do you go to” in the first set of “getting to know you” questions.
I’m atheist and my immediate family is agnostic, so not at all. However, some of my closest friends attend.
It’s not really. Besides attending mass on Christmas Eve and Easter Sunday with my grandparents, church was generally not important. My sister later married into a mildly religious family but I have found myself to have less and less patience and tolerance with religion in general as I’ve gotten older.
Approximately -23% important. Both my husband and I were raised without religion so it’s unimportance has compounded for our kid’s familial generation.
ETA I don’t have any friends that attend church but a small handful that are Muslim or Jewish and attend religious services.
Like most of the developed western world, the US has lower church attendance than it did 20 years ago. Increasingly the things we saw as being vital services provided by places of worship and congregations are now being provided by faith based charities that aren’t necessarily attached to a specific congregation or even a specific faith belief, non-profit organizations, and government services.
Many may have grown up in a household with faith, and still see the value it provides in terms of community and culture even if they don’t openly practice it themselves.
Christianity can also be really flexible and you can mix and match beliefs and worship styles that fit your congregation. American Catholics are often derisively referred to as “cafeteria Catholics”, picking and choosing beliefs that they want while setting other beliefs to the side.
We’re Lutheran and it’s pretty important.
Not important at all. We are Agnostic at most. My kids do go to a Christian preschool but that’s simply because part time secular preschools do not exist near us. But we don’t attend church just because they go to school there.
We do celebrate Christian holidays, but in a total secular, cultural way (ie- Santa for Christmas and Easter Bunny for Easter).
That said, I live in the South now (from the Midwest) and Christianity is definitely a big deal around here. Much bigger deal than in the Midwest.
Not at all except where it influences public policy.
My family and are secular.
Medium deal. I grew up in a southern state but a pretty populous/liberal city so church was a thing for my family but most of my friends didn’t go.
My family wasn’t overtly religious apart from Sundays, we said grace at dinnertime and I wasn’t allowed to take the Lord’s name in vain but other than that religion wasn’t really a bit part of our day to day life (my parents never used religion to explain their parenting or political beliefs, for example).
We went 1x a week until I left for college and mostly dropped it. I think my parents were a bit disappointed but understood it was my choice so it wasn’t super dramatic. We go for Easter and Christmas these days but for me it’s mostly a nostalgic tradition thing than from any real tie to the faith or even community. It’s more of a holiday ceremony.
I did have a few friends whose families were very religious, they would do Bible readings at home and religion was regularly brought up in casual conversation for them, but that wasn’t very common in my experience.
0%
We’re basically half feral heathens
Jewish here-so no church, but going to services at our synagogue is very important for me and my family. It’s also has a huge community aspect to it too. Lots of friends and social events. As crazy as the world is, it’s nice to be part of a community that shares your values and helps me feel less anonymous in the world because there are people in our community that truly care for me as I do for them.
Very important
It’s not.
How important the church is to you really depends on your individual family and that’s also influenced a lot by where you live.
My family is Mormon (a branch of Christianity) and it’s HUGELY important to them. We went to church every week and church activities every Wednesday, and as teenagers my brother and I went to early morning seminary (like Bible study) every weekday before school. We weren’t allowed to do anything the church didn’t permit and my parents also didn’t do things the church didn’t permit (no smoking, drinking, or having coffee, etc.) the same is true for almost everyone on both sides of the extended family (I think some cousins have either left the church or no longer actively participate but all my aunts and uncles and grandparents are active.) A connection to God was and still is important to me but I no longer believe in that specific church, I’m kind of in the process of converting to another religion right now. My family’s attitude about it is more or less “well you have the right to make that choice but it’s not great.”
My husband is atheist. His mom considers herself a Christian but doesn’t really do much to practice it besides celebrating holidays. She doesn’t go to church or anything.
As far as basic knowledge of the Bible goes… the sixth grade curriculum right now requires students to learn the basics (BARE BONES BASICS) of Confucianism, Taoism, Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism and Christianity. But most adults end up more familiar with Christianity just through sheer osmosis even if they aren’t Christian (of course if you actively practice another religion you learn more about that but I’m saying for atheists and agnostics.)
Im not even baptized. Just out here being a heathen.
It’s important to me and my family. But on reddit church goers are a minority but it’s still big. I’m not protestant though so I couldn’t tell you how that works
I’ve only ever been in a church for weddings and funerals. I’ve never been in one for a religious service.
Direct family (Mother, father, siblings) not at all.
Indirect (aunts, uncles, cousins, grandparents) very.
I’m a good for nothing heathen.
Some of my family including my mom are pretty religious, but of the “centrist mainline and you don’t talk about it” sort of variety. We went to church on the important days (Christmas, Palm Sunday, Easter) growing up, and occasionally other times, but it was never a big deal.
I occasionally attend services but I’m not really devout, I just enjoy the sense of community. I have one friend and a couple coworkers who are Christian, and they mostly keep it to themself. I know more Muslims, Jews, Hindus, or Buddhists than I do Christians lol
Where you fit – in with the rest of us! There are plenty of non-religious families, and that number is growing. Even those that say they are religious, many don’t practice. I still consider myself a Catholic – but in truth, we barely go to church (at my age – it’s mostly for funerals)
Growing up in the 90s, going to Catholic mass was important, but being a Filipino-American family it was more of a social thing than spiritual, a place to see all the other families once a week. Then as we got older we became what’s called C&E Catholics, showing up only on Christmas and Easter out of some lingering obligation.
By now, it plays almost no role, and with the abuse scandals of the Catholic Church and many other sects, in my family at least, it’s not even indifference, but negative polarization against organized religion now.
The US is less Christian than it likes to think. A recent mass study on church attendance in America based on anonymized cell phone location data suggests (well, concretely demonstrates) that people overstate their church attendance to researchers like Pew. The actual number of weekly church goers is something like 5 percent of the population. Less than half the population ever goes. (This survey covered all religions that have locatable houses of worship, not just Christian churches.)
https://youtu.be/Fgpms51vAcQ?si=BdEolktZ6cYIMNrX
It’s extremely important to my parents. And when I was a kid, it was important to me.
Now that I’m an adult, it’s not the slightest bit important to me or the vast majority of people I know. The only friends I have that attend church are ordained ministers.
Not at all, I have never gone to a church with my family unless there is a funeral is in a church
It’s not. We celebrate Christmas, but from a very secular place. My mom occasionally goes to church events, but rarely services. It’s a very liberal church and focuses a lot more on the outreach and community parts than the Jesus parts.
Any time I meet someone who goes to church and is under 80 years old I’m thrown by it. (There’s also a contingent of parents of 14 year olds and said 14 year olds who go to catholic churches for a minute to get through confirmation to appease grandma, but that’s it)
Not really. Although I did go to a Lutheran school from 1st – 12th grade, but that was more for getting a better education.
Most Americans at this point are Christian in name only.
My grandparents went to church religiously (no pun intended).
My parents went when they were kids, but gradually stopped going as often.
As a kid we went pretty often, but by the time I was in high school we were what’s called a “C and E” -er. Meaning we would go to church on Christmas and Easter, but that’s about it.
Among my friends and colleagues, weekly attendance to church is very uncommon. Maybe we’ll get more into it when we get older, but as it stands it’s not looking good.
The single largest denomination of Christianity is Catholicism, and while Pope Francis tried to be as progressive as possible, it just feels too antiquated. Much of scripture is at odds with extremely prominent social issues (gay marriage and abortion specifically) which is the primary reason I do not see myself ever getting back into it.
There are Christian denominations that are more socially liberal, but idk I just don’t ever see faith being a part of my life.
That being said, I will probably baptize my own children someday. And I’ll probably get married in a church. Not really sure why, just feels right. I imagine a lot of people feel this way.
Zero importance.
Depends. My parents don’t care if I go to church or not, neither does my grandmother on my mother’s side. My father’s mother however would insist I sat through a Protestant service and I’d do it since she’s nearly 100
I’m an atheist. My spouse is an atheist. My sister was an atheist.
I’m from New England, the least religious part of the country. The church I grew up was more of a community service organization. It gave me a strong set of personal ethics.
4th Gen Asian-American here and The United Methodist Church is a big part of my family culture on my mom’s side. (My dad’s side is mostly Buddhist).
I grew up going to church every Sunday, celebrating Christian holidays with family, and singing hymns from the Methodist Hymnal at every large family gathering.
The United Methodist Church is also the basis of my family’s left wing social activism and community volunteering.
I was raised Catholic and had a good experience. I believe in some of the ideology and other stuff is stupid. We always called it cafeteria Catholic as we picked and chose. Our parrish was extremely liberal for the times. My parents go on occasion but I do not.
Important in my family. Father and both grandfathers were ministers, now my son-in-law is in a church adjacent ministry. Most of my family attends services once a week, sometimes more. I’m not currently attending services because I haven’t found a place of belonging in our little town. Before we moved here we did attend services regularly, participated in outreach ministries, etc.
Not at all.
Cannot remember the last time I walked into any church type place.
My mom is a true believer, at least as far as I can tell.
I remember being in church in, I’d guess second or third grade, and thinking, “this is stupid. How can they all believe this? Surely most of them don’t believe this nonsense?”
When she was little, my mom sent our daughter a Little People Nativity set. We gave her the animals and the cart and sold the rest on eBay.
We’ve taught our daughter about Christianity in the same way as the other major world religions. I don’t think she’s been in a church at all more than a couple times, neither of them to attend a service.
We “observe” the two major Christian holidays, but in a secular way – Christmas is gifts and food and Santa Claus, Easter is baskets and candy and bunnies.
My life is centered around it.
Asking on Reddit isn’t going to get you fair answer of America tho lol. It’s like asking what your political affiliation is.
Whether anyone is personally religious or not, the “western canon” is the foundation for much of our literature and thought. It’s not just Shakespeare — it’s the Simpsons. It saturates the culture, so if you’re completely ignorant of that background, you are going to feel kind of left out. A simple fix for that is to do the reading. You don’t even need to read the entire Bible. If you read Genesis, Exodus, Luke, and John (look in the Table of Contents), you’ll see a lot of the cultural references you’ve been missing.
It’s a big deal in my family. As for more generally…. It’s a big deal for a lot of people and not at all for a lot of people. Which group is larger for you is going to depend on where you live and your circle of friends.
Grew up without it,
For Wife and I + Kids, It’s the very foundation of our relationship/family.
Very important. We all (my family of 5, My 3 brothers and their families, and my parents) go to Church pretty much every Sunday morning and the gals and kids also attend Wednesday night supper at the church.
You don’t need to go to church to be a Christian.
If you are of Chinese decent and want to go to a Christian Church, there are plenty where people of all races are welcome.
There are also many different Asian Christian churches tailored more towards Asian people who offer the services in different languages. Korean ones seem to be the most common in Los Angeles.
I try to go 3x a month. I am not super religious. I’m more there for the community. It gives my kids friends they don’t go to school with across different socio-economic groups and backgrounds. A little faith isn’t a bad thing either.
Honestly, I see more diversity of thought in the church circle than the school circle.
My co-workers would never pick me as the guy who goes to church and most of my friends probably have no idea either.
Not at all. Mostly because we aren’t Christian.
We do go to the mosque twice a year on the Eids. That’s pretty much it in terms of houses of worship.
My father grew up with religion ‘stuffed down his throat’ and said no way am I doing that to my kids (thanks Dad!!)
So while I was free to explore religion, I could never convince myself of the mythology of it. So I am an atheist. I am a minority here in the USA, even in a blue state like California.
Dealing with religious people is exhausting… ok, I’ll play along with your little fairy tale. <eyeroll> But really…one of my direct reports has 90 mins of working time blocked off for company sponsored prayer time. 😵💫
Married a man that is also an atheist with his dad being all about science and facts. His mom clings to Catholism because ???? which is irrational and irritating but here we are.
For me, the church is a group of fallable humans. My faith is in Christ himself. Obviously, I’m a Christian.
google says 62% of americans are christians, and while that’s a lot of people, it’s certainly not “almost everyone.” It really depends on the circles you run in.
I was raised a Jehovah’s Witness. Your entire life revolves around the Kingdom Hall if you practice that religion. Since leaving, not much. My children went to Catholic school, but that’s because it happened to be a better school than the public school near us. One of them chose to be confirmed; the other skipped. I made it clear it was entirely their choice.
This is another example of how huge the United States is and how different the culture is in different areas.
In New York, Boston, LA, etc, church attendance is relatively low.
In the Bible Belt (roughly the area where slavery was legal), it’s much, much more common.
It’s also another big rural/urban divide. For city dwellers, it’s less common than for folks living in the country.
Church is hugely important to our family. All of my children are adults and for all of us, our faith is the core of our lives.
I grew up culturally Christian, but my family didn’t attend a church. I was an atheist most of my life. My husband and I joined a church several years ago, and it has become a significant part of our lives. We volunteer a lot of time there helping the community, my husband serves on the board, and we socialize with people from the community.
As a Native American, assimilating to Christianity was how my people survived. My aunts needed a “safe” place and if they embraced the religion then that meant they’d be saved. My uncles don’t talk about their experiences and have closed off their emotions from it. My cousins and I were raised Mormon and now none of us are Mormon. I’ll never force it on my kids and I’ll break the generational trauma that was started by colonization (Christianity).
We are a practicing Catholic family who tries our best to live by all Church teachings.
Im a hispanic catholic. My faith is my life and my whole family is devout
My faith in Jesus Christ is very important to me as is my religion/church. As a member of the Church of a Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, it influences many aspects of my life, and the hope I have in all aspects in life. My wife and I are the same page as far as this is considered. We love the community, organization and support it brings into our lives. It gives a place to get to know neighbors, and serve one another. I’ve also given a great deal of prayer and studied about other world religions (although I have not read all the other’s sacred texts), my own religion as well as other sects of Christianity (including scriptural studies). In the end, it makes the most sense to me and my family. For reference, I’m Gen X.
Really important, my mother follows the fasts (we are Eastern Orthodox), and we have really big feast days.
A lot of people moved to our neighborhood to be near the church community. It’s actually really awesome, a lot of big feasts and parties, singing and dancing, musicians, etc. People brewing beer, lol.
It’s a really big deal for us and our Christian peers, I’d say
Most Americans don’t attend church regularly. Their religious beliefs may be important to most Americans, but they don’t express it through church attendance:
https://news.gallup.com/poll/642548/church-attendance-declined-religious-groups.aspx
Three in 10 Americans say they attend religious services every week (21%) or almost every week (9%), while 11% report attending about once a month and 56% seldom (25%) or never (31%) attend.
We are highly-educated, upper-middle-class white atheists and we love church! We don’t go every week, maybe every second or third week. We do the community activities. It’s great. Not totally even sure what religion we are, but the church is in the middle of the town center and vaguely Christian.
I’m indigenous, from southeastern US. Religion was used to subdue and re-educate our people and to wipe our language and culture out, including any kind of religious ideas. It was very much adjust or die. The elders in my family are/ were extremely religious. I was forced to Sunday school and church until I was 13. My 5 year old self decided the Bible was fiction and no one could convince me otherwise. At this point I have no love for religion except for the idea that all people need to be able to read and write so that they can worship. Literacy is good. I think those family members that go to church now are about half the family, but it’s not the focus of life like it was back in the day. And it’s often only to keep their social standing. I’m a full blown heathen; I like to suggest we follow the traditions of other tribes and repudiate Christianity. My oldest nephew is in seminary. We argue about religion for the fun of it. We are the outliers.
Weekly mass attendance for us. We recently moved and haven’t plugged into the church community as much as we’d like yet, but we plan on doing so as well as sending our kids to the affiliated school once they’re old enough
To my parents it was nothing. To my husbands family it was a lot but not in a weird pushing way. To myself and my husband and our children, we love Church. We have a decent community within it and I love watching my 7 year old gain confidence in her classes there and read her bible and watch things that are more positive than 90% of what is out there for kids. We go every Sunday with our nephews, I volunteer when I can. I love the uplifting feeling we have there. We are in Northern California and go to a non denominational, we are all baptised Catholic have chose our home church away from how he grew up because we believe in the teachings more at our new church than the old school fire and brimstone our old church was.
My family represents a data set of one. So, y’know, I don’t know how useful this is.
We’re active in our church, but the degree of involvement varies. My wife sings in the choir and is the chair of, basically, the HR committee. My oldest attends every Sunday. My middle, who’s in college now, attends when he can and is often called upon to speak or serve as the liturgist (guy who reads Bible passages as part of the service). My youngest runs the AV and internet broadcast for services, i.e., he’s the tech guy in the back. I cut checks, serve as a liturgist, sing the occasional solo when the choir’s out, and fill in for my pastor with a sermon from time to time. As a family, we take our turns hosting the after-service coffee hour (Methodists love coffee hour!) and work shifts at our town’s soup kitchen when it’s our church’s turn to man it (Churches in my town take turns, so no one congregation gets burned out.).
We have many friends from church, as we have friends from other civic and volunteer organizations with which we’re involved.
So, yeah, in the tapestry of our lives, our church is a significant thread.
Myself i care about my Faith. But just go to any church. i’m a white male and i’ve been to all kinds. they are usually accepting.
Everyone goes to church, but at the same time it’s not that important?
I was raised Catholic and am now Lutheran (so always Christian). Both in my home growing up and as an adult with kids of my own, church has been very important, but not in a particularly intrusive way. My family attends weekly services, my husband and I volunteer at the church, and our kids attend Sunday school. Our church is an important part of our lives and we feel like a part of the community, but it doesn’t hold a much higher rank than any other hobby or social activity that we are involved in.
I know families that seem to have their whole lives revolve around their churches. If they can’t do something, it’s probably because of a church event, and they fit Jesus into every conversation. They don’t seem to be a big part of the population. But, I’m never sure if that’s because they’re a small group or because they spend so much time together that no one else runs into them much.
People whose lives don’t revolve around church don’t bring it up much with casual acquaintances. I know if and where most of my close friends attend religious services. But, for the vast majority of people I know, I couldn’t tell you if they consider themselves a part of an organized religion or not.
It seems to be somewhat taboo or at least uncomfortable to talk about religion in business settings. I will mention my church when it’s relevant to a conversation. But, I am a little more cautious to bring it up that I am to bring up some other things that are important in my life. You just never know when someone will hear that you’re a Christian and assume that means you go around being terrible to certain groups of people.
Church as a building is zero percent important to me.
Church for me is a community of like minded people getting together for fun or a good cause, or being out in nature and being happy.
This is highly influenced by where you live. Only about 5% of people in the area where I live are church attendees. A lot of people would say they’re Christian because they know they aren’t anything else, but they aren’t practicing.
Also, it’s really funny that you mention Christianity is a minority religion in China glossing over the fact that it’s illegal and people are arrested for going to church meetings.
Extremely important. We go as a family (5 of us) to church every Sunday, sometimes on Wednesday nights, and have small group bible studies on Thursday nights. My wife and daughter volunteer at the church to teach English as a Second Language classes to immigrants, and my son and I also help with our food collection and delivery ministry for people with needs.
I went on a missions trip to South Africa last year to help out a partner church of ours that is helping out kids in townships there who live in extreme poverty. My daughter and I are going on another missions trip this summer to Mexico to build two houses for homeless families needing a permanent home.
My church is majority black people, and neither my wife nor I are black. However, our church is essentially “colorblind” in that I’ve never felt out of place there. This is actually something good about America generally, that at our best we are a melting pot of different cultures and ethnicities. We do have a Korean language service and a Spanish language service as well, sometimes the language barrier is what you might be seeing where some smaller congregations seem ethnically homogeneous.
Church is a bit like crossfit. It seems more popular than it is because those involved like to talk about it.
Extremely. My parents and siblings each attend church weekly, even those in college. My extended family find it less important.
Depends on the family tbh. The thing that cracks me up about most Christians I meet is that they’ve never even read the Bible.
Which is a bold move to make and call yourself Christian. Can you imagine meeting God, and him being like, “You didn’t read my book?”
It’s the cure of where I’ve built my community. We have people from every corner of the world, including China. It wasn’t as big of a deal in my family of origin, but for my husband and I and our children, it’s home, haven’t, and chosen family.
It is the most important thing in our lives
I was raised as a Christian and it’s at the center of my very being and my life. I love my Savior, Jesus. He died for me and my sins so I could have eternal salvation and fellowship with God. I sing in my church’s choir and on the praise and worship team. I love my church, but churches and religion are never as important as my relationship with the Lord! I talk to him everyday and everyday I see his presence in my life. And He’s promised He will never leave me nor forsake me!
I’m a member of a mainline (read: non-evangelical) congregation and I go on about half of the Sundays.
Religion is not the center of my life. I draw some life lessons from it, but I also keep it in its proper place. I’ll listen to your ideas about helping the poor and such, but the minute that your sermon starts descending into Christian nationalist stuff (which is sadly on the upswing in the US at the moment) I’m out of there.
You should be aware that this answer is going to vary wildly based on such things as denomination, generation, region of the country, socioeconomic class, etc. I’m a white-collar Episcopalian living in a coastal city. Ask a Southern Baptist and you’ll likely get a different verdict.
Extremely important to my family
Christ is central to our lives. Love is the greatest of all the commandments
My parents go, my in laws go, my siblings don’t go, my sister in law doesn’t. Out of all the “kids” only my wife and I go and mainly bc I want to go I don’t force her tho or anything
Catholic Church btw
You can see from a visualization of American religious affinity that about a quarter of Americans consider themselves “unaffiliated,” which lumps together atheists, agnostics, and “believers” who don’t accept a specific label. There are huge generational differences as well, as the report I linked notes:
>There have been significant increases in the proportion of religiously unaffiliated Americans within all age groups over the last decade. The most pronounced difference emerges among Americans ages 30-49, with an increase of 11 percentage points, from 23% in 2013 to 34% in 2023. The smallest increase of only 4 percentage points occurs among Americans ages 18-29, who in 2013 had much higher rates of religious disaffiliation than other age cohorts (32%). In 2023, 36% of younger Americans identify as religiously unaffiliated. [PRRI “Rise of the Religiously Unaffiliated or “Nones””]
That doesn’t go directly to “how important is church” though, since a big percentage of those who claim affinity– for example, self-identify as Christian –never attend church and are not really “religious” in a meaningful sense. That’s harder to get at, but data from the NORC shows that 45% of Americans said religion is “extremely or very important to them.” But at the same time fully 72% of Americans say they go to church less than once a month or never at all. So my interpretation is that a large number of Americans will say they are religious but they don’t go to church– they are “culturally” religious but are not practicing. If we use church attendance as a metric slightly more than a quarter actually attend at least once a month, which is a reasonable standard for “important.”
Most people here are going to say low importance due to reddit’s demo. It is really important to my family and I but we are an outlier outside of the south.
For context, I’m a black married man.
Christianity is very important, but the modern church is not important to me at all.
Too many charlatan have made their way to the pulpit. In the black community, being a pastor is almost like the new hustle.
Christianity is in the background of American culture, even for people who weren’t raised religious or are no longer religious. Anyone who insists otherwise has a Christian background and therefore doesn’t see how things look when you’re coming from a different angle. Lumping Judaism and Islam in with Christianity as “Abrahamic” or whatever is really inaccurate when it comes to the day to day experience of being a religious minority in the US. Anything other than Christian heritage means you’re very much other in significant ways. See: the American obsession with Christmas. It’s really the same in Europe though, even if fewer people are actively religious there. Christianity is in the national and cultural bones whether people admit it or not. I don’t know as much about what Chinese culture is like now, but I would assume Buddhism is still pervasive in a background sort of way.
I’m religious but not Christian, and I feel the difference all the time.
It’s very important to my family. My parents are both evangelical Christians and I grew up in that culture. My sister and I both go to Christian colleges. I have a lot of complicated feelings towards the church but it’s hard for me to imagine my life completely removed from Christianity. My wider community growing up was actually reformed Judaism and as far as I could tell it was more an expression of culture than a serious religious faith. Most of my friends didn’t really think about religion at all and seemed uncomfortable with any overt displays of faith.
I am super connected to my faith and my church…55 F, single, no kids.
It’s a big deal to me more so now that the mislead and fake Christians are coming out of the woodwork. Somebody has to fight back.
For me it was a big deal as a child. When I was in my 20s I kind of fell away from the church. After my divorce a kind of found religion again. Now my fiancé and I have recently joined a new church before the wedding and it’s going great. For me i found that church and religion is almost soothing when you need guidance the most.
It also depends on where in the US, the Pacific NW and SE are vastly different when it comes to participation in organized religion
More important to some than others. My mom and I are religious, basically everyone else isn’t
Do you mean church itself or religion more generally? I’ll answer for both.
I feel like my family is the opposite of most. To me, religion is very important. To my parents, meh. To my grandparents, not important at all.
The church itself was actually more important as a social thing than a religious one necessarily. We’ve always been big on religion being a personal relationship with God, and so have always seen the church itself as more of an auxiliary religiously. However, we had deep social ties with the people at the church and as such, church events and groups were always quite important to us.
Born and raised American here, church is important to my wife and me. All of my adult children practice their faith by attending church regularly also.
My life long church was extremely important until they went woke. I don’t ever go there anymore.
You’re unlikely to get a meaningful answer on Reddit.
We go pretty every week.
It gives us a sense of community
Organized religion of any sort turns my whole family off. It’s one thing to have a belief system, but churches are not a thing for me. So many churches have fallen down the magat rabbit hole and the bible doesn’t seem to matter.
Great question. I am recently trying ro figure it all out.
Church is extremely important in my family. My dad has been a minister in a Christian church for 58 years until he got cancer and is bedfast. For years, I went to church 3 times a week. I still believe in all the Christian principles like doing good to others, but I now do not attend church 3 times a week. I am a recent widow and honestly just exhausted and questioning everything.
Older GenZ Lutheran. Very important, so much so that my wife and I both work in the church. It’s not for everyone, but it’s important to us.
God comes first even before family around here and I would never want to have it any other way.
Depends on who you ask.
Very. We are romantically catholic and that’s that. Lol
It’s important but I don’t subscribe to the hate masquerading as American “Christianity.” I believe in charity, helping the poor, being thankful and being truly pro life and not just pro birth. I believe it’s god who gets to judge, not me, and that the Bible shouldn’t be taken 100% literally, otherwise you should not wear mixed fabric and eat shellfish if you want to tell people about their marriage or their gender.
God is important to us but not church.
Are you curious about church for yourself? If so, visit some. Smaller churches can be more overwhelming as everyone will talk to you. Bigger churches usually have someone designated to greet visitors and point out what is going on for you. Even if you just want to learn about it, you can usually find plenty of churches, temples, synagogues, and mosques that would love to have you visit even if you don’t want to join.
For my family, it is important, though attendance is not required for faith unless you ask my mom. Lol. She was raised with a very works based mindset and thinks God checks attendance records. For me, church is a good place to find friends with similar morality and life ideas.
As a few others have said, reddit usually has a certain leaning on these kinds of questions that is not necessarily aligned with the average person in the country.
I LOVE MY CHURCH
Fresh Pew Research, from February 2025 …
“One-third of U.S. adults say they attend religious services in person at least once a month, including 25% who report going at least once a week.
Far more Americans (67%) say they attend religious services in person a few times a year or less often. This includes about half of U.S. adults who seldom or never attend services.”
https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2025/02/26/religious-attendance-and-congregational-involvement/
Our family holds church membership and value our weekly meetings. Our faith is very important to our family and we teach our children our faith but also there are many other faiths as well. We are Christians but want our kids to be informed and make decisions for themselves as they turn into adults. Our religion is important but we also teach our kids other religions are important too, basically we have an open door policy on religious discussions and questions. IDK if that’s helpful but we are non judgemental of other faiths or other Christian religious sects from ours and we are teaching our children too. You will find your place!
I’d say it’s pervasive but not important.
Most people who identify as Christian don’t attend church regularly or even actually belong to a church. And most people outside of the south don’t give a fig if others go to church or what church they do go to if they actually do.
People will celebrate Christmas and Easter, and might get their children baptized, and get married in a church, but beyond that for the average person outside the south church doesn’t play that important of a role in people’s daily lives.
To answer your question directly, most people either affiliate or have affiliated with one of the three Abrahamic religions. Christianity, by far, is the largest with a huge range in beliefs. Which is sort of typical of religions in the US. We have an increasing number of “nones”, that is, people who don’t affiliate with any religions such as atheists, agnostics, and those who identify as “nothing in particular.” About 28% of the US will answer a question about religion this way. On the other hand, some people who attend religious services do so because of comfort, friends family or societal pressures.
Note that despite people being 28% percent nones, few politicans or executives will ever say it out loud even if they have no religious belief. In certain parts of the country, shortly after meeting someone new, they’ll ask you what church you go to. Depending on the area of the country you’re in, organized religion may pay a bigger or smaller role. Cities are usually large enough to have a diverse populace, and while there are religious people, it usually isn’t as dominant as in more rural areas.
Some people affiliate when they have kids to give them a religious background and then detach. Some will say they’re Catholic, but no longer religious. Others are religious and get solace and meaning from that.
I am Jewish. I just counted up that of about 40 friends who came to my 70th birthday party, two-thirds were Jewish, a third were Christian with one Muslim and two Hindus. Many of the Jewish attendees were friends through my synagogue. A few no longer belong to any synagogue, some go to other synagogues while about half belong to the same synagogue where I’ve been a member for nearly 40 years. It’s pretty typical. And intertwining of religious groups and social groups.
Some of my Christian friends are religious, two Catholics who attend Mass weekly, one hasn’t stepped foot in an Episcopalian church since she was married and another, a Methodist, attends church now and then, but says being Methodist informs her every day life.
I live in NJ, we have the highest percentage of Hindus and Muslims of any state, 3% of the population, of any state. So you’ll see more diversity of religion at work or in social settings and pick up more friends and acquaintances that differ from your own religion or ethnic group than in other states.
Regarding Reddit, it’s sort of a bubble. It’s like me saying everyone is Jewish, when we’re 2% of the US population and 5% to 6% in NY/NJ. But I know a disproportionate number of Jewish people because I’m Jewish. So you’ll see a group that is younger and for the most part, more liberal, than the country at large.
Reddit is really a lousy place to ask this question, because it’s not exactly friendly to religion of any kind, and in some cases fairly hostile to Christianity.
But insofar as American Christians are concerned, church is still important to a fairly significant number of us, although the numbers in some respects may not be like it once was, due to a variety of factors. Popular culture fights for our attention, and church cultures themselves can be very different from each other. There definitely is no one-size-fits-all.
My wife and son are mildly religions. I’m the furthest thing from it
Most of my family are Christian (or proclaim to be) but very few go to church regularly (including me). You’ll get varying answers here
It’s quite important in my family. Most of us (myself included) are Christians. Most are Baptist, though a few of us belong to other denominations.
However, there is a Baptist church that is kind of the ‘home church’ for the family. Most of the family has attended that church at some point in their lives in the past 80-ish years. In January, the church burned down, and although I haven’t been to that church for services in years, it felt like losing a member of the family.
I’d be careful not to call someone “Christian” just because they and their family are connected to church attendance (to one degree or another).
That said, growing up I went to church with my family a lot, and we got really hurt by that church, and I got hurt by other churches as an adult, and stopped going for a while. I never gave up believing (an illogical option if based entirely on the hypocrisy of professing Christians), and I later began going again, attending a decent church that a friend of mine attends, and we are both in the worship team now.
As a kid we went most Sundays but it was a only Sunday thing. No prayers at home or anything like that. When I was a little older it was more of a social thing than religious. Nobody in my family has gone since we all moved away from my childhood church.
Unlike a lot of people I do have fond memories of the time I spent there. It wasn’t tiny but small enough that everyone was familiar. It was a warm and calm place. We had a priest who tended to put that week’s bible verses in historical context so as a lover of history I at least found it interesting. It wasn’t the religious part that I remember fondly. Kind of neutral on that but the whole community was warm and nurturing. Its hard to explain but those memories have the same vibe as a hug from a beloved elderly neighbor.
Very important. Our whole family has always gone once a week. The teens opt to go to 2 different youth groups w/ no prompting from us. I like to go to Fri. morning matins & my smaller children often will opt to go as the service is shorter & doughnuts follow. Sometimes Sat. night vespers if there is nothing else going on. I have to say, I do think 50% of our parish (Eastern Orthodox) is under 30.
According to a Pew Research poll conducted in February of this year, The Religious Landscape Study finds 62% U.S. adults call themselves Christians. Down from 71% in 2014 and 78% in 2007.
A lot of young people grow up Christian and later leave the religion as teens and adults. That was the case with me and a few other family members and many people I know. There’s also a difference between the culty Baptists and Evangelicals and just normal people who consider themselves Christian but either don’t attend church or only go on special occasions like holidays.
The extremist Christians in America truly are a fringe identity with outsized power in politics and are generally overrepresented even though they claim every chance they get that they’re being persecuted and side-lined.
How important is religion and how important is the church are 2 very different answers for my family. Church is not at all. Neither me nor my parents like every go to church, nor are we involved in any church events or aware of church news beyond like the pope dying recently.
In terms of religion, we celebrate the holidays with family and try to live as good ppl, but I’d argue that’s more family values than religious ones.
Lutheran. We try to go every Sunday, but if circumstances don’t permit it (mother on home hospice), we don’t fret about it.
I grew up going to service every Sunday. Youth group on Saturdays. Bible study every Tuesday. Sometimes other events. I was at church about 3-4 days a week.
When I got to college, I went occasionally but it wasn’t a big part of my life after that.
We had a church wedding. We baptized our son. We go … sometimes. Maybe 3-4 times a year.
I’m still a believer. I read my Bible. I pray daily.