As the number of Americans who do not affiliate with a religion continues to rise, religion has increasingly become a less prominent fixture in American life. Looking back on history, that seems to be pretty obvious, so obvious in fact, that most Americans now believe religion is losing its influence on American culture.
A new survey published by the Pew Research Center today finds that 72 percent of Americans think religion's influence on American life is waning. This is compared to 52 percent of Americans who had that attitude in 2001 when Pew first started measuring it. It seems that many people are uncomfortable with this stat. Pew found that 56 percent of Americans viewed this as a negative development.
The public remains divided on whether or not churches should express political views. However, there was a large increase in the percentage of Republicans that think churches should express views on social and political questions, from 48 percent in 2010 to 59 percent in 2014. There was also a slight increase among Democrats with 40 percent in 2010 compared to 42 percent in 2014. Americans have increasingly said the Obama administration is unfriendly toward religion, a percentage that increased from 17 percent in 2009 to 29 percent in 2014.
Though Americans may not be satisfied with how religion fits into American life today, the upcoming 2014 elections are not inspiring any more religiously affiliated people to think about the elections more than usual. The religiously affiliated who will definitely vote in November's elections have remained basically the same from 2010 to 2014. While political issues, such as women's reproductive rights and same-sex marriage have often been closely tied to religious groups, the economy, health care and terrorism are actually the biggest concerns to religiously affiliated voters going into the 2014 elections.
Still, same-sex marriage is a hot-button issue for religious groups. The public is nearly split on whether or not wedding-related businesses should be required to provide services to same-sex couples. The percentage of people who think homosexual behavior is sinful actually increased within the past year from 45 percent in 2013 to 50 percent in 2014.
The many headlines about same-sex marriage as states continue to legalize the union may have caused this uptick. However, attitudes toward homosexual behavior have gone up and down over the last decade, so it might be too early to tell if the 2014 figures actually mean anything, Greg Smith, the associate director of Pew's Religion & Public Life Project, told The Huffington Post.
As we get closer to the 2016 presidential election, religion and its connection to political issues will most likely be thrust back into the spotlight. What effect this will have on Americans is just something we're going to have to wait and see.
