Approximately three-quarters of Americans think religious influence on life in the United States is fading and approximately half of all Americans believe churches and similar houses of worship need to play a more proactive role in influencing political and social matters.

According to a new Pew study, 72 percent of over 2,000 people included in the survey think religion’s hold on American lives is declining as opposed to 22 percent who think it is rising. Half of those who were surveyed thought that churches and similar houses of worship need to make their individual stances known on political and social issues.

Self-proclaimed Republicans were noticeably more willing to have religion incorporated in public life as compared to self-proclaimed Democrats. While the first figure clocked at 59 percent, the second figure clocked at 42 percent.

Since 2010, the portion of public that sees religion’s role as positive has increased from 49 percent to 58 percent, while only a quarter of those surveyed look at religion as playing a negative role. This number witnessed only a marginal decrease from 26 percent, as seen four years ago.

According to Pew, “The findings reflect a widening divide between religiously-affiliated Americans and the rising share of the population that is not affiliated with any religion (sometimes called the 'nones'). The public's appetite for religious influence in politics is increasing in part because those who continue to identify with a religion (e.g., Protestants, Catholics and others) have become significantly more supportive of churches and other houses of worship speaking out about political issues and political leaders talking more often about religion. The 'nones' are much more likely to oppose the intermingling of religion and politics.”

As reported in 2012, the number of ‘nones’ has grown significantly in recent years, especially if one takes into consideration the young age group. In 2012, one in five Americans said he or she was “religiously unaffiliated”, a group that constitutes those who fail to associate themselves with any particular religion as well as those who identify themselves as agnostics or atheists. Among those who were less that 30 years of age, an entire one-third said that religion played “little to no role” in their lives.

The latest survey included a national sample of 2,002 adults from all 50 states in America, including the District of Columbia. They were interviewed over the telephone during the first week of September and the sampling error for the demographic subsets spanned from 2.5 to 11.4 percentage points.

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