In January 2021, an international survey from the Pew Research Center put Americans on top of the list of peoples who are most likely to say that the COVID-19 pandemic has made their religious faith stronger. However, six months later, the latest result of the annual Values and Beliefs poll conducted by Gallup has shown a very significant decrease in Americans’ view of religious influence on US society. Only 16 percent of Americans now say that religion is increasing its effect on US society.

In April 2020, the same poll showed that 58 percent of adult Americans believe that religion is losing its influence, and that number is up to 82 percent this year. Also in 2020, perceptions of heightened religious influence increased up to 38 percent. The spike in the perception that religion is influential in US society can be seen as a reaction to the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. A spike similar but higher was last seen during the wake of 9/11 where a record-high 71 percent of Americans saw religion as influential for themselves and for society.

Americans were asked whether religion is increasing its influence for more than 60 years. The current 16 percent of Americans that see religion’s influence increasing is merely two points above the historical low points which were 14 percent in 1969 and 1970. 

The only two notable increases of Americans’ perceiving religion as increasing its influence on society were preceded by a major disaster. With such events regarded and put aside shows the perception that religion is slowly decreasing in its societal influence in a slow yet a steady trend in America. This trend is also reflected in another of Gallup’s polls where memberships of major churches in the US are slowly declining. In 2020, 47 percent of adult Americans identified themselves as members of a given church; this is the first time this number has plummeted below 50 percent for the past 80 years.

Ultimately, what this poll shows is that American society, along with the rest of the economically developed countries, is slowly becoming less and less religious.