Two very interesting articles comparing faith in the UK with that in the US, have appeared in the Church Times.
An article on the US found that church attendance was successfully rebounding after the Covid pandemic. It reported on recent research by the Pew Research Center that found a small net decrease in in-person attendance in 2020-24 had been offset by increased attendance online. While 31% of respondents said they attended services in person as often as before the pandemic, 7% said that they went more often, but 13% less often. But 13% also said that they now watched online services more than they had in 2019. For young adults, the number that attended services was up 8% from July 2020, but researchers acknowledged that this figure fluctuated somewhat.
Pew Research concluded “The pandemic did not shake American religion: the share participating in services in some way has been steady, and the share who say Covid-19 had a big impact on their spiritual life is small.
In the UK the figures are different. The Church of England’s figures for 2024 show that total attendance is still lower than before the pandemic, although it is recovering year on year. The other Church Times article looked at a recent survey by OnePoll among younger people in the UK, which found that 62% of Gen Z (those born, between roughly the mid 1990s and year 2012) identified as spiritual in some respect, but that they are not looking to the Church of England to harness it.
“Not only is the Church seen as outdated: it has become an example of the failing institutions and traditional styles of leadership which Gen Z have come to doubt. The media are seemingly dominated by stories of poor leadership from bishops and clergy who have failed those whom they have a duty to protect. But there is also a significant communication problem: the C of E speaks a different language to a chronically online generation who are religiously illiterate.”
Read the article US church attendance ‘not shaken’ by Covid, here. Read the article Gen Z are open to faith, but not to the C of E, here.