Americans with a positive view of religion are on the rise, Pew finds

The share of Americans who see religion as a positive influence on American society continues to grow, as does the percentage who believe religion is gaining influence in public life, new survey data shows. 

On Monday, the Pew Research Center released new research based on two data sets. The first responses were collected from 9,544 adults in the United States between Feb. 3 and Feb. 9. The data sample has a margin of error of 1.3 percentage points. The second was a survey of 8,937 adults conducted from May 5 to May 11, with a 1.4 percentage-point margin of error.  

“Americans’ views about religion in public life are shifting. From February 2024 to February 2025, there was a sharp rise in the share of U.S. adults who say religion is gaining influence in American life,” Pew Research Associate Chip Rotolo wrote in a report. 

“While this remains a minority view, it is increasingly held by adults across several demographic groups — with gains of at least 10 percentage points among Democrats and Republicans, adults in every age category and in most large religious groups.”

Respondents were asked whether they believe religion is gaining or losing influence in American culture. Then, they were asked whether the change in religion’s role in society they identified is a positive or negative development.

The percentage of respondents with a net positive view of religion is 59%. Within this group, 42% concluded that religion’s influence is declining and that this is a negative development. Meanwhile, 17% maintained that religion’s influence is growing and that this is a good thing. The share of Americans with a net positive opinion of religion increased from 49% in September 2022 and 57% in February 2024.

On the other hand, 20% of those surveyed held a net negative view of religion in 2025. This includes 10% of respondents who thought that religion’s influence is declining and that this decline is a good thing. Another 10% believe that religion’s influence is growing and that this is a bad thing. 

The share of respondents with a net negative view of religion in 2025 was slightly higher than the 2024 figure (19%), but significantly lower than the 26% of Americans who fell into this category in 2022. 

The remainder of Americans surveyed in 2025 had a net neutral or “unclear view” about religion.

About 16% of respondents agreed that “religion’s influence is declining,” while asserting that “this doesn’t make a difference.” Four percent held the opposite view while contending that “this doesn’t make a difference.” One percent of those surveyed had no answer to the questions. The 21% of Americans with a net neutral or “unclear view” about religion has steadily declined from 2022 (25%) and 2024 (23%). 

Broken down by religious affiliation, white Evangelical Protestants were the group most likely to have a net positive view of religion (92%). Majorities of all other Christian subgroups had a net positive opinion of religion, including black Protestants (75%), Catholics (71%) and white non-Evangelical Protestants (67%). 

By contrast, Jewish voters were divided on their views about religion. A plurality (38%) had a net negative view of religion, while 36% had a net positive opinion and 26% had a “net neutral or unclear view.”

The overwhelming majority of atheists (79%) and a smaller majority of agnostics (59%) hold a net negative view of religion. A plurality of those who identified their religion as “nothing in particular’ (38%) had a “net neutral or unclear view” of religion, while 33% embraced a net positive view and 29% adopted a net negative opinion. 

The overwhelming majority (78%) of Republicans and Republican-leaning voters had a net positive view of religion, while Democrats were more evenly divided. Forty percent of Democrats held a net positive view of religion, followed by 35% with a net negative opinion and 24% with a “net neutral or unclear view.” 

While most voters across all age groups held a net positive view of religion, the percentage who did so gradually decreased with each generation. Seventy-one percent of voters 65 and older held net positive opinions about religion compared to 68% of voters between the ages of 50 and 64, 52% of those between 30 and 49 and 46% of voters aged 18-29.  

Overall, 68% of Americans thought that religion is losing influence in the U.S., while 31% reached the opposite conclusion. This represents a substantial change from 2024, when 80% believed religion is losing influence while 18% took the opposite view. Majorities across all demographic subgroups believed that religion is losing influence, and the share of each subgroup holding this view decreased from 2024 to 2025.

“The view that religion is losing influence in American life is a majority position across most large religious groups, political parties and age groups, and it has been for many years,” Rotolo noted. “Nevertheless, between 2024 and 2025, nearly all large U.S. religious groups have become more likely to say religion is gaining influence. This shift can be seen — to varying degrees — among religiously affiliated and unaffiliated Americans, Republicans and Democrats, and younger and older Americans.”

Pew researchers also asked respondents whether they felt any conflict between their religious beliefs and mainstream culture. For the first time since they began asking this question in 2020,  researchers found that a majority of U.S. adults (58%) say they “feel at least some conflict.”

“That’s up 10 percentage points from February 2024 and up 16 points from February 2020,” Rotolo wrote. “This view is held by roughly half or more of Americans in both political parties and all age groups — and in every religious group analyzed, with the exception of those who say their religion is ‘nothing in particular.'”

A plurality of respondents (48%) agreed that Christianity’s influence on American life is decreasing, while over a quarter (27%) say it is increasing, and another quarter (24%) say its influence on American life hasn’t changed very much. 

“Like the results on the question about religion’s changing influence, a larger share of Americans now say Christianity’s influence on American life is increasing (27%) than said this in 2020 (19%),” the Rotolo explained. “But it is still a minority view.”