The vast majority of Americans maintain a belief in God, although the percentage of those abandoning specific religions remains at a historic level, a new survey suggests.
The General Social Survey (GSS), a long-running national survey conducted by independent research organization NORC at the University of Chicago, asked a number of wide-ranging questions of the American public. The latest 2022 GSS results, released on May 17, show that only 7 percent of the respondents said that they don’t believe in God, while 7 percent identified as agnostic.
At the same time, most respondents expressed at least some faith in God, including 50 percent who said they have doubts about God’s existence, 16 percent who said they “believe in God but have doubts,” and 6 percent who said they “believe in God sometimes.”
In addition, the rate of respondents saying they believe in “some higher power” continued its gradual upward trajectory since 2000, reaching a new high of 14 percent. This pushed the overall percentage of spiritual Americans to an overwhelming 86 percent.
The responses are consistent with those to the question asking the participants how spiritual they are. Overall, 84 percent of respondents identified as at least somewhat spiritual, while only 15 percent said they aren’t spiritual at all.
Interestingly, the percentage of respondents describing themselves as “very spiritual” bounced back to 26 percent last year after taking a dip during the COVID-19 pandemic. Despite the increase, the figure is still lower than the pre-COVID levels.
However, the GSS data suggests that 29 percent of respondents said that they have no religion in 2021, which is a record high. Just 5 percent said the same back in 1972, when the survey was first administered.
According to NORC, sample sizes for each year’s GSS vary from about 1,500 to about 4,000 adults, with margins of error ranging from plus or minus 2 percentage points to plus or minus 3.1 percentage points. The most recent survey was conducted May 5 through Dec. 20, 2022, among 3,544 American adults.
While believers and spiritual seekers remain the vast majority of Americans, most of them fear that even respectfully expressing their beliefs at work could result in negative repercussions.
According to a “Freedom at Work” survey conducted by polling company Ipsos on behalf of conservative Christian legal group Alliance Defending Freedom, many employees worry about workplace repercussions for expressing deeply held religious or political views not only at work, but also during non-working hours.
Among their findings released this March, researchers found that three out of five respondents said it was “likely or somewhat likely” that “respectfully expressing religious or political viewpoints” would lead to “negative consequences at work.”
On top of that, one in four respondents said they know “someone who has experienced negative consequences for respectfully expressing their religious and political viewpoints.”
Other findings of the report suggested that 42 percent of potential job seekers said they were less likely to apply for work at a company that had a work culture that was hostile to their religious or political views, and that 66 percent say their company’s commitment to diversity should include respect for a wide range of religious and political beliefs in and out of the workplace.
“Employees shouldn’t fear that their religious or political views could cost them their job,” said Jeremy Tedesco, an ADF senior counsel. “Yet these survey results show that a significant number of employees do.”
The survey comes amid an ongoing legal battle over the firing of an evangelical Christian U.S. postal worker who refused to deliver Amazon packages on Sundays so that he could observe the Sabbath. The U.S. Supreme Court heard the case this April, with justices weighing in on whether employers don’t have to accommodate employees’ religious needs in certain circumstances.
The “Freedom at Work” survey was conducted from Oct. 7 to Nov. 16, 2022, among approximately 3,000 employed American adults, with a margin of error of plus or minus 2.5 percentage points.