In a world perceived by many as sliding or being pushed into secular degeneracy, the latest poll from Gallup provides a much-needed reminder: Americans are far more “religious” than is generally perceived.
In its July 20 report, Gallup revealed that three-quarters of those polled believe in God, seven out of 10 believe in angels, and two out of three believe in heaven.
Six out of 10 believe in hell and the devil. Just 15 percent say they’re not sure, while only one out of nine professes no belief in any of these.
That last statistic bears repeating. After decades of indoctrination in the tenets of evolution, just 11 percent of those polled by Gallup claim to be its adherents. This directly contradicts the celebration in 2020 by Scientific American that “Evolution Education in the U.S. is Getting Better.”
Scientific American proudly declared that, according to studies by Penn State University and the National Center for Science Education (NCSE), two-thirds of public high-school biology teachers “are presenting evolution forthrightly, emphasizing the broad scientific consensus on evolution while not giving any credence to creationism.”
But it’s not sticking. Without getting into the reasons why evolution is being rebuffed by a vast majority, it’s sufficient to note that Eric Metaxas’ book Is Atheism Dead? is ranked #2 at Amazon under its “Atheism” category.
Half of those polled by Gallup believe in all five “entities,” while nearly nine out of 10 churchgoers do. Even among those aged 18-34, a majority believe in all entities but the devil.
Gallup concluded, “U.S. adults’ belief in each entity remains at the majority level, and regular churchgoers, Protestants, and Republicans, in particular, remain largely resolute in their beliefs.”
Other conclusions from recent Gallup polling show that overall church attendance rates that dropped precipitously during the Covid shutdown have rebounded remarkably, from 25 percent to 40 percent. And the percentage of those claiming no religion — “nones” — has flattened, reflecting perhaps the influence of the ongoing Great American Revival.
In reviewing that study, released last December, Frank Newport noted that “the percentage of the population who are religious ‘nones’ has remained roughly the same now for six years … [that those who] say they have no formal religious identity … appears to have stabilized since 2017.”
The secularization of the American culture is far from complete.
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