Church attendance
Encyclopedia
Church attendance refers to the reception of religious services offered by a particular church, or more generally, by any religious organisation.

Participation statistics

Gallup International indicates that 41% of American citizens report they regularly attend religious services, compared to 15% of French citizens, 10% of UK citizens
Religion in the United Kingdom
Religion in the United Kingdom and the states that pre-dated the UK, was dominated by forms of Christianity for over 1,400 years. Although a majority of citizens still identify with Christianity in many surveys, regular church attendance has fallen dramatically since the middle of the 20th century,...

, and 7.5% of Australian citizens
Religion in Australia
In the 21st century, religion in Australia is demographically dominated by Christianity, with 64% of the population claiming at least nominal adherence to the Christian faith as of 2007, although less than a quarter of those attend church weekly. 18.7% of Australians declared "no-religion" on the...

.

However, these numbers are open to dispute. ReligiousTolerance.org states:
"Church attendance data in the U.S. has been checked against actual values using two different techniques. The true figures show that only about 21% of Americans and 10% of Canadians actually go to church one or more times a week. Many Americans and Canadians tell pollsters that they have gone to church even though they have not. Whether this happens in other countries, with different cultures, is difficult to predict."


In addition, Hadaway, Marler, and Chaves found during the early 1990s that church attendance was only about 20% on an average Sunday in one rural Ohio
Ohio
Ohio is a Midwestern state in the United States. The 34th largest state by area in the U.S.,it is the 7th‑most populous with over 11.5 million residents, containing several major American cities and seven metropolitan areas with populations of 500,000 or more.The state's capital is Columbus...

 county, whereas self-reported church attendance was 36%. Many people over-report church attendance because of their self-perception and identity as churchgoing people; this indicates a certain psychological aspect to the overreporting of church attendance. Although questions of church attendance are intended by polling organizations to study Americans' religious behavior, many respondents view them as questions about their identity. This is especially true among those Americans who consider themselves "regular churchgoers." Despite many news outlets attempting to cash in on these findings by claiming that Americans "lie" about their church attendance, Hadaway et. al. have been extremely wary of accusing these over-reporters of dishonesty; as they found in one study, those who over-report do so mainly to maintain perceptions of themselves as "churched" Americans, not because they are afraid to reveal to the interviewer that they are "bad Christians." If anything, it could be argued that they are lying to themselves.

In, a 2006 online Harris Poll of 2,010 U.S. adults (18 and older) found that only 26% of those surveyed attended religious services "every week or more often", 9% went "once or twice a month", 21% went "a few times a year", 3% went "once a year", 22% went "less than once a year", and 18% never attend religious services. An identical survey by Harris in 2003 found that only 26% of those surveyed attended religious services "every week or more often", 11% went "once or twice a month" 19% went "a few times a year", 4% went "once a year", 16% went "less than once a year", and 25% never attend religious services.

The country with the highest rate of church attendance in the world is Nigeria
Nigeria
Nigeria , officially the Federal Republic of Nigeria, is a federal constitutional republic comprising 36 states and its Federal Capital Territory, Abuja. The country is located in West Africa and shares land borders with the Republic of Benin in the west, Chad and Cameroon in the east, and Niger in...

 (89%). Nigeria is unusual, as it is very religiously diverse - the population is 50.5% Muslim, 48.2% Christian. Other examples tend to be religiously homogenous.

Weekly church attendance statistics

Country Attendance (%) Country Attendance (%) Country Attendance (%) Country Attendance (%)
 Austria 18%  Belgium 7%  Canada 20%  Denmark 3%
 Cyprus 25%  Czech Republic 11%  Estonia 4%  Finland 5%
 Early Modern France 12%  Greece 27%  Hungary 12%  Iceland 10%
 Republic of Ireland 54%  Italy 31%  Latvia 7%  Lithuania 14%
 Malta 75%  Norway 3%  Poland 63%  Portugal 29%
 Slovakia 33%  Slovenia 18%  Spain 21%  Sweden 5%
 United Kingdom 14%  United States 43%

Trends in church attendance

Church attendance in developed countries has gradually declined. Research has attributed this to lack of motivation, negative media coverage of religion and boredom during the services. One study published in the Journal of the Scientific Study of Religion, however, argues that at least in America, church attendance since the 1990s has remained stable at 25%. A Gallup poll found that church attendance among Protestants has remained stable at roughly 45% since 1955, while church attendance among Catholics has dropped from 75% to 45%, although it has remained stable since 1995, despite negative stories in the news. Another Gallup poll found a slight increase in church attendance over the past two years; associating this with an aging population. This decline is particularly pronounced in European countries, where it is suggested that the secular culture overrides interest in religion.

Demographics of church attendees

Church attendance remains stronger among older adherents, and more common in women. Some research asserts that younger generations show greater levels of religious adherence than the baby boomers, many of whom brought up their children in a non-religious environment.

Another study associated church attendance with decreased risk of Alzheimer's Disease
Alzheimer's disease
Alzheimer's disease also known in medical literature as Alzheimer disease is the most common form of dementia. There is no cure for the disease, which worsens as it progresses, and eventually leads to death...

.

The Pew Research Center has linked weekly church attendance with happiness. The Iona Institute found increasing church attendance in Ireland, despite sex-abuse claims within the dominant Catholic Church. The authors suggest the rise is due to the effects of the recession.

A 2005 EU survey found that belief was higher among women, increased with age, those leaning towards right-wing politics
Right-wing politics
In politics, Right, right-wing and rightist generally refer to support for a hierarchical society justified on the basis of an appeal to natural law or tradition. To varying degrees, the Right rejects the egalitarian objectives of left-wing politics, claiming that the imposition of equality is...

, and those reflecting more upon philosophical and ethical issues.

Studies in general indicate that there is a higher rate of church attendance among married couples and those with bachelor's degrees than any other group. For instance, in a Pew Research survey from 1996, approximately 34% of high school dropouts went to church on a typical Sunday, while 44% of those with a college degree or higher did. 48% of married individuals attended church on a typical Sunday, compared to 29% of divorced and 31% of never-married individuals. While it is likely that the well-educated and married might over-report their church attendance more often, nevertheless these findings demonstrate that they have maintained a stronger church-going identity than other Americans.

Influence of men on church attendance

Switzerland
Switzerland
Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....

released a study in 2000 which concluded that the religious practice of the father of the family determines the future attendance or absence from church by the children. If both father and mother attend regularly, 33 percent of their children will end up as regular churchgoers, and 41 percent will end up attending irregularly. A quarter of their children will end up not practicing at all. If the father is irregular and mother regular, 3 percent of the children will subsequently become regulars themselves, while a further 59 percent will become irregulars. Thirty-eight percent will not attend at all. If the father is non-practicing and mother regular, 2 percent of children will become regular worshippers, and 37 percent will attend irregularly. About 60 percent of their children will not attend at all.

In short, if a father does not go to church, no matter how faithful his wife’s devotions, only one child in 50 will become a regular worshipper. If a father does go regularly, regardless of the practice of the mother, between two-thirds and three-quarters of their children will become churchgoers (regular and irregular). If a father goes but irregularly to church, regardless of his wife’s devotion, between half and two-thirds of their offspring will attend church regularly or occasionally.

A non-practicing mother with a regular father will see a minimum of two-thirds of her children ending up at church. In contrast, a non-practicing father with a regular mother will see two-thirds of his children not attending church. If his wife is similarly irregular that figure rises to 80 percent.
The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
x
OK