One-Quarter of All Americans Say Their Faith Has Strengthened Due to COVID-19 Pandemic
ABOVE: Greg Smith, associate director of research at the Pew Research Center, appeared on the Friday edition of CBN News's Faith Nation to talk about the results of Pew's latest poll. Faith Nation is seen weeknights on the CBN News Channel. For a programming schedule, click here.
Church buildings have been closed across the country, but many Americans say their faith has still grown during the COVID-19 pandemic.
A quarter of all Americans say their religious strength has strengthened as a result of the outbreak, according to a new study from the Pew Research Center. Just two percent of those polled say their faith has grown weaker.
Most of those polled say their faith hasn't changed much (47 percent).
Christians are more likely than any other religious group to say their faith has grown stronger during the COVID-19 emergency. This includes 56 percent of Protestants in the historically black tradition, as well as four-in-ten evangelicals (42 percent) and roughly one-quarter of Catholics (27 percent) and mainline Protestants (22 percent).
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Pew reports it remains to be seen whether the strengthened faith some Americans are experiencing will push them to attend more worship services. Due to the nationwide social distancing guidelines, most churches and other houses of worship are closed.
The vast majority of those polled (91 percent) say their church has closed its worship services to the public. Just three percent say their congregation is still holding in-person services.
More than 8 out of 10 Christians who regularly attend worship services say their church is offering streaming or recorded services online or on TV.
A Pew survey conducted in April found that 57 percent of adults who attend religious services at least monthly said they have watched worship services online or on TV due to the coronavirus outbreak.
