Home
/
RELIGION & LIBERTY ONLINE
/
The U.S. is far more religious than other wealthy nations
The U.S. is far more religious than other wealthy nations
Mar 28, 2026 3:21 PM

Some countries are rich and some countries are religious. But the U.S. is the only country that has higher-than-average levels of both prayer and wealth, according to a new study by Pew Research.

In 101 other countries surveyed that have a gross domestic product of more than $30,000 per person, fewer than 40 percent of adults say they pray every day.As the survey notes,more than half of American adults (55 percent) say they pray pared with 25 percent in Canada, 18 percent in Australia and 6 percent in Great Britain. (The average European country stands at 22 percent.) When es to our prayer habits, Americans are more like people in many poorer, developing nations—including South Africa (52 percent), Bangladesh (57 percent), and Bolivia (56 percent)—than people in richer countries.

And it’s not just prayer. Americans are more likely to attend weekly religious services and ascribe higher importance to faith in their lives than adults in other wealthy, Western democracies, such as Canada, Australia, and most European states.

Why are Americans both wealthy and religious? Pew notes that one idea popular among sociologists who study religion is that “America’s unregulated and open religious ‘market’—where different pete freely for new members without government interference—has fostered fertile ground for religious growth.”

Comments
Welcome to mreligion comments! Please keep conversations courteous and on-topic. To fosterproductive and respectful conversations, you may see comments from our Community Managers.
Sign up to post
Sort by
Show More Comments
RELIGION & LIBERTY ONLINE
A Faustian bargain
As a follow-up to the rather wide-eyed optimism I expressed in a post almost a year ago, the city of Grand Rapids has rejected the sole bid application received for development of property on the Grand River. Duane Faust’s group did submit materials by the deadline, but the application lacked $65,000 in fees. reports that there were two other developers in the running, but “Faust’s bid was the only offer e into the city offices on Friday, but without $65,000...
Acton.org makes it through the wall
Good news (at least I think it is). Acton.org is a site not blocked by the “Great Firewall of China” (i.e. government censors). A big HT to GetReligion (which is blocked). ...
Profit of doom
In a follow up to The Goracle’s energy bill imbroglio, Bill Hobbs has this stunner today: As the controversy over global warming hypemaster Al Gore’s voracious energy-eater mansion rolls on, there’s an angle I think merits deeper investigation than it is currently getting. In its original story, The Tennessean reported that Gore buys “carbon offsets” pensate for his home’s use of energy from carbon-based fuels. As Wikipedia explains, a carbon offset “is a service that tries to reduce the net...
Boredom and teen crime
I have discovered this week that Florida has a major problem with teenage violence against the homeless. In a new twist on violent crime incidents the homeless are being attacked across this state regularly. In St. Petersburg two homeless men, ages 43 and 53, were shot to death in January in separate incidents. The two men indicted for these two crimes are 18 and 20. There were 41 incidents of violence against the homeless in 2006, more than in any...
Advanced technology for eternal truth
Have you heard about Logos Bible Software? Here’s a bit about the founding of pany from the February NewsWire update (and on their blog here): “A couple of young Microsoft programmers with their entire careers of high-pay and lucrative Microsoft stock options ahead of them, dropped everything to join a partner and risk it all on pursuing their dream.” The story continues: “They weren’t satisfied with using their skills to help businessmen have access to the latest and greatest in...
Government prayer
In an essay for TCS Daily last week, Arnold Kling wrote, “With or without the words ‘under God,’ the Pledge of Allegiance feels to me like a prayer. It’s a fairly nice prayer, and I have no problem with having it taught in private schools. I have no problem praying for my country — such a prayer is included in the standard weekly service at my synagogue. But government institutions ought not to be telling people how to pray.” The...
Global warming + UFO conspiracy = crazy delicious!
Behold the rise of the perfect coalition: the climate change brigades and the Roswell True Believers! A former Canadian defense minister is demanding governments worldwide disclose and use secret alien technologies obtained in alleged UFO crashes to stem climate change, a local paper said Wednesday. “I would like to see what (alien) technology there might be that could eliminate the burning of fossil fuels within a generation … that could be a way to save our planet,” Paul Hellyer, 83,...
A new school for Kabala
Oprah isn’t the only one opening a school in Africa. Fraser Valley Christian High School and Surrey Christian School in Canada have partnered together with Christian Extension Services in Sierra Leone, Africa to build a Christian Primary School in Kabala. This partnership is one of the initiatives I highlighted in a previous Acton Commentary. The partnership has released its first newsletter (PDF here), which chronicles recent news and events, including prayer requests and special opportunities for donation. Also be sure...
The happiness conundrum
This piece from the Scientific American examines the difficulty that human beings have achieving happiness even in a world characterized by material prosperity. “Once average annual e is above $20,000 a head, higher pay brings no greater happiness,” writes Michael Shermer, in the context of Richard Lay૚rd’s observation that “we are no happier even though average es have more than doubled since 1950.” Shermer examines various reasons that increases in objective well-being don’t necessarily correspond to increases in subjective well-being,...
CST and good companies
The John A. Ryan Institute at the University of St. Thomas has been organizing a series of international conferences on Catholic Social Thought and Management Education. The latest was on the topic “The Good Company: Catholic Social Thought and Corporate Social Responsibility in Dialogue.” You can access a number of the papers through this site. These conferences are usually a mixed bag, so investigate at your own risk. But there are always a few outstanding presentations and this edition is...
Related Classification
Copyright 2023-2026 - www.mreligion.com All Rights Reserved