Missed you in church on Sunday
After Jesus skillfully answered the scribe’s question in this Sunday’s gospel, “no one dared” to ask him anything more. Americans hoping to give the “right” answer when asked about their church attendance seriously inflate the frequency . . .
After Jesus skillfully answered the scribe’s question in this Sunday’s gospel, “no one dared” to ask him anything more. Americans hoping to give the “right” answer when asked in surveys about their church attendance seriously inflate the frequency of that attendance, a sociologist says. Neutral questions that measure actual church attendance suggest that about twice as many people claim to go to church weekly as really do on a given Sunday.
“Nearly half of all Americans report that they attend church every week—that's every single week—compared to Western Europe, for example, where maybe about 20 percent of people say they attend church” that regularly, reported National Public Radio’s science correspondent Shankar Vedantam. For many years, however, leaders of religious denominations in the United States have said that if 45 percent of Americans were attending church every Sunday, the pews would be packed. And in many churches, in many denominations, that's simply not the case.
Philip Brenner, a sociologist at the University of Massachusetts who studies church attendance, suspected that when you ask people whether they go to church, they actually end up answering a different question. “What you're really finding out here is, ‘I think I'm the sort of person who should attend church and I don't want to admit otherwise, so I might tell you I go, whether I do or not.’ ”
To get an alternate number, Brenner looked at studies that use what is called the Time Diary Method to survey people. “Rather than tell people you're asking about their church attendance, what you do is you march people through their week and have them describe to you exactly what they're doing at any given moment.
“And when you march people through the week in this manner, it turns out only about 24 percent of Americans actually report attending religious services in the past week,” said Brenner. What that suggests is that in actual religious practice Americans might not be that different from people in Western Europe when it comes to what they do, but they might be very different from people in Western Europe when it comes to reporting what they do, Brenner said.
“I don't know if there's a better way to put it, but it turns out that when it comes to religious behavior, Americans report attending church the same way they report flossing their teeth: Lots of people say they do it, not many people actually do," said Brenner.
Homily hint: The research in this news story offers an opportunity to remind listeners that church isn’t about keeping up appearances; it’s about experiencing the living body of Christ in communion with others.
“Nearly half of all Americans report that they attend church every week—that's every single week—compared to Western Europe, for example, where maybe about 20 percent of people say they attend church” that regularly, reported National Public Radio’s science correspondent Shankar Vedantam. For many years, however, leaders of religious denominations in the United States have said that if 45 percent of Americans were attending church every Sunday, the pews would be packed. And in many churches, in many denominations, that's simply not the case.
Philip Brenner, a sociologist at the University of Massachusetts who studies church attendance, suspected that when you ask people whether they go to church, they actually end up answering a different question. “What you're really finding out here is, ‘I think I'm the sort of person who should attend church and I don't want to admit otherwise, so I might tell you I go, whether I do or not.’ ”
To get an alternate number, Brenner looked at studies that use what is called the Time Diary Method to survey people. “Rather than tell people you're asking about their church attendance, what you do is you march people through their week and have them describe to you exactly what they're doing at any given moment.
“And when you march people through the week in this manner, it turns out only about 24 percent of Americans actually report attending religious services in the past week,” said Brenner. What that suggests is that in actual religious practice Americans might not be that different from people in Western Europe when it comes to what they do, but they might be very different from people in Western Europe when it comes to reporting what they do, Brenner said.
“I don't know if there's a better way to put it, but it turns out that when it comes to religious behavior, Americans report attending church the same way they report flossing their teeth: Lots of people say they do it, not many people actually do," said Brenner.
Homily hint: The research in this news story offers an opportunity to remind listeners that church isn’t about keeping up appearances; it’s about experiencing the living body of Christ in communion with others.
Source: An interview by Shankar Vedantam and Steve Inskeep for NPR.org