On balance, U.S. adults are more likely to view religion as helpful than as harmful: 44% say religion does more good than harm, while 19% say it does more harm than good. About one-third think it does equal amounts of good and harm.80
What, specifically, do Americans think are some of the helpful and harmful effects of organized religion? The survey asked respondents whether they agree or disagree with six statements – three positive and three negative – about churches and other religious organizations. Majorities agree with each of the six statements, but higher shares agree with the positive ones:
- 80% agree that churches and other religious organizations bring people together and strengthen community bonds.
- 78% agree that they play an important role in helping the poor and needy.
- 64% agree that they protect and strengthen morality in society.
Smaller majorities agree with the negative statements:
- 59% of Americans agree that churches and other religious organizations are too concerned with money and power.
- 54% agree that they focus too much on rules.
- 54% agree that they are too involved with politics.
When these questions are combined in a scale, the results indicate that Americans are more likely to voice positive opinions about religious institutions than to voice negative ones.81
Overall, 51% of Americans express positive views of churches and other religious organizations, while 29% express negative views. The remainder hold mixed views.
We also asked these questions about religious institutions in the 2014 Religious Landscape Study. Compared with 2014, Americans now express less positive views of churches and other religious organizations.82 The share of U.S. adults who express a very or somewhat positive view of religious institutions has declined from 63% in 2014 to 51% today.
The new survey also included a series of questions about separation of church and state, asking whether the federal government should declare the United States a Christian nation, whether teachers should be allowed to lead prayers in public schools and whether municipalities should be allowed to display religious symbols on government property. We do not have clear historical trends on these questions, because we have asked them in different ways over the years, and the results depend greatly on the exact wording of the questions and response options.
Jump to findings on how religious groups answered questions about:
- Whether religion does more good than harm
- Positive and negative statements about religious institutions
- Religion and public life
Views on whether religion does more good than harm in American society
A little more than half of Americans who identify with a religion (56%) see religion as doing more good than harm in society. Just 10% of religiously affiliated adults say it does more harm than good, and about a third say it does equal amounts of good and harm.
In contrast, just 16% of religiously unaffiliated adults (those who answer a question about their religion by saying they are atheist, agnostic or “nothing in particular”) take the position that religion does more good than harm. Most of the unaffiliated say that it does more harm than good (40%) or that it does equal amounts of good and harm (43%).
Among Christians, members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (widely known as Mormons) and evangelical Protestants are most strongly inclined to say religion does more good than harm (72% and 68%, respectively). Smaller shares of Catholics, mainline Protestants, people who identify with the historically Black Protestant tradition and Orthodox Christians take this view.
Hindus (33%), Jews (32%) and Buddhists (31%) are less likely than people in other religious groups to think that religion does more good than harm.
Positive and negative statements about religious institutions
Large majorities of the public say religious organizations help bring people together and strengthen community bonds (80%) and that religious institutions play an important role in helping the poor and needy (78%). Additionally, 64% of U.S. adults say religious organizations help protect and strengthen morality in society.
Even among religiously unaffiliated adults, 67% say religious organizations help bring people together and 61% say religious organizations play a key role in helping the poor.
At the same time, many people also think religious organizations have some negative attributes. Six-in-ten Americans – including 78% of religiously unaffiliated adults – say religious organizations are too focused on money and power. And slightly more than half of U.S. adults say religious organizations focus too much on rules and are too involved with politics.
When we combine these questions into a scale, it shows that 51% of U.S. adults express a positive view of religion – i.e., they agree with more positive statements about religious organizations than negative statements. That is 12 percentage points lower than in 2014, when 63% of U.S. adults expressed a positive view of religion.
Meanwhile, the share of people who agree with more negative than positive statements about religion has increased by 11 points since 2014, from 18% to 29%.
These changes reflect, in part, drops in the shares expressing positive views about religion among most Christian subgroups, including Catholics, mainline Protestants and people who identify with historically Black Protestant churches. Evangelical Protestants are an exception, with a relatively stable share expressing net positive views of churches and other religious organizations (78% in 2014, 75% in the new RLS).
Jews, Muslims and Hindus also have become less positive in their views of religious institutions. And among religiously unaffiliated adults, the share expressing net positive views has dropped 17 points, from 40% in 2014 to 23% in the new survey.
Religion and public life
Declaring the U.S. a Christian nation
Americans are about evenly divided on whether the federal government should declare the U.S. a Christian nation, with 47% either favoring or strongly favoring the idea and 50% either opposing or strongly opposing it.
Among religious groups, this idea is most widely supported by evangelical Protestants, 78% of whom say that they favor or strongly favor the federal government declaring the U.S. a Christian nation.
About two-thirds of Latter-day Saints and six-in-ten members of historically Black Protestant churches also take this position.
How survey question wording, response options can affect answers
Over the years, we have asked Americans many questions about how much influence religion should have in U.S. public life. This includes several questions asking, in various ways, whether religion (and Christianity, in particular) should hold a privileged status in society and play a special role in shaping U.S. laws and policies. We’ve learned that response patterns vary considerably on these questions depending on their specific wording and structure.
One factor influencing how people respond to questions about the separation of church and state (or, looked at from another direction, the integration of religion and public life) is that Americans often have widely differing understandings of what being “a Christian nation” or promoting “Christian values” would entail, in practical terms.
The new RLS asked Americans if they favor or oppose the federal government declaring the U.S. a “Christian nation,” but it did not ask those who favor it to elaborate on what they mean by Christian nation. However, in a 2022 survey, we asked Americans if the U.S. “should be a Christian nation,” and then we asked a follow-up question: “In your own words, what does the phrase ‘Christian nation’ mean to you?”
While some respondents defined Christian nation as a country where laws are based on Christian tenets and leaders are Christian, a much more common response was that a Christian nation involves people being broadly guided by Christian values or belief in God, even if the laws are not explicitly, or exclusively, Christian.
Furthermore, Americans who said the U.S. should not be a Christian nation often envisioned a Christian nation as a theocracy in which the government makes laws and policies based directly on Christian teachings. But those who said the U.S. should be a Christian nation tended to reject the idea of a theocracy and, rather, envisioned a country where most people are Christians and/or where people have good morals and treat each other well.
Another factor influencing responses to these types of questions is that, in general, when respondents are given the option to say they have no opinion or that neither of the two options provided represents their views, smaller shares favor integrating religion into public life than is the case when there is no “neutral” option. In other words, many Americans choose not to take a clear stance on church-state relations if they can opt out of doing so in a survey.
When questions do not offer a “neutral” option and respondents must choose between stances that either clearly favor or clearly oppose church-state integration, larger shares favor the integration of religion and public life. Put differently, when forced to choose between the privileging of Christianity in public life versus Christianity having no special status, respondents who would otherwise say they have no opinion or no preference (if given that choice) may lean toward saying Christianity should have special status.
For example, in March 2021, when we asked Americans to pick which of two statements they agreed with more, just 15% selected “The federal government should declare the United States a Christian nation,” while 69% selected “The federal government should never declare any religion an official religion.” An additional 15% explicitly selected “Neither/No opinion” as their choice.
On the 2023-24 RLS, respondents were asked a similar question: “Do you favor or oppose the federal government declaring the U.S. a Christian nation?” However, this time, they were given four response options (“Strongly favor,” “Favor,” “Oppose” and “Strongly oppose”) with no “neutral” option.
When the question was posed this way, 47% of U.S. adults favor or strongly favor the federal government declaring the U.S. a Christian nation. This is three times the share who chose the comparable option in the other question format from March 2021 – a striking demonstration of how much the results on these survey questions depend on nuances in the wording of the question and the response options offered.
Prayer in public schools
The new Religious Landscape Study finds that about half of Americans, or a little more, support allowing teacher-led prayer in public schools, whether that be praying to Jesus explicitly (52%) or, alternatively, praying to God without mentioning any specific religion (57%). Seven-in-ten U.S. Christian adults say they favor permitting teacher-led prayers to Jesus in public schools and 73% say they favor teacher-led prayers to God that don’t mention any specific religion.
Compared with Christians, far lower shares of religiously unaffiliated Americans (28%) and adults who affiliate with other, non-Christian religions (39%) say they favor public school teachers leading classes in prayers that refer to God without mentioning any specific religion. There is even less support among non-Christian groups for allowing public school teachers to lead classes in prayers to Jesus.
How survey question wording, response options can affect answers
These questions about school prayer provide another example of how the decision to include a “Neither/No opinion” option can have a big impact on survey findings. In a March 2021 survey, we asked respondents to choose which of the following statements came closest to their view:
- “Teachers in public schools should be allowed to lead students in Christian prayers.”
- “Teachers in public schools should not be allowed to lead students in any kind of prayers.”
- “Neither/No opinion”
In response, 30% of U.S. adults said teachers in public schools should be allowed to lead students in Christian prayers, which is on par with the 27% of respondents in the new survey who say they strongly favor allowing teacher-led Christian prayers in public schools.
Meanwhile, 46% of respondents in the March 2021 survey said teachers in public schools should not be allowed to lead students in any kind of prayers, which is similar to the share in the new survey who say they oppose allowing teachers to lead Christian prayers in public schools.
About a quarter of respondents in the 2021 survey (24%) selected “Neither/No opinion” as their choice. The findings of the new survey suggest that many of the respondents in the March 2021 survey who chose “Neither/No opinion” when asked about prayer in schools may, on balance, favor allowing it when presented with a question (like the one in the new survey) that doesn’t explicitly offer a “Neither/No opinion” option. But they may not feel particularly strongly about the issue.
Displays of religious symbols
About half of Americans (53%) favor or strongly favor allowing cities and towns to display religious symbols on public property. Support for this stance is particularly strong among Christians, including 80% of evangelical Protestants and 73% of Latter-day Saints who favor or strongly favor allowing public displays of religious symbols.
Much lower shares of Buddhists (39%), Muslims (35%), Hindus (31%) and Jews (25%) say they favor allowing religious displays on public property.
In a March 2021 survey, we asked about religious displays on public property in a different way. We asked respondents which of these statements came closer to their opinion:
- “Cities and towns in the U.S. should be allowed to place religious symbols on public property.”
- “Cities and towns in the U.S. should keep religious symbols off public property.”
- “Neither/No opinion”
In response, 39% of respondents said cities and towns in the U.S. should be allowed to place religious symbols on public property, while 35% said they should keep religious symbols off public property, and 26% selected “Neither/No opinion.”
