Source: Christianity Today Overall, most churchgoers—including most white evangelicals—returned to the pews after the pandemic, survey finds. DAVID ROACH Despite the short-term upheaval COVID-19 caused among American churches, the pandemic’s long-term effect on worship attendance patterns was minimal, according to a study released Thursday by researchers at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) and the University of Chicago. The biggest exception to that trend occurred among young adults, whose church attendance took a major hit. “Rather than completely upending established patterns, the pandemic accelerated ongoing trends in religious change,” wrote study authors Lindsay Witt-Swanson, Jennifer Benz, and Daniel Cox. “Young people,…
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Source: CNN By Daniel Burke, CNN Religion Editor (CNN) If American religion were traded at a stock exchange, your broker might be advising you to sell. The trend lines don’t look great and haven’t for quite some time. Social scientists and religious leaders have lots of theories about the long, slow slide, blaming it on everything from the internet to the politicization of conservative Christianity. A new Pew Research Center study offers something different: a survey of 4,729 Americans telling us precisely why they do (or don’t) attend religious services. Some of their answers are unsurprising. Americans who don’t believe in religion don’t often attend church. Because duh. But the…