States in the southern U.S. registered significantly higher weekly worship attendance than states in the northeast and northwest.
Utah had the highest weekly worship attendance in 2014 at 51 percent, according to a recent Gallup survey.
“Utah’s No. 1 position on the list is a direct result of that state’s 59 percent Mormon population, as Mormons have the highest religious service attendance of any major religious group in the U.S,” the survey noted.
Trailing Utah was a litany of southern states: Mississippi (47 percent), Alabama and Louisiana (46), Arkansas (45), South Carolina and Tennessee (42), Kentucky (41) and North Carolina (40). Rounding out the top 10 were Georgia, Texas and Oklahoma, which tied at 39 percent.
The lowest weekly worship attendance was found in four northeastern states: Vermont (17 percent), New Hampshire and Maine (20) and Massachusetts (22).
Rounding out the bottom 10 were Washington and Oregon (24 percent), Hawaii, Colorado and Connecticut (25) and Alaska (26).
“The state-by-state variations in church attendance are significant because attendance is a powerful indicator of underlying religiosity, which in turn is related to Americans’ views on life, culture, society in general and politics,” Gallup noted.
Gauging weekly attendance is important, insightful because “church attendance also provides ties that bind members to their communities, and research shows that at the individual level, those who are most religious have higher well-being than those who are less religious.”
The full survey results are available here.
