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It’s been five years since COVID-19 hit the U.S. and forced Americans to hunker down at home.
That means it’s also been five years since churches across the country had to dramatically rethink their worship routines and start holding online meetings.
It’s incredible to reflect on all the challenges that congregations were able to overcome.
And given all those challenges and the corresponding adjustments, it’s incredible how few Americans believe the pandemic changed their religious or spiritual life.
“Just 10% of U.S. adults report that the COVID-19 pandemic had a lot of impact on their religious or spiritual lives, while 20% say the pandemic had a little impact. About seven-in-ten Americans (69%) say the pandemic had no impact at all on their religious or spiritual lives," according to a 2024 survey from Pew Research Center.
Among those who said the pandemic affected them religiously or spiritually, 10% experienced a mostly positive change, while 9% experienced a mostly negative change, Pew reported.
It’s interesting to me to bring this 2024 survey into conversation with Pew’s more recent report on the American religious landscape.
The newer report showed that the share of Americans who identify as religious “nones” stopped growing around 2019 and has stabilized around 29%.
Although Pew did not dig into potential causes of the stabilization, several religion experts told me that the COVID-19 pandemic likely played a role by keeping people who might otherwise have fallen away from religious participation engaged with their church.
These people might have responded well to new online worship options or more intentional outreach efforts from church leaders, or they might have felt newly grateful for their religious community as they wrestled with pandemic-related grief and fear.
If that’s the case, would these near dropouts have answered “yes” to the survey question about whether the pandemic affected your religious or spiritual life?
Maybe, but maybe not. It’s possible that they never thought of themselves as potential dropouts and, for that reason, feel like their religious habits are unchanged.
Fresh off the press
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Unruly passenger booked into jail after swallowing rosary beads during flight
Term of the week: Scopes monkey trial
One hundred years ago, in March 1925, Tennessee lawmakers banned school lessons on evolution — and set the groundwork for one of the most famous legal battles of all time.
The Scopes monkey trial, as it came to be known, pitted state officials and a conservative Christian attorney against the ACLU and an agnostic attorney. The case centered on a question of what teachers could and couldn’t say about science and religion.
“Roughly 1,000 people and reporters from more than 100 newspapers attended each day of the trial,” which took place in July 1925, per The Associated Press.
Tennessee officials won the legal battle, but the ACLU scored important legislative victories nationwide as a result of the case.
“More than 20 anti-evolution theory bills were defeated in statehouses across the U.S. shortly after the Scopes trial,” the AP reported.
What I’m reading...
Inside Higher Ed recently dove into Georgetown University’s faith-based defense of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, or DEI, initiatives, noting that religious freedom laws may protect religious schools from the Trump administration’s interference.
Believe it or not, empathy has fallen out of favor in some political and religious circles. Elon Musk, theology professor Joe Rigney and others have argued that feeling empathy can make you weak and lead you down dangerous paths. Philosophy professor Michael C. Rea explored their concerns in a column for Religion News Service, arguing that we should be careful not to talk ourselves out of connecting with people in need.
The Vatican’s central phone number is public, which means that if you’re worried about the pope’s long illness, you can call to check in. The Associated Press recently spoke with some of the nuns tasked with answering that phone.
Odds and ends
To mark the fifth anniversary of the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, I tracked down the first few stories I wrote about religion and the coronavirus: