With the issuance of two re-cent Gallup polls on Americans’ belief in God and their views on morality, one could come to the conclusion that the United States could be in a heap of trouble.
One poll, issued June 15, found a record rating: Fully half of the survey’s respondents said they believe the country’s moral values are “poor.” And if that’s not enough, another 37% rated America’s moral values as “only fair,” and 78% said the nation’s morality is getting worse.
The other poll, released June 17, found that 81% of Americans believe in God. That’s an impressive number, until you realize that the percentage is the lowest ever recorded by Gallup when it has asked this question.
It’s down six percentage points from 2017. And according to Gallup, more than 90% of Americans believed in God between 1944 — when Gallup “first asked this question” — and 2011.
There are not a lot of polling organizations in the United States that focus on faith, religion and related matters. And one of the biggest, the Pew Research Cent-re, takes a hands-off policy when it comes to others’ findings.
“Pew Research Centre does not comment on research conducted/published by other pollsters or polling organizations,” said a June 23 email to Catholic News Service by Anna Schiller, senior communications manager for Pew’s research on religion and public life.