A recent Gallup poll on religion in the US is showing that the majority of Americans still think religion is good for the country, even though that number has dropped in the last thirteen years. According to the poll, which surveyed 1,001 adults in all 50 states and DC from May 1^st to the 17^th, 65% stated it would be a positive if America were more religious. That number is down from 75% in 2013. 39% stated they believed religion was increasing its influence on American life. It’s a number that has dropped considerably from 69% in 1957, with some fluctuations, particularly a spike in 2001 soon after the attacks on September 11, when 71% saw an increase in religious influence. It plummeted again after that until about 2020, when it rose again soon after the start of the COVID-19 pandemic to 38%. 39% is the highest it’s been since 2006.

The survey also explored Americans’ views on the government’s role in shaping morality. Sixty-nine percent stated they believed the government had “a significant effect on the moral values of people in this country.” That number had risen from 58% in 1996. Twenty-seven percent stated it did not have a significant effect, down from 39% in 1996. Americans were split on whether the government should be involved in promoting moral values in society. 45% said it should be involved while 50% said it should not. The number saying it should be involved had dropped from 60% in 1996 and the number saying it should not be involved had risen from 38%.

Beliefs on whether more religion would be a good thing showed stark divisions amongst political and gender lines in particular. Men (70%) were more likely than women (61%) to say that more religion in America would be a positive thing. That number had only dropped slightly amongst men from 2013 (down from 73%) but had dropped 16 points for women. Republicans (94%) were far more likely than Democrats (51%) to see more religion as a positive. Republicans were also one of the only subsets to see an increase in seeing it as a positive, other than Catholics (up from 80% to 85%) and religious nones (up to 27% from 24%). Sixty-two percent of Republicans said the government should promote moral values while 67% of Democrats said it should not. The researchers noted the Trump administrations attempts to bring faith more into public life, noting, “The poll comes at a time when a Republican presidential administration has sought to elevate the role of religion in public life, including by establishing the White House Office of Faith, beginning government meetings with Christian prayers, and encouraging federal workers to express their faith in the workplace.”