{"id":30065,"date":"2025-12-04T16:41:57","date_gmt":"2025-12-04T21:41:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/?p=30065"},"modified":"2025-12-05T09:18:46","modified_gmt":"2025-12-05T14:18:46","slug":"as-secularism-is-on-the-rise-the-us-military-sees-growing-faith","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2025\/12\/as-secularism-is-on-the-rise-the-us-military-sees-growing-faith","title":{"rendered":"As Secularism is on the Rise, the US Military Sees Growing Faith"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Left: Pixabay | Right: Sgt. Devin Nichols \/ dvidshub.net<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Ryan Burge believes the US military is becoming more religious,<\/a> even as the American public is becoming more secular. Burge\u2019s study was inspired after reflections from the popular 2001 series \u201cBand of Brothers,\u201d which depicted the grueling every day experiences of Easy Company after the D-Day invasions at Normandy. \u201cReligion was woven in and out of the narrative, naturally. Almost every man in Easy Company had some kind of faith background, with Protestant Christianity, Roman Catholicism, and Judaism all represented. I don\u2019t really know if any of the soldiers said they were atheists. But that got me thinking \u2014 what about the modern-day military?\u201d asked Burge.<\/p>\n

Burge decided to analyze the Cooperative Election Study, finding that over half (53%) of respondents stated they had absolutely nothing to do with military service. Almost six percent had previously served in the military, and another 3% were veterans with other members of their immediate family being veterans as well. Burge found that the direct connection of US citizens with those in the military went down considerably with age. For those born in 1940, only 20% had zero connection to the military. For those born in 1980, that number had gone up to 60%. Those born in 1990 or later reported around 70% to 75% that they had no connection to the military.<\/p>\n

Breaking down religiosity amongst those groups, Burge found that those who had a direct connection through the military by being a veteran or being a veteran with another veteran in their direct family, had the highest rates of religiosity. Forty-six percent identified as Protestant, another 20% to 21% identified as Catholic. Only 12% identified as atheist or agnostic. Meanwhile, those with no connection to the military had much lower rates of religiosity, with only 32% identifying as Protestant and 19% as Catholic.<\/p>\n

Burge also found that weekly attendance as a whole had dropped some over the last few years. But amongst those with connections to the military, weekly attendance had risen from 36% in 2010 to 2012 to 45% in the most recent data. \u201cThere are two really noteworthy findings here: military folks have always been more religiously active than other Americans, and the devotion of military members has gone up while the rest of the population has secularized,\u201d said Burge. Burge stated he believed the correlation could be due to recruiting methods. \u201cIt doesn\u2019t take a whole lot of guesswork to figure out what\u2019s happening here: the military has an easier time recruiting in areas of the country that tend to lean right on Election Day,\u201d he stated. \u201cThose areas also tend to be more religiously active. It\u2019s not that the military is making its men and women more inclined toward a faith community \u2014 they were already that way before they swore the oath.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ryan Burge believes the US military is becoming more religious, even as the American public is becoming more secular. Burge\u2019s study was inspired after reflections from the popular 2001 series \u201cBand of Brothers,\u201d which depicted the grueling every day experiences of Easy Company after the D-Day invasions at Normandy. \u201cReligion was woven in and out…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":516,"featured_media":30068,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fbia_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-30065","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nAs Secularism is on the Rise, the US Military Sees Growing Faith<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"A new study finds U.S. military members are becoming more religious even as the general public grows more secular.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link 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