‘I Go To Church A Little Bit’: Why ‘Seldom’ Attenders Aren’t The Same As Never Attenders
(ANALYSIS) A couple of months ago, I wrote a post about folks who report that they attend religious services multiple times a week.
They make up about 6-8% of the country, and they are a qualitatively different group than people who report attending weekly. They have much higher levels of religious importance and prayer frequency.
In other words, they’re super religious.
In the midst of that post, I also opined a bit about a question regarding religious attendance and what it’s actually measuring. Here’s my bloviating:
But that’s not how this question works. Instead, people read it and ask themselves, “How do I see myself in relation to this?” Choosing something like “seldom” doesn’t mean the person attends once every three years. What it actually signals is this: I do go to a worship service sometimes — more than “never.”
“Never” is the clear line in the sand: I despise religion, and I never take part in it. “Seldom,” on the other hand, means, “I really don’t go much, but I might under the right circumstances.” That’s a subtle but important difference.
In the comments, David Durant took exception to my characterization of never attenders as being much more anti-religion than those who report seldom attending. And that’s worth exploring, right? Do seldom attenders have a different posture toward organized religion than those who choose “never”?
Before I get to that question, though, I need to start with a much more basic one: what share of Americans report that they seldom attend religious services?
You can read the rest of this post on Substack.
Ryan Burge is an assistant professor of political science at Eastern Illinois University, a pastor in the American Baptist Church and the co-founder and frequent contributor to Religion in Public, a forum for scholars of religion and politics to make their work accessible to a more general audience. His research focuses on the intersection of religiosity and political behavior, especially in the U.S. Follow him on X at @ryanburge.