Study shows Alabamians attend church more than almost any other Americans

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February 19, 2015

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. — It is no secret that Alabama is smack-dab in the middle of the Bible Belt, but just how many Alabamians actually attend religious services regularly?

According to a new Gallup poll, Alabama ranks 3rd in the nation for percentage of people who attend church weekly.

46 percent of Alabamians surveyed told Gallup they attend religious services at least once a week when asked, “How often do you attend church, synagogue or mosque — at least once a week, almost every week, about once a month, seldom or never?” 29 percent answered “never,” and 23 percent answered “almost every week.”

The only two states that ranked higher are Utah (51%) and Mississippi (47%). Other than Utah and Oklahama, 10 of the top 12 states are in the south.

Here are the top 10:

1. Utah – 51%
2. Mississippi – 47%
3 (tied). Alabama – 46%
3 (tied) Louisiana – 46%
5. Arkansas – 45%
6 (tied). South Carolina – 42%
6 (tied). Tennessee – 42%
8. Kentucky – 41%
9. North Carolina – 40%
10 (tied). Georgia – 39%
10 (tied). Texas – 39%
10 (tied). Oklahoma – 39%

Vermont has the worst church attendance, with only 17 percent of residents going to church weekly. The bottom of the list was mostly states in New England and in the Pacific Northwest.

In their analysis of the poll, Gallup said there is no definitive answer to why residents in Alabama, Utah, and Mississippi are more likely to go to church on Sunday than residents of Vermont or Washington state, but church attendance is a “powerful indicator of underlying religiosity.”

The state-by-state variations in church attendance are significant because attendance is a powerful indicator of underlying religiosity, which in turn is related to Americans’ views on life, culture, society in general and politics. For most segments of U.S. society — blacks being the exception — those who are the most religious are also most likely to be Republican, which helps explain the significant relationship between states with the highest church attendance and those that are traditionally red states. Church attendance also provides ties that bind members to their communities, and research shows that at the individual level, those who are most religious have higher well-being than those who are less religious.

The results for the poll were based on the responses of 177,030 adults, including 3,097 from Alabama over the entire year of 2014 and were weighted to reflect the demographic makeup of each state.