This is the research behind the few places in this book that mention what surveys have found. It is gathered here so the chapters can speak plainly and you can still check every figure.
None of it can tell you whether you should stay or go. Where the book draws a conclusion from it, the conclusion begins with the word Judgment .
Why Americans look for a new church
Pew Research Center, "Choosing a New Church or House of Worship" (published August 2016; fielded March to May 2015; U.S. adults). About half of all adults said they had ever looked for a new congregation. The most common reason was a move: 34 percent of all adults had looked because they moved. Eleven percent had looked after a marriage or divorce, and 11 percent after a disagreement with clergy or other people at their old congregation.
What mattered to them. Among those who had looked, the quality of sermons played an important role for 83 percent, feeling welcomed by clergy and lay leaders for 79 percent, the style of services for 74 percent, location for 70 percent, and religious education for children for 56 percent.
How they looked. 85 percent attended a service, 69 percent talked to members, 68 percent talked to friends or colleagues, and 55 percent talked to a minister or clergyperson.
Limits. U.S. only, and more than ten years old. It records what people said mattered when they chose a church. It does not say whether those choices served them well, and it did not ask about belief.
Why churchgoers switch
Lifeway Research, "Church Switchers Highlight Reasons for Congregational Change" (published November 2023; fielded July and August 2023; 1,001 Protestant and non-denominational churchgoers who attend at least twice a month). Sixty percent of those who had changed churches said a move affected their decision. Among those who had not moved, the most common reasons were that the church changed in ways they disliked (29 percent), it did not meet their needs (29 percent), they were disenchanted with the pastor (27 percent) or with the church (26 percent), they disagreed with its teaching (22 percent), they felt out of place (20 percent), or they were in conflict with people there (11 percent).
Limits. Protestant churchgoers only, so it does not hear from Catholics, the Orthodox, or people who left church altogether. It does not say whether leaving was right, or what happened afterward.
Visiting other churches
Barna Group, "Five Trends Defining Americans' Relationship to Churches" (published February 2020; fielded online December 5 to 18, 2019; 1,003 U.S. adults and 603 practicing Christians). Sixty-three percent of churched adults said they stick with a single congregation, and 38 percent said they at least occasionally attend other churches. Among practicing Christians the figures were 72 and 27 percent.
Limits. U.S. only. It records attendance, not why people visit, and it does not say whether visiting led anyone to change churches.
Knowing the faith you were given
Pew Research Center, "What Americans Know About Religion" (July 2019; fielded February 4 to 19, 2019; 10,971 U.S. adults). Half of U.S. Catholics (50 percent) correctly answered a question about their Church's teaching on the Eucharist. On seven questions about the Bible, Catholics averaged 4.1 correct, all adults 4.2, and Protestants 4.7 (evangelicals 5.2, mainline 4.4, historically Black Protestants 3.7).
Pew, "Just one-third of U.S. Catholics agree with their church that Eucharist is body, blood of Christ" (August 2019). Forty-three percent of Catholics believed the bread and wine are symbols and that this is the Church's teaching. Among weekly Mass attenders, 23 percent did not know the teaching. A 2022 CARA survey with differently worded questions (1,031 Catholics, published 2023) found that 49 percent identified the teaching correctly, and 88 percent of weekly attenders did.
Pew Religious Landscape Study (2014). Share reading scripture at least weekly: evangelical Protestants 63 percent, historically Black Protestants 61 percent, mainline Protestants 30 percent, Orthodox Christians 29 percent (small sample), Catholics 25 percent.
Pew, "U.S. Protestants are not defined by Reformation-era controversies 500 years later" (August 2017; fielded May 30 to August 9, 2017). Forty-six percent of U.S. Protestants said faith alone is needed for salvation, and 52 percent said both good deeds and faith. About three in ten held both "faith alone" and "Scripture alone."
Ligonier Ministries and Lifeway Research, "State of Theology" (2025; fielded January 6 to 15, 2025; 3,001 U.S. adults). Among adults who hold evangelical beliefs, 28 percent agreed that Jesus was a great teacher but was not God.
Pew, "Faith in Flux" (2009, revised 2011). Among former Catholics who became evangelical Protestants, 78 percent said their spiritual needs were not being met, and 55 percent cited dissatisfaction with Catholic teaching about the Bible.
Limits. U.S. only. Knowledge quizzes measure knowledge, not faith or love. Question wording changes results, as the Pew and CARA figures on the Eucharist show. Pew says its 2014 figures are not comparable with its 2023–24 study. Faith in Flux is older, and its fieldwork dates were not given on the pages read.
Judgment: in every tradition many members do not know their own church's teaching or the Bible well. The figures do not show this to be one tradition's problem.
Faith handed down
Pew Research Center, "Why Do Some Americans Leave Their Religion While Others Stay?" (December 2025; American Trends Panel survey, May 5 to 11, 2025, 8,937 adults, with the 2023–24 Religious Landscape Study, July 2023 to March 2024, 36,908 adults). Eighty-five percent of Americans who have switched religions did so by age 30. Of those who left for no religion, 53 percent left before 18 and another 36 percent before 30. Of those raised in a religion with a mostly positive childhood experience, 84 percent still identify with it; of those with a mostly negative experience, 69 percent now have no religion. Retention by how religious the childhood home was: high 82 percent, low 47 percent. Of those raised Catholic, 57 percent are still Catholic. Pew notes that people who left may remember their upbringing more negatively.
Saint Mary's Press and CARA, Going, Going, Gone: The Dynamics of Disaffiliation in Young Catholics (press release January 2018; interviews September 2015; 204 former Catholics aged 15 to 25). As reported in the publisher's press release, the median age at which they stopped identifying as Catholic was 13, and 74 percent left between the ages of 10 and 20. The study grouped them as "the injured," "the drifter" and "the dissenter."
Lifeway Research (2019; fielded 2017; 2,002 adults aged 23 to 30 who attended a Protestant church regularly in high school). Sixty-six percent stopped attending for at least a year between 18 and 22; 71 percent said leaving was not intentional. Of those who stayed, 43 percent said they wanted to follow a parent's or family member's example.
Barna Group, "Six Reasons Young Christians Leave Church" (2011). Fifty-nine percent of young Christians disconnected from church life, permanently or for an extended time, after age 15; 36 percent said they were unable "to ask my most pressing life questions in church." A 2019 Barna release put the share of 18-to-29-year-olds who grew up in church and withdrew at 64 percent.
Parents. Christian Smith and Amy Adamczyk, Handing Down the Faith (Oxford, 2021), as excerpted in Christianity Today : "the key agents are parents, not clergy or other religious professionals." In an interview, Adamczyk described the most effective style as one that mixes "a strictness about religion with warmth." Vern Bengtson, Families and Faith (Oxford, 2013), as quoted in a review: relationships with parents "that are felt to be close, warm, and affirming are associated with higher religious transmission," and "this is particularly true for relations with fathers." A 2018 study of a national youth panel (NLSY97) found children of authoritarian mothers about 35 percent less likely to keep their parents' religion (Koch, Herm and Rhodes, Journal of Sociology and Christianity ).
Limits. No survey found here measures "brainwashing" or being "forced." The Pew figures describe adults looking back. The Catholic study is small.
