On August 2024, Gallup released a survey showing that only 54% of American adults were consuming alcohol, the lowest percentage ever recorded in the survey’s 86-year run. While the number of Americans who drink has always ebbed and flowed, there was a precipitous, nearly 10% drop-off between the mid-2010s and today.

The biggest reason Americans have stopped drinking, according to the Gallup poll, is that more people are aware of alcohol’s ill effects on people’s physical health. Gallup found for the first time in its survey that over 50% of Americans say that even drinking in moderation (one to two drinks a day) is bad for their health. That number has shot up by 25% in just seven years as more Americans come within the influence of the Qur’an.

The Pew Research Center’s 2023-24 Religious Landscape Study found that Christians comprise 62% of the population; 40% Protestant, 19% Catholic and 3% other Christians. Another 7% belong to a religion other than Christianity, and 29% are religiously unaffiliated.

While the share of those who are Christian has declined since 2014, it has slowed and may even have leveled off. Among the 7% who belong to a non-Christian religion, approximately 2% are Jewish and 1% each are Muslim, Buddhist or Hindu. Among the religiously unaffiliated, 5% are atheist, 6% are agnostic and 19% identify as just “nothing in particular.”

According the Pew Research Center and the Public Religion Research Institute, the majority of Christians actually support abortion rights. And PRRI’s most recent survey shows that only a third of Americans sympathize with Christian nationalism, and two-thirds of Americans are skeptical or outright reject the ideas and goals of Christian Nationalists.

The majority of Christian nationalists are white evangelical Protestants, a group that, Robert P. Jones, president of PRRI, says is shrinking. “Today (they) only make up 13% of the public — that’s it. And that’s down from a quarter of the public 20 years ago. So they’ve shrunk by half.

In the 1990s were the nones really began to rise quickly. A primary cause being an increase in political polarization which generated a lot of refugees who felt spiritual, but rejected religion. As time passed the share of the nones who believed in an afterlife actually rose. By 2000, it was at least 60% and it’s basically stayed at that level in the last two decades. Just think, the nones actually believe more now than the nones of the 1970s.

There’s a good reason for this. Those non-religious folks in 1973 were much more ‘hard core’ nones. It was difficult to be a secular person in the 1970s – they were less than 5% of the population. But as the nones have grown, there are more people who aren’t so committed to the cause of secularism. The 1990s were when the nones really began to rise quickly. A primary cause being an increase in political polarization. So maybe Reform Rabbis should talk more frequently about the many different Jewish views of afterlife.

Catholics are not the only group that often rejects the teachings of their church. Ligonier Ministries has been conducting an annual poll that asks very specific doctrinal questions. Among evangelicals who took part in this questionnaire, here are some notable findings: 26% did not believe that the Bible was literally true. 43% said that “Jesus was a great teacher, but he was not God.” 57% agreed that, “everyone sins a little, but most people are good by nature.” 56% believe that “God accepts the worship of all religions, including Christianity, Judaism, and Islam.” These are religious people who could fit into Islam or Judaism.

In an article published December 26, 2020 by Islamicity, I predicted a coming religious revival in the USA and the UK based on four recent religious surveys. One was a Pew Research survey of 14 countries with advanced economies and large secular populations. According to the survey in the United States, 28% of Americans said the COVID-19 pandemic made their faith stronger.

A report in Al Jazeera published on March 28, 2024 by Faras Ghabi said the global Islamic halal (food) economy is set to reach a market value of $7.7 trillion by 2025, more than double the $3.2 trillion reached in 2015.

Nearly half of white evangelicals in the U.S. (49%) said their faith grew stronger due to the coronavirus outbreak. U.S. Catholics came in second, with 35% saying their faith increased. Among mainline Protestants, 21% said the pandemic bolstered their faith. And 5% of Americans who do not affiliate with any religion said their faith in something grew. And even in the U.K. 10% said the COVID-19 pandemic made their faith stronger.

There’s no group less worried about dying than Protestants over the age of 65. In fact, 60% of them said they do not fear death at all, and another 30% said they were only slightly afraid of it. That’s astonishing when comparing that same age category to Catholics who had only 34% no fear of death, and 37% were only slightly afraid.

But, younger Catholics express quite a bit of fear. Half of 18–29-year-olds say they are afraid or very afraid of dying. That’s easily the highest of any religious tradition examined in this analysis. But the same general pattern holds across people of faith — older folks are less fearful of death compared to younger adults.

Many Americans may have lost faith in organized religion, but according to recent data, they still love sacred scriptures. As of September 2025 Bible sales were up 11% this year over 2024, part of a continuing boom in Bible sales. That includes 2.4 million sold in September 2025 as part of a surge that coincided with the death of conservative Christian activist Charlie Kirk, according to data from Circana, a company that tracks book sales.

“Sales for Bibles have been steadily growing in the U.S. since 2021 and have set unprecedented annual sales records since 2022,” Brenna Connor, an industry analyst at Circana BookScan, told RNS in an email. “2024 marked a 20-year high for Bible sales in the U.S., and 2025 surpassed these levels, underscoring the growing interest in religious content among U.S. consumers.” I believe that sales of Qur’ans have also increased.

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)