U.S. Confidence in Organized Religion at Low Point
A New Gallup poll finds that “44 percent of Americans have a great deal or quite a lot of confidence in ‘the church or organized religion,'” a historic low point, Lynda Saad notes for Gallup. According to Saad, religion was the highest ranked organization through 1985, beating out the military and the Supreme Court. But highly publicized sex scandals among televangelists in the 1980s, and most recently, the clergy sex abuse in the Catholic church, has led to a decrease in Americans’ confidence in religion.