Religion and the left

[Wojtek Sokolowski]

At 10:41 AM 6/3/98 -0500, Katha Pollitt wrote:
>The perception that America is so very religious may not be quite
>accurate. The statistic, for ex, that half of all americans go to church
>every week comes from a gallup poll -- this would mean there has been no
>decline in church going since the fifties. But another organization
>(forget which one) came up with a very different figure by using a
>different method.  

See Hadaway, Marler and Chaves, "What polls do not show: a closer look at
US Church Attendance" _ American Sociological Review_ 1993, 58(6):741-752.
These authors used actual counts and compared them to self-reported church
attendance, and found that Protestand and Catholic church attendance is
about 50% of what people report in surveys - irrespective of geographical
location.

It is another question, however, whether this 50% gap widened over time or
remained more or less the same.

Regards

Wojtek