Growing up in southwestern Pennsylvania in the 1970s, it seemed like everyone I knew attended church services every Sunday without fail. Then something unexpected began to happen. The Catholic school I attended – like others around the country – was forced to merge with other schools to keep classrooms filled. At the same time, many churches of all denominations began closing their doors only to reopen as shopping malls, restaurants, or boutique hotels.

In total, over the past several decades, median worship attendance in the US plummeted by more than half. And the reason cannot be blamed on demographics. The US population has consistently increased for over a century, growing from roughly 76 million in 1900 to over 343 million by 2025, reinforced by heavy rates of immigration, both legal and illegal. Yet 40 million Americans have stopped attending church in the past 25 years, which works out to about 12% of the population.

Some people have pointed to mental health problems in American society as the culprit. 

“The problem in front of us is not that we have a healthy, sustainable society that doesn’t have room for church,” writes Jake Meador in The Atlantic.........

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