About half of Americans say they experience or witness a miracle at least a few times a year even as they hold a variety of views about organized religion and the afterlife, according to a new study. The findings come from part one of the four-part Wheatley Institute at Brigham Young University's "Survey of Lived Religion," released Thursday.
Researchers say the survey paints a more nuanced picture of religious life in America than standard measures of church attendance capture. While several studies have suggested the growth in the religiously unaffiliated reflects increased secularization, the Wheatley Institute found a changing but thriving spiritual life among Americans in its survey of 2,005 adults across major religious traditions. “American religion is changing, not disappearing.
The doom-and-gloom headlines capture something real about declining affiliation, but they miss the deeper story: Americans still live in a spiritually charged world,” researchers concluded. “They pray, give thanks, sense God’s presence, mark life with ritual, and face death with hope.
Even many who claim no religion have not become flatly secular; they remain open to belief in God, spiritual experiences, sacred meaning, and life beyond this one.” The researchers found that about three-quarters of Americans place at least some importance on religion. About 43% thank God multiple times a day, and only about a quarter of the religiously unaffiliated believe death is simply the end.
“The religious and spiritual lives of Americans are clearly not reducible to whether they attend services once a week or not; there is an internal spiritual dimension that can be easily missed. A large majority of Americans (76%) say they have experienced or witnessed a miracle, and about half experience one a few times a year or more,” researchers noted.