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According to the Gallup Poll, church and synagogue attendance in the United States has remained roughly 40 percent over the past two decades--almost exactly the same as it was in 1937, when the question was first asked. Fifty-seven percent of Americans say that religion is a "very important" part of their life--a bit lower than in 1965, when that figure was 70 percent, but still high. In Western and Eastern Europe, 49 percent of people give God high importance in their lives. In Latin America, that number is percent; in West Africa, where Muslim and Catholic missionaries have made great inroads, it is an astounding 97 percent. Weekly attendance at religious services is much lower in Eastern Europe (14 percent), Western Europe (20 percent), and Southeast Asia (27 percent) than in Latin America (35 percent), North America (47 percent), or West Africa (82 percent). For more information, go to the links in the Story Index for this article. Click here for Gallup International's Millennium Survey on religious attitudes. Click here to connect to the Gallup Poll News Service, which has a searchable database of survey results.
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