Churchgoing Is Less Of A Habit In Rural South

6-16-97
University Park, Pa. -- Rural Southerners have long been considered the most religious and traditional churchgoers in America, but that distinction is slowly fading.

Researchers note that church attendance, especially among young people, declined in the rural South between 1972 and 1991, while attendance remained at the same level among urban and suburban Southerners. In other regions outside the South, church attendance held steady or rose during that same period.

All of this points to an increasing cultural convergence, at least in religious terms, between the rural South and the rest of the United States, notes three sociologists of religion.

"Culture and religion in America have been most strongly linked in the rural South, the most religiously traditional section of the country," notes Dr. Glenn Firebaugh, professor of sociology at Penn State. "Among rural Southerners, the church has continued to play a much larger role in community life than in the North and West, and thus rural Southerners remain the most faithful church attenders in the nation."

"In recent decades, however, rural Southerners appear less inclined to darken church doors because that is what their neighbors do," says Dr. Conrad Kanagy, assistant professor of sociology and anthropology at Elizabethtown College. "Now rural Southerners, particularly the young, seem more likely to attend out of individual choice or in a spirit of volunteerism. Individualism and volunteerism are quintessential American values which drive churchgoing in other sections of the United States."

This change is not due to direct migration of non-Southerners, according to Dr. Hart M. Nelsen, Penn State professor of sociology. For the contemporary South, it is the movement of new ideas, and not new individuals, that influences church participation.

Because narrowing of regional differences in church attendance is especially pronounced among the young, the rural South will continue in its trend to resemble the rest of America in the area of religion.

"If the present annual rate of convergence were to continue, churchgoing rates will be uniform throughout the United States in about four decades," Firebaugh says.

Firebaugh, Nelsen and Kanagy are co-authors of "The Narrowing Regional Gap in Church Attendance in the United States," published in Rural Sociology. The researchers used General Social Survey data for 1972-91.

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EDITORS: Dr. Firebaugh can be contacted at (814) 865-5001; Dr. Nelsen, at (814) 863-0013; and Dr. Kanagy at (717) 361-1301.

Contacts: Paul Blaum (814) 865-9481 (office) (814) 867-1126 (home) pab15@psu.edu
Vicki Fong (814) 865-9481 (office) (814) 238-1221 (home) vyf1@psu.edu