Religion News Service, May 2026
A new Pew Research Center survey finds that 37% of Americans now say religion is gaining influence in public life, the highest percentage since 2002, up 19 points in just two years. And no group is more alarmed than the spiritual-but-not-religious. Among the religiously unaffiliated, 46% view religion’s growing influence negatively, the survey found. That’s more than double the rate of the general public. Here’s the thing, though. I think we are partly to blame. We helped create a void in public life that is now being filled in ways we didn’t anticipate and frankly don’t like.
I know because I’m one of the spiritual-but-not-religious Americans who have been trying to find alternatives to organized religion. I’m also a religion scholar and I study this stuff for a living: yoga studios, mindfulness apps, sound baths, ayahuasca retreats and the vague but sincere conviction that you can be deeply spiritual without identifying with any particular tradition. We’re not cynics. We’re seekers. We just decided to seek on our own terms.
