UNDER GOD

American Faith in Churches Wanes

Poll shows distrust of organized religion.

In God we may trust—but his proxies, maybe not so much. A new Gallup poll shows that only 44 percent of Americans have great trust in “the church or organized religion,” a surprising finding in a country where more people—about 90 percent of the population—claim to believe in God. The shift may explain the extreme rise in the number of nondenominational churches, Christian houses of worship not linked to a specific hierarchy or tradition. “Ten years from now ... will [Christianity] look like it does today? Probably not,” said South Carolina pastor Greg Surratt. “But I think it will thrive, and I think it will be strong.”