Last year David Beckworth, an assistant professor of Economics at Texas State University, examined historic patterns in the size of evangelical congregations and found that, during each recession cycle between 1968 and 2004, membership of evangelical churches jumped by 50%. This report filled the newspapers and TV news-shows at the height of the depression panic just before Christmas; but the report\u2019s findings focused on evangelicals, and do not apply to Americans at large.<\/p>\n
According to Frank Newport, the editor-in-chief of Gallup Poll, which interviews 30,000 Americans every month, \u201cto guess that attendance would increase [in recessions] is a common-sense assumption with no basis in data.\u201d\u009d John Green, a senior fellow at the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, which recently published a study on the correlation between church attendance and economics, has found no link in the past 20 years.<\/p>\n
Interestingly, says Gallup, the percentage of Americans who tick the \u201cno religious preference\u201d\u009d box has steadily grown, from 0-3% 40 years ago to 12-15% now, while church attendance has remained steady.<\/p>\n