The Patriot Post® · America's Military Becoming More Religious

A recent survey of America’s military members and their religious commitments was unpacked by Ryan Burge, a professor at the John C. Danforth Center at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri, and is notable for showing that they are more religious than the general American population.

The survey compared the number of people in America who identify as religious in 2010-2012 and 2022-2024. It showed that between 2010 and 2012, 58% of active-duty U.S. military personnel identified as Christian, either Protestant or Catholic. That percentage corresponded to the general population during those same years. In other words, there was little to suggest that the religious identity of U.S. military personnel was any different than the rest of America.

Yet the same survey, conducted between 2022 and 2024, found that while Christian identity dropped to 50% among active-duty military personnel, it fell more significantly among the American general public, to 44%.

Furthermore, the share of the American general population identifying as non-religious rose to 48%, up from 36% in 2010-2012. In the U.S. military, that percentage also grew, though less significantly, with those identifying as non-religious increasing from 25% to 32%.

Here’s the main point: U.S. military personnel are now more religious than the rest of the American public. However, more interestingly, digging into the numbers shows an increase in the number of military members who are religiously active and attend weekly worship services.

In the years 2010-2012, 36% of active military members attended weekly religious services. In 2022-2024, the percentage of military personnel who weekly attended religious services had grown to 45%.

In the general American population, the exact opposite trend has been observed: 25% attended weekly religious services in 2010-2012, decreasing to 23% by 2022-2024. As Burge notes, “A member of the military is about twice as likely as a civilian to be a weekly church attender. And remember: we’re comparing only 18–45-year-olds in both samples here.”

Burge further points out, “There are two really noteworthy findings here: military folks have always been more religiously active than other Americans, and the devotion of military members has gone up while the rest of the population has secularized.”

This raises the question: Why would this be the case?

Burge attributes this growing disparity to at least one factor. Given America’s military is made up of an all-volunteer force, the states and areas where recruitment has been consistently successful happen to be in red states, particularly in the South. The South also has a deeper cultural commitment to Christianity. It’s called the Bible Belt for good reason.

Therefore, if an outsized number of military recruits are coming from these more religiously committed red states, that will naturally be reflected in America’s military members. Supporting this observation is a 2019 congressional report, which found that roughly 79% of U.S. military members identify as Christian.

Burge concludes, “It’s not that the military is making its men and women more inclined toward a faith community — they were already that way before they swore the oath.”

Adding to this is the fact that, for the first time in American history, more young men than young women are going to church. These young men are seeking purpose and meaning and are finding it in church. Many are, in turn, motivated to live out their faith in the public square, and some do so through military service.

The fact that the military literally deals with life and death regularly can serve to raise in people’s minds those questions of ultimate matters. Questions regarding God, Heaven, Hell, and eternity are more pressing if your life is on the line.

And it is encouraging to learn that a growing number of America’s military members are taking their Christian faith seriously. Would that America writ large do the same.