It’s always interesting to see overall trends in a state. It helps give perspective. Often in life we keep to our own friend circles, who many times are folks that have the same beliefs and ideologies we do.
According to a new study by the Pew Research Center, a non-partisan “fact tank,” Michigan rates #27 among the 50 U.S. states for how religious our adult citizens are. Even with that middle of the road ranking, more than half (53%) are “highly religious.” This study didn’t break the data down by type of religion or by denomination or sect, but by measuring observance.
Here’s a bit about Pew’s methodology:
There are many potential ways of defining what it means to be religious, but for the purposes of this analysis, we looked at four common measures of religious observance: worship attendance, prayer frequency, belief in God and the self-described importance of religion in one’s life.
And here’s how Michigan stacked up in each of the categories above:
The most religious states? Alabama is tied with Mississippi at 77%, with Tennessee (73%), Louisiana (71%) and Arkansas (70%).
The least religious states in the country have about one third of their population described as “highly religious.” Maine and Vermont are tied with 34 percent, and the bottom two is also a tie between Massachusetts and New Hampshire at 33 percent. You can see the whole chart here.