Another surprise is that Catholics, whose doctrine defines absence from weekly church services to be a sin, are more likely than Protestants to stray from church events. Some of that gap is attributable to the above average percentage of Hispanics who have dropped out of the local church (41 percent of them are unchurched).
Young adults are more resistant to church life than are people from older generations. In fact, an analysis of church attendance data covering the past two decades indicates that the two younger generations are more resistant to church life than the Baby Boomers were at a similar point in their development.
Surprisingly, “downscale†individuals (i.e., no college degree, below average household income) also are much more likely than their “upscale†counterparts (i.e., college graduates with above-average household income levels) to stay away from local churches.
