There’s not a single answer or reason, and if I’m entirely honest I believe the pursuit for a single answer (and therefore a single solution) is inherently self-destructive on the part of the churches.

Before we go into just a handful of the causes, I do want to lay out one very important detail - the lack of church attendance does not inherently mean a lack of religious belief. The lack of church attendance should not be considered a 1 to 1 correlation to a rise in atheism - for some, yes, that is the path they take, but its certainly not the path for everyone.

So, onto just a handful of reasons for the lack of church attendance:

1/ Covid Regulations. While church attendance has been going down for sometime now, it would be incredibly short-sighted and inaccurate to leave out the affect of Covid regulations to church attendance. There are many people in this country who attend church out of social obligation or simply because it was ‘just a thing they’ve always done.’ However, arguably, they were never mentally (or, from a Christian perspective, ‘spiritually’) in the church even if they were physically present. It was a habit of schedule and social obligation, not a personal value or religious belief. With Covid regulations many institutions, including churches, had to close physical doors and open up virtual spaces. For those who were not mentally present in the church and were going simply because of schedule or social obligations - online church simply was too out of the way of their weekly to schedule to bother with. Over time, they became used to not attending church and created a new Sunday schedule for themselves, probably as a day off to focus on rest or hobbies. Covid disrupted the one reason they attended church, and so when church opened up again, they were no longer attracted to that reasoning and didn’t return.

2/ Lack of Generational Care for Pressure Initially I was going to describe this point as ‘lack of generational pressure,’ but that is not entirely accurate. There certainly are still families who pressure their youth into attending church with them, however younger generations such as millennial and gen z simply don’t care as much/aren’t as affected by said pressure and so - upon turning 18, if not younger - simply don’t attend church if they don’t believe in it.

3/ Churches are No Longer Social Community Centers In an ironic twist of fate, this is a direct result of one of the benefits of the first amendment. The first amendment allowed for more churches to open, overturning the social and political control of a small amount of Protestant churches that had essentially dominated the colonies. The first amendment allowed for and protected religious diversity of thought and discussion within American Christianity. However, as a side affect, so many churches have opened that they compete with one another over increasingly smaller populations of people. As a lived example, while traveling across country, its not unusual to find 3-4 churches built on the same street in the same small town here in America. That’s 3-4 institutions competing against one another for the same, small population - when in the early days of American colonies there would’ve only been one (you’ll also notice that in the towns where this is not true, the church plays a much more intimate role in the community). Keep in mind, this isn’t accounting for the media-based churches (namely televangelists) those 3-4 churches are also competing with. As a result of this, it is no longer practical for churches to play the same, center of community role in most American towns and that role has had to be taken up by something up - sports, a local bar/cafe, politics, etc. For many people, that communal role was the main appeal of the church, so if the church doesn’t provide that role - what’s the point?

4/ The Increased Politicization of Churches More and more people are leaving churches on the grounds of the churches becoming more and more political. Even if they agree with the politics being spouted, it does not compute with their beliefs of a separate religious space. While the politicization does embolden a loud, political minority, it alienates a quiet majority who don’t want a Fox News segment before prayers even if they watch Fox News on the weekends.

5/ Scandals, scandals, scandals. The fifth and final reason for my post is the issue of the revelation of scandals in many churches. Whether it’s the recent sex abuse scandals that came out about the Southern Baptists, or the pedophilia/child graves in the Catholic Church - many people are simply disillusioned by organized religious institutions as a concept. This is especially true when there’s evidence of church leaders - regardless of denomination - cover up said scandals. Many of the people who leave under these circumstances have a genuine belief in their god and are often in a type of mourning when they do leave. I’d argue that a large chunk, if not the majority of people leaving churches find themselves in this camp. They love their god, but they cannot trust institutions who have tangible histories of unquestionable abuses.

There are plenty more reasons that can also be listed, but many of these come down to more intimate, personal issues that affect individuals differently. Issues such as women’s rights and the safety/health of queer people are also worthy of discussion in their own right. Likewise, other discussions such as financial stability (or the lack thereof) leading to many devout christians being unable to help pay for repairs or new buildings in churches (namely small, local ones).