Christmas is the season… to be doing something else rather than attend church for nearly half of Americans, according to a Lifeway Research study.
Released statistics show that 47 percent usually attend church during the Christmas celebrations but 48 percent do not, with five percent unsure.
“The very name ‘Christmas’ originates in the church’s celebration of Jesus Christ’s birth. In the mid-14th century, the words ‘Christ’s Mass’ were first merged as a single term for this celebration,” said Scott McConnell, executive director of Lifeway Research. “While 9 in 10 Americans do something to celebrate Christmas, less than half typically attend church at Christmastime today.”
The research study published on Tuesday (Dec. 3) pointed out “unsurprisingly” that regular churchgoers normally attending a worship service at least once per week were those most likely to attend at Christmas.
Protestants (57%), Catholics (56%) and those from other religions (53%) are more likely than the religiously unaffiliated (21%) to attend a Christmas service.
The religiously unaffiliated are the most likely to say no (71%). Evangelicals are more prone than non-believers to attend church during Christmas (72% v. 40%).
Further analysis shows that those attending church want to honor Jesus (60%) with less going for tradition’s sake (16%) or to accompany family and friends (15%), or the so-called “Christmas spirit” (8%). 1 percent of respondents had no clear idea why they attended church at Christmas.
“While church services draw more people in the Christmas season, their prime motivation isn’t unified. The majority are drawn to celebrate the birth of Jesus, honoring Him as the Christ or promised Messiah. But others mostly join in because of the importance of family, their embrace of Christmas church tradition or to jumpstart Christmas vibes,” said McConnell.
Those who attend church irregularly are more likely to give a reason that going for the festive celebrations stems from tradition. Non or rare church attenders (22%) or those infrequently visiting once or twice per month or religious holidays (27%) are more likely to reference tradition than once–per-week churchgoers (10%) or more than once per week (6%) to make the same claim about tradition.
The study also revealed that evangelical Americans are more likely to attend Christmas services to honor Jesus, than other Americans (74% v. 53%).
“More than 1 in 8 Americans are convinced they would not attend a Christmas service if an acquaintance invited them. However, the majority of Americans who do not typically attend church at Christmastime say they probably would if they were invited by someone they know,” said McConnell.
“But anticipating a positive response may not be the best motivation for a churchgoer to invite people to a Christmas service. A different motivation in the chorus of an African American spiritual appeals to everybody: ‘Go tell it on the mountain that Jesus Christ is born.’
“This chorus suggests that the Hallelujah-inspiring good news of Jesus being born is reason enough to tell it on the mountain or on the city wall.”
