Is praying becoming a religion unto itself?
Consider this: 39% of Americans attend church weekly yet 75% pray at least weekly, according to the Pew Religion Forum. In fact, 58% overall, and 66% of American women pray daily.
And maybe most remarkably: 35% of those who don’t identify with any religion at all — the “unaffiliated”– pray weekly or daily. That means there’s a large number of Americans who don’t attend church regularly but pray a great deal.
These statistics, as well as the popularity over the years of books like the Prayer of Jabez and The Secret and many other devotional books, show that prayer has become popular on its own, sometimes detached from the tradition of church. Call it Prayerism.