Utah’s Faith Landscape: Understanding Religious Diversity And Practices

Utah is known for having a large population of Latter-Day Saints but that's not the only religion the state has.  

Pew Research Center did an intricate breakdown of the state’s religious populations going as far as to rate their belief in a god. It's interesting to see where the population stands and how it's divided.  

It should come as no surprise to anyone that the LDS population makes up most of the Christian percentage. PRC found that Utah’s Christion population was 73% and 55% of that belongs to the LDS. Evangelical Protestant made up 7% while Mainline Protestant is 6% of the Utah population. Catholics made up 5%. 

Unaffiliated religions such as atheists and agnostic made up a total of 22%. Mostly, they fell into the “nothing in particular” category at 18%. 

As for how this breaks down into a belief in God, 61% are absolutely certain there is one. 8% do not believe in a god and 2% don’t know if they do. However, only 58% view religion as important in their lives.  

Surprisingly church attendance is much lower than I anticipated. 53% of Utahns attend a weekly church service while 19% go much less, say for Christmas and Easter services. 28% pretty much never go. 

The percentage of those who participate in study groups or religious education is 45% in Utah. 42% are in the seldom and never category while there are a few who do on occasion throughout the year.  

Those who are wondering about sources of “right and wrong” feel that religion helps. 42% use religion as a guide on morals. 41% say it's common sense.