Poll: Nearly Half of Americans Pray before Meals

Amanda Casanova | ChristianHeadlines.com Contributor | Updated: Jun 26, 2017

Poll: Nearly Half of Americans Pray before Meals

A new poll found that about half of all Americans pray over their food at least a few times a week.

The poll from The Washington Post and the Kaiser Family Foundation surveyed rural and urban Americans, Northerners and Southerners, Democrats and Republicans, and Catholics and Protestants. The poll showed that people from all those groups prayed before meals to at least some degree.

Even some Americans who do not believe in organized religion still say grace, the study found.

According to the poll, 48 percent of all Americans say a prayer before meals at least a few times each week. In rural and urban American, 51 percent pray before meals. In the suburbs, 45 percent pray before meals regularly.

Sixty-two percent of Republicans pray at least a few times a week, while 43 percent of Democrats say grace a few times a week. Forty-one percent of Independents pray before meals a few times a week.

About 60 percent of Protestants pray before meals a few times a week, while 52 percent of Catholics do, according to the poll.

"It's a powerful way of reminding yourself that you are not self-sufficient, that you are living by somebody's grace, that plenty of other people who work just as hard as you don't have anything to eat," Tim Keller, the founding pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian Church in New York City, told The Washington Post.

 

Photo courtesy: ©Thinkstock/Jose Luis Palaez Inc.

Publication date: June 26, 2017



Poll: Nearly Half of Americans Pray before Meals