U.S. churchgoers are satisfied with the sermons they hear, though content varies by religious tradition

Sermons are a major part of many churchgoers’ religious experiences. But there are differences by religious tradition in how satisfied churchgoers are with what they hear from the pulpit – as well as in the length and content of those sermons, according to two recent Pew Research Center studies. An opinion survey of 6,364 U.S. adults conducted in 2019 found that Protestants are somewhat more satisfied with the sermons they hear than Catholics. Though it is unclear from the survey why churchgoers’ satisfaction in sermons differ, sermons vary in length and content from one religious tradition to another, according to a separate Pew Research Center study based on a computational analysis of nearly 50,000 sermons shared by more than 6,000 U.S. churches in 2019.