Response from Next Dor's Dr. Steven Cohen: 
The finding that Americans go to church half as often as they report on surveys is well-established ... At least since the early 1990s.

The implication, for us, as I have been saying, is that testimonials to the search for ultimate meaning-fulfillment and the power of spirituality should not be taken at face-value. As John Mitchell said, "Watch what we do, not what we say." So too, watch what Jews do, not what they say ... especially to sociologists and rabbis.

Response from Next Dor's Larry Hoffman:

I want to join the debate that Steven introduces, although I find myself not altogether in agreement with him. I am not absolutely opposed to him either, however, and in the end, despite where we differ, we may be in complete accord. 

Here is what I mean.

To start: Steven is absolutely right about the key findings of over-reporting on attendance at church. But the findings discuss churches. It is hard to know if Jews also over-report, and there is some reason to believe they do not. Church attendance is hugely important to Christians -- it has vast symbolic valence. Saying one does not go to church is quite a serious admission in our society. Synagogue attendance does not have such symbolic baggage. We do not know for sure, but it is at least equally likely that Jews tell the truth as that they over-report attendance. 

To be precise: Some 40% of Christians say they attend weekly. They have been saying this since the surveys began, some 50 years ago now. These are Gallup poll numbers. The sociologists who actually counted people in attendance instead of just asking them if they go to church found that only 20% attend weekly. Hence the conclusion that they over-report by 100%.

But what about Jews? Without enough Jews in the sample to know for sure, we have to estimate. Gallup once told me personally that he thought Jews report attendance at a much lower rate than Christians do; maybe they say they attend about half the time. That would put Jewish claims of attendance at 20%; and (if Gallup is right about the 20% claim and if Jews also over report by 100%) their real attendance would be 10%. I actually think 10% is about right nationally. But would the Jewish claim really be 20% as Gallup guesses I do not know. But I do not care. I simply conclude that about 10% of Jews attend weekly; that is to say, more precisely, that in any Shabbat service, about 10% of one's adult members may be there. That is a good attendance, by and large. There are exceptions; these vary with geography, for example. And Orthodoxy is altogether different. But in non-Orthodox places, not counting b'nei mitzvah guests and other special attendees for special occasions, anyone getting less than 10% is doing poorly. Anyone getting 20% is doing well.

But no matter what, we do not know for sure that Jews would claim to go more than they do. We do not know if they over-report by 100% the way Christians do. 

Still, suppose they do. Steven wants to argue that they then may (I emphasize "may") over-report on other matters of spiritual interest -- the search for meaning, say; or the search for mattering; or whatever. Well, of course they may. But they may not. I see no way to generalize from the specific instance of prayer attendance to spiritual search in general, just because we call prayer spiritual. The problem may be that prayer is not at all spiritual and the spiritual people stay away in droves. We just do not know. 

In any event, the issue for me is whether spiritual leaders can bring out an inherent spiritual search in people who do not even know for sure that they have it. I argue that they can, in just the same way that great art brings out artistic appreciation by people who did not know they had it. My evidence is paltry, I know. I am not sure how one would go about finding certain evidence to start with. But consider:
        - all the people into yoga and meditation
        - the success of the spirituality institute among laypeople, not just rabbis and cantors
        - the success of self-help and spirituality books nation-wide
        - the percentage of Jews in Buddhist retreats and eastern religious search

Moreover, my claim is not a mega-claim about spiritual search nation-wide as if spirituality were pandemic and growing. My claim is that synagogues can become spiritual magnets -- if given the right leadership; and that there are enough spiritual seekers or potential spiritual seekers to keep all of our synagogues vastly busy for decades.By spiritual, I do not mean just "God-intoxicated." Jews do indeed have trouble with the God word -- a problem rooted in decades of ignoring it. I mean synagogues with a patent sense of having transcendent purpose; synagogues that discuss Jewish Peoplehood without just ethnic memories or defensive rhetoric -- synagogues that compel attention to Jewish Peoplehood because of the profound nature of the People that we are and ought to be. I could elaborate on this, but in general, all I seek is a set of synagogues that compel by nature of their outrageous claims to matter globally, eternally, historically, and personally. I see this eventually as making a claim about God, and I believe that people will follow us there, if we engage them well, but I am less concerned about the rhetoric than the experience. 

What is at stake in spirituality is an experiential reality -- but rooted in intellectual depth. Our problem is that we do not train rabbis and cantors with the ability to lead people to the experiences or the depth. We settle for mediocrity. 

Look, however, at what has happened at Temple Micah (Reform) and the Hebrew Institute of Riverdale (Orthodox) -- two ends of the ideological spectrum. And add in Ikar as a Conservative example. In all three cases, we have magnificent spiritual leaders who give us models of spiritual community.I see no reason why we cannot hope to have a hundred of these; and if we get a hundred, or fifty, or maybe even twenty-five -- who knows? -- if we get enough, we reach a tipping point and become spiritually alive because others will follow. 

Does it matter, then, if there is a spiritual search that is monumental in proportion or just tiny by comparison? Not at all. It is large enough to command synagogue attention, and if synagogues attend to it, they will become great places that attract at least enough seekers (or potential seekers) to become vastly busy and important in the new American reality that we see before us. If they do not, they will remain increasingly marginal. 

This is of huge importance. The more I know about it, the more I believe the people who should be especially concerned about it are the authorities and teachers at our seminaries. I am not sanguine about the probability that they will easily become so engaged with what I think is the most important issue they have faced in over a century. But we can help make them so. 

Why should we (as an institution) care? Because young adults will need a handing-off place for their later adult lives; because marginal and fringe experiments will not last; because engaging young adults on life-long missions of Jewish living and service to humanity needs an institutional base. 

Theory of religion in America stresses competitive edge in marketing. That requires, these days, a niche. The only market niche that exists for sure, and the one that will matter in the long run, is spirituality as I loosely define it. We have tried other things: life-cycle ceremonies, most of all, But that won't work for long. Now you go to Habad for free or you hire a freelance rabbi for them. Monopolies break down eventually, and ours has disappeared. We have tried healing as well -- not a bad thing, certainly, but that alienates men more than women, and it has peaked. We can still try social justice -- why not? But you do not need religion for social justice, whereas social justice with a spiritual edge is what religion can uniquely do to make social justice deeper and more satisfying. the true niche for us is what everyone thinks religion ought to be in the first place: making people matter; raising lives to importance; providing communities of purpose and meaning. Synagogues should be those communities.