76% of Americans Say They Have Witnessed a Miracle

Despite living in a culture that increasingly questions the supernatural, about half of Americans say they experience or witness what they consider a miracle several times a year.

Overall, 76 percent of Americans said they have experienced or witnessed a miracle, according to the Wheatley Institute Survey of Lived Religion. The nationally representative survey included 2,005 adults from major religious traditions, along with Americans who claim no religious affiliation.

About one in 10 respondents said they experience a miracle more than once a week, while 9 percent said weekly. Another 11 percent said once or twice a month, and 20 percent said a few times a year. By comparison, 26 percent said such experiences are rare, while 24 percent said they never have experienced or witnessed a miracle.

American religion is changing, not disappearing.

“American religion is changing, not disappearing,” researchers wrote. “The doom-and-gloom headlines capture something real about declining affiliation, but they miss the deeper story: Americans still live in a spiritually charged world.”

The numbers present an apparent contradiction. Americans increasingly are distancing themselves from organized religion, yet most have not abandoned belief in God, miracles or a spiritual world beyond what they can see.

Nine in 10 respondents said they believe in God or a higher power, while about eight in 10 believe something spiritual exists beyond the natural world. Nearly seven in 10 reported having a spiritual experience, including almost half within the previous month.

Many Americans also believe God communicates with them. Fifty-eight percent said they sensed God telling them something during the previous month. About one-quarter said that happened within the previous day and roughly half said within the previous week.

Gratitude remains another regular expression of faith. Seventy-seven percent said they thank God at least once a month, while 43 percent do so several times each day.

“For many Americans, it would not be an exaggeration to posit that God is their primary outlet for gratitude,” researchers said.

Even many of the religiously unaffiliated remain open to the supernatural.

Even many of the religiously unaffiliated remain open to the supernatural. About one-quarter pray daily, roughly half believe people, places or objects can hold spiritual power and 40 percent believe the universe guides them toward certain people or events. Only about one-quarter believe death is simply the end.

An earlier Associated Press-NORC survey reached a similar conclusion. It found that 43 percent of religiously unaffiliated Americans believe in God or a higher power. Many also expressed belief in angels, heaven and the power of prayer.

The Wheatley findings are not an outlier. As Metro Voice News reported in May, an American Bible Society survey found that 48 percent of Americans believe they have received a miraculous answer to prayer. Thirty-five percent said they had witnessed or experienced divine healing. Among practicing Christians, the share reporting a miraculous answer to prayer rose to 90 percent.

Belief in miracles also has remained remarkably consistent over time. A previous Fox News poll found that 82 percent of Americans believed in miracles. Another Fox survey found that 77 percent believed prayer could help someone recover from an illness or injury.

Formal religious affiliation, meanwhile, continues to tell a different story. The Associated Press reported that 62 percent of American adults now identify as Christian, although that percentage appears to have stabilized after years of decline.

“What we found is that most Americans have an interior religious life that is robust and active,” Wheatley Institute religion initiative director Paul Lambert said, “with many praying, thanking, reading and listening, often daily and often alone.”

–Alan Goforth