Christians who attend church but don't consider their faith central to their lives struggle more with forgiveness than more committed believers, according to new research from the American Bible Society.
The findings come from the organisation's "State of the Bible: USA 2026" report, based on a January survey of 2,649 U.S. adults, examining people's ability to forgive themselves and others, and whether they believe God can forgive them.
The report splits believers into categories, including "casual Christians", that is, those who attend church at least monthly but don't strongly agree that their faith is important to them. Among this group, 38% said they struggle to accept themselves after a mistake, compared with 23% of practising Christians who attend services weekly and read Scripture on a regular basis.
Furthermore, 19% of casual Christians believed they'd done something even God couldn't forgive, versus just 3% from the other group.
Researchers suggested this "middle position" creates awareness of God's standards without a full grasp of his mercy.
And there is an additional emotional cost: those who found it hard to forgive themselves reported stress scores more than double those who didn't -14.4 versus 6.9 on a 40-point scale with millennials and Gen Z reporting the greatest struggles with self-forgiveness.