Really useless piece of information: There used to be a lip around the roof of old, rectangular, folding-door phone booths that had a perfect gap for popping a bottle cap off.
34, never seen one, never heard one referred to in conversation. But I’m well-read.
33 and had never heard the term until I met my partner 5 years ago (she is 10 years older than me). However, she uses the term for any bottle-opener–not just the key-like ones shown in the image links above.
Over 40, rural South, and yup, I know what a church key is.
My father and brother, who were both in the army, refer to the big bottle openers with a triangular loop as church keys. I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone who hasn’t been in the army use the term in this country.
Though I used them plenty as a kid, and occasionally as an adult, I never heard them called “church keys” until a few years ago. Around here, they were always called, simply enough, “bottle openers”.
The “church key” is both a chronological and a regional shibboleth.
40, southern family but raised in DC. I always heard the term churchkey used for the flat, stamped metal object shown in **Silenus’ **link.
The link in Gagundather’s post has a great collection of “church keys”, combination can/ bottle openers. Used them as a young man, and always knew them by their slang name. I’m 73.
Grew up in Michigan in the late 70’s and the 80’s. I learned the term, but no one really ever used it. The preference was “bottle opener” or “can opener.”
IIRC, I first encountered the term in the '70s in an old MAD Magazine. It was a “Don’t You Just Hate…” that went something like “Don’t you just hate having beer cans but no church key?”
Huh. I’ve had church keys in the kitchen all my life, specifically the flattish ones made from a single piece of metal, but I never knew that’s what they were called. They were always just bottle openers. (<40 years old)
From the time I was very young (maybe five), my Dad would have me fetch him a “beer and the church key”. This would have been the mid-60s, so pull tabs were not as common as now, and twist-offs were unheard of. My Dad liked his beer, so he had: a church key in two different kitchen drawers, one in a side-table drawer in the living room, and a heavy-duty bottle opener mounted to the side of his bar in the basement. :eek:
I occasionally drink beer. When I do, I prefer bottled. Even if the cap is twist-off, I will often opt to use a bottle opener, as sometimes the crimps on a twist-off will hurt the palm of my hand. I use the bottle opener that is built in to my corkscrew! 
Perzactly & I’m 66.
A lot of girls carried them as defensive weapons when I was in grade & high school. My older sister actually had to use one while being a flight instructor when she ended up with a suicidal student one time. This was in the late 60’s…
Sure, we keep it in the deacon’s bench.
Yep, 44, grew up in Southern California, although I heard it from my parents who were from Wisconsin. I also have that Revels song on a surf music compilation CD and had to explain it to my kids. “You know the camping bottle opener? That’s a church key”
Crap. I said “No and I’m over 40” but I meant “No and I’m under 40”.
I’m 21 and I know what a church key is but only because some of my parents’ older friends use the term.
Yes, only because such a thing was referenced in one of the classic Sierra point-and-click adventure games. Maybe Freddy Pharkas?
Also, there was a liquor store downtown (Madison, not sure if it’s still there) called “The Church Key”.
I’m 35, and I’ve heard it used occasionally throughout my life, more often while living in Georgia than than while living in California though, if memory serves.
I learned it from an Englishman in Hong Kong when in my twenties. This after “growing” up in a church in the US.