Opinion

Exvangelicals, none's, secular Americans are undertapped in fight against Christian nationalism

(RNS) — Just because they’re no longer invested in a better Christianity doesn’t mean they aren’t a crucial part of the battle for a better country.

In this Jan. 6, 2021, file photo, violent rioters storm the Capitol, in Washington. (AP Photo/John Minchillo, File)

Blake Chastain
November 5, 2024

(RNS) — In January 2024, Pew Research published a study showing 28% of U.S. adults are now religiously unaffiliated, making the “nones” (as they’re nicknamed) the largest religious cohort in the country, outnumbering Catholics and evangelical Protestants. Yet when it comes to the groups trying to resist Christian nationalism, you’d be hard-pressed to find adequate representation of this demographic. This is an unfortunate oversight, and one faith-based and secular advocacy groups alike should seek to correct.

For nearly a decade, on my podcast “Exvangelical,” I have spoken to people who have left the evangelical church. While some discovered new forms of faith-based community and beliefs in more liberal Christian denominations, Buddhism and so on, many found religious spaces untenable altogether and migrated toward a wholly secular worldview.

Progressive Christians are fortunate to find representation and participation in politics through campaigns such as Christians Against Christian Nationalism and the Faith & Democracy Tour. But these initiatives tend to spend as much time trying to reform conservative Christianity and reaffirming liberal faith as they do trying to repudiate far-right agendas. Secular exvangelicals with zero interest in trying to rescue Christianity get left out of the conversation

This is a problem because Christian nationalist groups are tightly organized, well-funded and well-represented in both the media and the government. Opposing such forces will require more than vying for reform in faith communities — it will require a strong coalition of both religious and secular people.

Those who have exited religion completely form a key part of this coalition. Whether they’ve left evangelicalism, Catholicism or other faith traditions, they have a deep well of knowledge and personal experience to offer the movement. Many were directly harmed by Christian nationalism, and so intimately understand the threat it poses. They’ve experienced firsthand the decades of partisan politicization of reproductive and LGBTQ+ rights, the staunch opposition to gender equality and the resistance to reckoning with racism and endless abuse scandals. Just because they’re no longer fighting for a better Christianity doesn’t mean they aren’t a crucial part of the fight for a better country.

In fact, exvangelicals and other formerly religious embody one of the traits that’s essential to defeating Christian nationalism: the ability to change one’s mind. They prove that you don’t have to keep identifying with a toxic set of beliefs once you understand the harm it causes. And while shifting to a benevolent form of faith is valid, it’s equally valid to opt out of religion altogether. People who have done so (increasingly women more than men) still have as much at stake as anyone else and still belong in the political conversation.

Chrissy Stroop, co-founder of the feminist media collective The Flytrap, says, “As a queer exvangelical atheist who advocates for pluralism, I often feel left out by those who have the largest platforms to talk about American secularization and the roles of religion in our society. Too many liberal and progressive Christians give lip service to pluralism without checking their Christian privilege and continue to treat secular Americans like second-class citizens. For us to work well together, respect must be mutual and reciprocal, which would require giving secular Americans a meaningful seat at the table.”

Stroop argues that instead of emphasizing shared belief, interfaith coalitions must emphasize shared values such as democracy, social justice and pluralism.

Andrew L. Seidel at Americans United for Separation of Church and State, whose membership is roughly split between religious and nonreligious members, agrees: “I would rather have a drink and a chat, maybe split some guacamole, with a group of Christians who value anti-racism and social justice than [with] a group of anti-equality atheists (there aren’t many of those, but they exist and they are loud). But here’s the capper: shared values matter far more when we as a nation face an existential threat like white Christian nationalism.”

Tori Douglass, creator of the anti-racist education initiative White Homework, was raised evangelical and now identifies as atheist but sees opportunity in forging alliances between “nones” and religious groups. They told me over email that “as an antiracism educator, about half of the groups I work with are faith-based. These groups have already done a great deal of work around community-building, which is great! I love working with faith-based groups because they bring the same sense of urgency to the work that I do. They understand the threat that Christian nationalism poses to our fragile democracy in a way that secular groups don’t always see.”

Douglass also recognizes the importance of joining together on the basis of values rather than beliefs. “A meaningful approach for faith-based and secular groups to collaborate with religious nones in opposing Christian nationalism would center on shared values rather than religious identity or beliefs. Recognizing our common interest in pluralism and the value of democracy, regardless of belief in a higher power. By focusing on values like democracy, human rights, and social justice, we can find common ground and stop Christian nationalism in its tracks.”

With the final day of voting concluding Tuesday (Nov. 5), the stakes are high regardless of its outcome, and a failure to build an inclusive enough coalition could have grave consequences. Seidel puts the situation in stark terms: “Our country is on fire. Our democracy isn’t slipping away, it’s being stolen. The republic is being strangled. Those of us who share values like equality and justice and truth and fairness must come together to stop the arsonist, the thief, the murderer. And that means coming together and fighting Christian nationalism.”

By inviting exvangelicals and “nones” to participate fully in advocacy, faith-based and secular groups gain allies. This is all the more important in a world where people require the freedom to shift in and out of religious groups and beliefs as they see fit — a freedom that is under threat by Christian nationalists who seek to privilege their own way of life above all others.

(Blake Chastain is author of the book “Exvangelical & Beyond: How American Christianity Went Radical and the Movement That’s Fighting Back” and host of the “Exvangelical” podcast. The views expressed in this column do not necessarily reflect those of RNS.)

State ecumenical groups ramp up efforts to combat Christian nationalism

(RNS) — Church members are seeking ways to respond to family members, friends and neighbors taken up with Christian nationalism. Ecumenical and interfaith groups on the state level are offering some tips.

James Gailliard, the pastor of Word Tabernacle Church in Rocky Mount, N.C., takes questions from the audience after a screening of the movie “Bad Faith,” which examines Christian nationalists’ quest for power. Seated on stage in back are Duke University historian Nancy MacLean, left, and the Rev. Jennifer Copeland, executive director of the North Carolina Council of Churches. RNS photo by Yonat Shimron

Yonat Shimron
November 5, 2024


ROCKY MOUNT, N.C. (RNS) — After watching a documentary on the threat of Christian nationalism on a Tuesday evening last week, members of Word Tabernacle Church, a predominantly Black congregation about 55 miles east of Raleigh, had lots of questions.

Mostly, they wanted to know how to confront the movement’s adherents who have so distorted their faith.

“What’s one concept or two that we can really engage in conversation with people who may be under the chains of this way of thinking to help them start to transition to a free space?” asked Kyle Johnson, whose title is next generation pastor at Word Tabernacle Church.

That concern is shared by many who are grappling with an ideology that has rooted itself at the heart of Republican Party politics and in the candidacy of Donald Trump. Christian nationalists deride anyone outside their movement as evil and hell-bent on stripping Christianity from the public square.

The Rev. Jennifer Copeland, executive director of the North Carolina Council of Churches who sponsored the event, offered one answer that many were searching for.

“I would say the answer to the question is, love God, love your neighbor,” she said. “If we can think of ways to engage in conversations with our neighbors by calling on the great themes of Scripture, by reminding people that God is the God of the vulnerable, that God always tells us to look out for the people in our communities who are most vulnerable. And then maybe you can begin to ask some of the harder questions, like, do you see this policy as good or bad for the vulnerable, do you think the minimum wage is really enough for vulnerable people to support their families?”


Members of Word Tabernacle Church hold hands and pray before watching a documentary on the rise of Christian nationalism on Oct. 29, 2024, in Rocky Mount, N.C. RNS photo by Yonat Shimron

Church members, such as those in the 4,000-member Word Tabernacle Church, want to better respond to family members, friends and neighbors taken up with Christian nationalism — the ideology that holds the United States is a country defined by Christianity and that Christians should rule over government and other institutions — by force, if necessary.

While many white evangelicals and members of nondenominational charismatic movements have been swayed by the ideology, mainline Protestants, Black churches and some Roman Catholics are now attempting to challenge its tenets. Church councils and interfaith groups have published resources, voter guides and educational materials on the subject. Some have bought licenses to screen documentaries such as “Bad Faith,” directed by Stephen Ujlaki and Christopher J. Jones, which examines the origins of Christian nationalism leading up to the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol. (The documentary is streaming on multiple streaming services.)

RELATED: With Bible verses and Baptist zeal, Amanda Tyler offers how-to for dismantling Christian nationalism

After receiving an anonymous gift of $100,000 to combat Christian nationalism, the Rev. Jeffrey Allen, executive director of the West Virginia Council of Churches, convened a meeting of his fellow church council executives earlier this summer to decide how to use it.

“We spend a lot of time talking about, how do we humanize this? How do we avoid demonizing people? How do we present our case in nonacademic language?” Allen said.

Fourteen council leaders ended up applying for a mini grant of $3,000 to $7,200 to provide programming on Christian nationalism.

The fight against Christian nationalism has become a wide-ranging effort drawing in dozens of nonprofit groups across the nation, some of them faith-based. Among them are national groups such as Americans United for Separation of Church and State, the Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty and the Interfaith Alliance.

“Bad Faith: Christian Nationalism’s Unholy War on Democracy.”

 Poster courtesy of film site

But state councils of churches and interfaith groups are rooted in particular places and better able to address the ways Christian nationalist ideology may be affecting local races and issues. For example, Christian nationalists may be pushing state legislatures to beef up educational funding for private Christian schools, passing laws requiring prayer in schools or displaying the Ten Commandments outside of public building

Their local work can help people of faith draw connections between national ideology with no recognizable leader and the way it may be implemented in their state.

They do so not to debate their opponents but to talk to one another.

“The people in the room are already thinking about Christian nationalism as a problem,” said Copeland. “What they seem to be most grateful for is that they’re in a room full of people like themselves, where often they might feel like they’re the only person that thinks that way.”

The North Carolina Council of Churches has across the state sponsored seven screenings of the documentary “Bad Faith,” with a discussion forum after the screening. Copeland often invited Duke University historian Nancy MacLean to join her on her talks to church groups in part because understanding Christian nationalism requires a historical and political understanding of the rise of the far right.

Members of Word Tabernacle Church appreciated the event, which was also livestreamed to 300 members at home. The church, started in 2005 as a Southern Baptist-affiliated congregation, is now nondenominational. As such, it is not a member of the state’s Council of Churches, which is composed of 18 denominationally affiliated congregations. But its pastor, James Gailliard, a former Democratic state legislator, said he wants to work more closely with the council.


Lorenza Johnson of Rocky Mount, N.C., a member of Word Tabernacle Church, expressed some thoughts after watching the movie “Bad Faith.” RNS photo by Yonat Shimron

Lorenza Johnson, a church member who attended the screening in person, said he appreciated what he learned and said he felt mobilized to do more.

“We can be happy in here and shout in here and be safe and go to heaven,” said Johnson, who lives in Rocky Mount. “But in reality, we still have another generation that’s gonna be here. And if we don’t find out the power of a vote and get the right people in place, then we may be going to heaven, but we can be living in hell while we’re here.”

Although much of the effort of state councils of churches will conclude after the presidential election, several others have decided to keep going.

The Wisconsin Council of Churches, for example, is putting together a sermon series for Lent, which begins on March 5, and soliciting hymns, songs and other artwork that address ways of countering Christian nationalism.

“So often, people look at these large election cycles and they think, ‘OK, we’re, we’re going to pay attention to this issue and then once the election cycle is over, we all calm down,’” said the Rev. Kerri Parker, executive director of the Wisconsin Council of Churches. “We need to pay attention to these moral and ethical issues all along.”

The Arizona Faith Network, an interfaith group, is also going to continue exploring the issue in 2025, with a focus on religious nationalism in other faith traditions, such as Hinduism and Buddhism.

Allen said he thinks these efforts at the congregational level may be the most meaningful.

“People who are feeling lonely and left out and connecting with folks who are manipulating them,” said Allen. “I think the church can provide an alternative to that — an authentic community that doesn’t seek to take anything from them, but instead to give.”

(This story was reported with support from the Stiefel Freethought Foundation.)

We tried Christian nationalism in America. It went badly.

(RNS) — Nostalgia for a ‘Christian America’ overlooks the realities of religion in the founding era — which included taxes, jail time, exile and even public hangings for anyone who defied state-run churches.

Mary Dyer being led to her execution on Boston Common, June 1, 1660. (Image courtesy of Wikimedia/Creative Commons)
Bob Smietana
October 30, 2024

NORTH MIDDLEBORO, Mass. (RNS) — The Rev. Jason Genest loves God and his church.

He also loves U.S. history.

Which is why he gets nervous when he hears people talk about America being founded as a Christian nation. Or wanting to make America Christian by using the power of politics.

America tried that in the past, he said. It did not go well — including for the founder of Genest’s own church.

First Baptist Church of North Middleboro, Massachusetts, was founded by Isaac Backus – a champion of religious freedom in the 1700s — who often found himself at odds with leaders of the Congregational church, which at the time was the official religion of the Bay State.


The Rev. Jason Genest. (RNS photo/Bob Smietana)

So-called New Light Baptists like Backus, who were followers of the famed evangelical preacher George Whitefield — a leader of the First Great Awakening who stressed the need for personal conversion — were seen as troublemakers and threats to public order by leaders of the official church, which was essentially a state bureaucracy, said Genest.

New Light Baptists questioned social institutions, by claiming the baptisms — and sometimes the marriages — of the unconverted were invalid. They also set up rival churches to draw worshippers away from parish churches and, more importantly, refused to pay taxes to support those parish churches. That led to government crackdowns, with some gatherings of New Light Baptists banned as illegal.

“When you get along with a state bureaucracy, it’s great,” Genest said. “When you disagree, you have problems.”

Today, as America has grown both more secular and more religiously pluralistic, there has also been a rise in Christian nationalism — an insistence that America was founded by Christians and should be run by Christians. But the founding era was not a religious utopia, where Colonists were free to choose their faith. Instead, disputes between different kinds of Christians were fierce in the Colonies that became the United States. Those Colonies often had official churches that used government power to collect taxes, enforce doctrine and crush their rivals.

Catherine Brekus, a religious historian at Harvard, says there’s a powerful myth that the early American Colonies were founded on the idea of religious freedom.

“That is not true,” she said.

“We think that religious freedom was enshrined from the beginning, and instead it was a long and hard fight,” she said.



Portait of Isaac Backus at First Baptist Church of North Middleboro, Mass. (RNS photo/Bob Smietana)

In the 1700s, some Christians, like Backus’ mother and brother, ended up in jail. Others found constables at the door, hauling their possessions away for back taxes — taxes meant to subsidize the state church. Still others were banned from meeting altogether in so-called illegal churches.

Backus’ concerns about the power of government to dictate what people believed — and to punish those who disagreed — fueled his efforts to separate the church and state in Massachusetts. (This became reality in 1833, nearly three decades after Backus died.)

While Genest believes churches should be active in public life, that’s different from trying to mandate what people believed. When the government has that power, bad things happen, he said.

“I hate to say we use God, but I think God is often used as a means of people getting what they want,” Genest said.

RELATED: What is Christian nationalism, anyway?

About 30 miles west of North Middleboro stands another First Baptist Church — also known as the First Baptist Church in America — with its own story of clashing with Christian nationalism

This year on Oct. 13, the guest speaker at First Baptist was John McNiff, a retired national park ranger and historical reenactor who often portrays Roger Williams, the church’s founder. Williams was exiled from Massachusetts in the 1600s because of his “dangerous ideas” about religious freedom.

Among those ideas: State leaders should not use civil power to make people go to church or observe religious rules. During his talk, McNiff pointed out that none of the worshippers in the service were there because the law required them to be.

Historical reenactor John McNiff portrays Roger Williams at the First Baptist Church in America on Oct. 13, 2024, in Providence, R.I. (Photo by J. Stanley Lemons)

“These politicians, these rulers, were compelling people to a faith that they did not believe in,” he said, drawing from Williams’ writings. “The civil sword can make a nation full of hypocrites, but not one true Christian.”

That fear of state-run religion was shaped in Williams’ childhood, said Charlotte Carrington-Farmer, a professor of history at Roger Williams University in Rhode Island.

“Williams grew up in a world of religious turmoil, where the ‘official’ state religion changed on the whim of a monarch,” Carrington-Farmer wrote in a 2021 book chapter about religious freedom and Williams, who was born in England.

When he arrived in New England, Williams realized he had not come to a place where people were free to worship.

“When he gets to Massachusetts, he’s horrified,” said Carrington-Farmer, editor of a forthcoming collection of Williams’ writing, called “Roger Williams and His World.” “He’s seen the same persecution, just under a different umbrella.”


“The Banishment of Roger Williams” by Peter F. Rothermel, circa 1850. (Image courtesy of Wikipedia/Creative Commons)

Williams became an outspoken advocate for religious freedom, often holding meetings in his home to advocate for his ideas. In particular, he believed government should have no right to enforce religious rules. That put him at odds with other Puritan leaders such as Gov. John Winthrop and clerics who felt it their God-given duty to keep their community holy.

Tired of Williams’ “diverse new & dangerous opinions,” a Boston court banished him on Oct. 9, 1635, giving him six weeks to leave — or else government officials would remove him by force. He eventually fled the state during a blizzard that winter, going to Narragansett Bay, where he founded the town of Providence and later, First Baptist.

Carrington-Farmer said Puritan leaders had tried to avoid banishing Williams, whom they held in high esteem, and tried to get him to moderate his views. But Williams would not compromise

Puritan leaders, she said, felt caught between a rock and a hard place. They had experienced persecution for the faith in England and wanted to create a new community that was faithful to the Bible and Christianity — which, as John Winthrop put it, would be a city on a hill. They feared troublemakers like Williams would put that vision at risk. The Puritans believed God would punish them if they allowed sin and dissent to flourish.

Ironically, in being banished, Williams was lucky. Several decades later, Mary Dyer, Marmaduke Stephenson, William Leddra and William Robinson—all members of the Society of Friends, or Quakers — were hanged on the Boston Common for defying the power of the established church.

On a sunny afternoon in early September this year, a pair of tourists who identified themselves as descendants of Williams stopped in the church he started, to have a look. After settling them in to watch a short video about the history of First Baptist, the Rev. Jamie Washam, the church’s current pastor, sat on the church stairs for a conversation about Williams’ legacy.

The Rev. Jamie Washam. (RNS photo/Bob Smietana)

Washam, the pastor of First Baptist since 2015, said she worries that the hard-won lessons of Williams’ life have been forgotten.

“The story and legacy of Roger Williams reminds us that it has always been a struggle to advocate for religious liberty,” said Washam, sitting on the church steps. “We continue to fervently believe that that cost is worth it.”

She’s skeptical of the idea that voting for the right candidate will make America more Christian.

“Better legislation doesn’t make us better Christians,” she said. “Being more faithful and loving and just people make us better Christians.”

Some Christians, however, worry something essential is being lost as the country becomes less religious. That’s the case for Jerry Newcombe, executive director of the Providence Forum, which has produced a series of videos about the Christian origins of the United States.

“I feel like there’s been a great deal of misinformation and forgetting,” said Newcombe, whose organization seeks to “preserve, defend and advance the Judeo-Christian values of our nation’s founding.”

First Baptist Church in America in Providence, R.I. (RNS photo/Bob Smietana)

While he fiercely promotes the idea that America was founded on Christianity, Newcombe admits things did not always go well — especially for religious groups that clashed with political leaders over matters of faith.

“It’s not as if everything was Shangri-la, especially if you were a nonconformist,” he said in a phone interview.

“In retrospect, we don’t agree with that,” he said. “But don’t throw God out of the whole equation.”

Other conservative Christians go much further, saying America must return to its Christian roots or perish. Josh Abbotoy, head of American Reformer magazine and an investor who wants to rebuild a Christian America, has suggested the U.S. might need a “Christian Franco” — a reference to the longtime Spanish Catholic dictator — to restore Christianity to its rightful place in American society. Others, like the National Conservatism movement, believe the government should use Christianity to shape society. During a recent Nat Con event, Al Mohler, president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, praised the Protestant empire that built America — saying that religious foundation must be restored.

“I want to say that I do not believe this nation and all that it represents can survive abandoning its theological roots. We will recover those roots and commitments or lose everything,” Mohler said earlier this year.

Conservative activists such as Charlie Kirk have called for a return to America’s Christian roots, praising the fact that the early Colonies had religious tests for office and were run explicitly by Christians.

Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk speaks before Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump arrives at the Turning Point Believers’ Summit, July 26, 2024, in West Palm Beach, Fla. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

“One of the reasons we are living through a constitutional crisis is that we no longer have a Christian nation but we have a Christian form of government. And they are incompatible,” said Kirk, in advocating for an end to the separation of church and state and a return to a Christian America during an online panel discussion.

Douglas Winiarski, professor of religious studies at the University of Richmond and author of “Darkness Falls on the Land of Light” — which details the end of established churches in New England — said that nostalgia for a Christian America can overlook how complicated religion was in the founding era.

He said that by the early 18th century, the Congregational church — which had descended from the Puritans — had become fairly tolerant, allowing space for dissenters as long as they paid their taxes and didn’t cause trouble.

That tolerance ended, however, with the rise of New Light Baptists and others who disagreed with the teachings of the Congregationalists and refused to submit to their authority on religious matters.

Ironically, Congregationalists, who had dominated religious life in Massachusetts and other New England states for two centuries, would learn the downside of having a state religion, with the rise of Unitarianism in the early 1800s. Residents began electing Unitarian ministers to lead parish churches over the objections of Congregational church members, who were Trinitarians.

That led to court battles over church property, with the state Supreme Court siding with Unitarians in 1821. As a result, the Congregationalists found themselves losing the buildings and congregations they had controlled since the 1600s.

First Baptist Church of North Middleboro, Mass., was founded in 1756. (RNS photo/Bob Smietana)

Eventually, because of the efforts of Backus and others like him, Massachusetts allowed a kind of moderated religious freedom, in which the taxes paid to the state church were diverted to other congregations — including Baptists and the breakaway Congregationalists. But it was an uneasy peace and led to the disestablishment—the end of official status—of a state church in Massachusetts.

The archives from First Parish in Cambridge — which was an official government church from the 1600s to the early 1800s — were filled with letters from residents of that city, requesting their taxes be sent to other churches in the 1800s, said Gloria Korsman, a First Parish historian and a Harvard librarian. At that time, the clerk of the parish church — a state church that eventually became Unitarian — was responsible for collecting taxe=s.

Korsman said she can’t imagine why anyone would want to go back to that time.

“I don’t know what there is to long for,” she said. “During the time of disestablishment, neighbors were against neighbors on this issue. It wasn’t like a peaceful time or a time when people were unified. There was a lot of division.”

(Photo by Brad Dodson/Unsplash/Creative Commons)

RELATED: Whose Christianity do Christian nationalists want?

This story was reported with support from the Stiefel Freethought Foundation.

Why the swing state faith voters who really matter in 2024 aren’t evangelicals

MAGA evangelicals grab all the headlines. But it’s swing state faith voters — Catholics, mainliners and Black Protestants — who will likely decide the election.

This combo image shows President Joe Biden, left, Jan. 5, 2024, and Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump, right, Jan. 19, 2024.

 (AP Photos, File)

June 25, 2024
By Bob Smietana, Jack Jenkins


(RNS) — On Election Day in November 2022, Pastor Charlie Berthoud of Covenant Presbyterian Church in Madison, Wisconsin, sat at a table outside the church’s polling place and handed out treats and encouragement.

“Anyone want a nonpartisan cookie?” he recalls asking neighbors who came by to vote.

“We want to thank people for taking part in the democratic process,” said Berthoud, who believes voting is both a civic duty and an act of faith. That idea, he said, is enshrined in the constitution of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), which Covenant belongs to.

“Voting is in our job description,” said Berthoud, who hopes to hand out more cookies this November.

This fall, the outcome of the presidential election may be determined by how church members like those at Covenant do that job.
The difference-makers

While evangelicals and Christian nationalists have made the most of the God and country political headlines in recent years, experts say they aren’t as numerous or influential as other faith groups in the swing states — such as Wisconsin — where the presidential election will likely be decided.

For example, about half of voters in Wisconsin identify as mainline Protestants or Catholics, said Craig Gilbert, the former Washington bureau chief of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and a fellow at the Marquette University Law School’s Lubar Center for Public Policy Research and Civic Education. The “nones” — those who claim no religion — make up another quarter. White evangelicals (16%) and other faiths make up the rest.

Republicans attend a rally for Trump-backed U.S. Senate candidate Trent Staggs and others on June 14, 2024, in Orem, Utah. (AP Photo/Rick Bowmer)

Gilbert said he and a colleague looked at polling from 2020 and compared it with more recent polls. Their study showed that both candidates are seen less favorably than they were in 2020 — though former President Donald Trump has become more popular with born-again voters while President Joe Biden has become more popular with nones.

Predicting what will happen this fall is tricky, he said.

“You can talk yourself into reasons why neither guy can win,” he said. “They are both more unpopular than they were the last time they met each other.”

Nationwide, some faith groups will be courted by campaigns as part of turnout operations, such as nones and Black Protestants, who tend to back Democrats, and white evangelicals, who overwhelmingly vote for Republicans.

But the gap between the two parties is closer among Catholics and mainliners, making them targets for persuasion — even as both groups have inched closer to Republicans.

“You can sort of think of white, nonevangelical Protestants and white Catholics as the center of the political spectrum,” said Greg Smith, associate director of research at Pew Research Center.

Here’s a look at how the faith vote is playing out in these battleground states.
Pennsylvania

While Biden has Pennsylvania roots and is a regular Mass-attending Catholic, he may not find enthusiastic support in his home state among those who share his faith. Both he and Trump are unpopular with voters, said Christopher Borick, professor of political science and director of the Muhlenberg College Institute of Public Opinion.

“I think the major takeaway is that indeed there is lots of dissatisfaction,” said Borick, referring to the results of an April 2024 Pennsylvania survey about the presidential election.

In that poll, Trump led among Catholics by 45% to 41% for Biden. Among Protestants overall, Trump got 56% of support, while Biden got 33%. Folks from other major religions and atheists/agnostics favor Biden over Trump.

President Joe Biden and first lady Jill Biden participate in a memorial wreath ceremony at the National Memorial Arch at Valley Forge National Historic Park in Valley Forge, Pa., Jan. 5, 2024. (AP Photo/Stephanie Scarbrough)

“For a practicing Catholic and someone that loves these Pennsylvania roots to not be winning that group is challenging,” said Borick. “But that’s the nature of the Catholic vote.”

Michael Coulter, professor of political science and humanities at Pennsylvania’s Grove City College, said Pennsylvania — where closely contested matches are increasingly common — will likely come down to motivating swing voters, especially among mainliners and Catholics.

“These might be people who might not be switching from Trump to Biden or from Biden to Trump — but they might be switching from nonvoter to voter,” he said. “And that becomes a very important thing.”
Georgia

Religion has long been a major political player in Georgia, which remains one of the most religious states in the country: More than half the population attends religious service at least a few times a year, according to the Public Religion Research Institute.

Georgia reentered the swing state discussion in 2020, when the Peach State — which hadn’t backed a Democrat for the presidency since 1992 — went for Biden. Voters also elected two Democratic senators, one of whom is the Rev. Raphael Warnock, a prominent Black Baptist pastor. Experts frequently point to two groups when assessing the impact of religion on those elections: white evangelicals and Black Protestants.

Trump, for his part, aggressively courted evangelicals in 2020, enlisting Georgia-based pastors as faith advisers and hosting faith-themed “Praise, Prayer and Patriotism” events in the state.

Hundreds of people wait in line for early voting in Marietta, Ga., on Oct. 12, 2020. (AP Photo/Ron Harris, File)

“There’s a mingling on the evangelical side of religion and politics that certainly benefits Donald Trump and benefits other Republicans up and down the ballot,” said Charles Bullock, a political science professor at the University of Georgia.

Conversely, Bullock noted Democratic candidates “regularly attend Black church services” seeking support, and sometimes — much like Republican candidates at white evangelical churches — even speak from pulpits.

In both cases, politicians are engaging in more of a “mobilizing effort than a conversion effort,” he explained. It can make or break a campaign: In 2022, Republican former football star Herschel Walker narrowly lost his U.S. Senate bid to Warnock in a campaign where both candidates leaned heavily on religious rhetoric. But Walker got 81% of the evangelical vote, a drop-off from Trump and Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp.

“Had he hit probably 82% of the white evangelical vote, we would have Senator Herschel Walker right now in D.C.,” said Bullock.

Charles Bullock. (Photo courtesy of UGA)

But religion’s dominance over politics in the South may be waning. According to Bullock, younger Southerners are abandoning rural homesteads for better job prospects in nearby cities, with many breaking off ties to their home churches. Younger, less religious Americans from outside the state have also flocked to cities such as Atlanta.

“Overall, the people moving into these growth states are more Democratic than the existing population is,” he said.

When it comes to persuasion, both parties are fighting over a demographic that is believed to be less religious and has shown a tendency to shift political allegiances: white, college-educated voters. Bullock argued Trump has been a deciding factor for this group in the past, and not in a way that favors the former president.

“You’ve got these white, college-educated voters who are still essentially Republicans, but they just can’t bring themselves to vote for Donald Trump or someone like him,” Bullock said.

RELATED: Catholics could decide the 2024 election

Arizona and Nevada

Religion was once an afterthought in Arizona politics, but locals say it has increasingly become a major factor — or at least a rallying cry.

In 2020, Dream City Church, a megachurch in Phoenix, hosted a Trump campaign event. In the years since, the church — along with several others — has forged a relationship with the activist group Turning Point USA and began openly advocating for forms of Christian nationalism from the pulpit. Politicians, too, have begun engaging more aggressively with evangelicals, such as failed gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake.

When Trump once again spoke at Dream City Church during a rally earlier this month, the crowds treated it as a triumphant return.


Arizona Republican gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake, right, speaks as former President Donald Trump listens during a rally, Oct. 9, 2022, in Mesa, Ariz. (AP Photo/Matt York, File)

“It’s strange as an Arizonan, because we’re just not used to it,” said the Rev. Caleb Campbell, a pastor at Desert Springs Bible Church who has launched an effort to combat what he says is a rise in Christian nationalism.

Yet for all the energy that has gone into religious outreach by conservatives in the state, it has yet to produce major results at the national level.

“The people who’ve been doing it are not winning,” Campbell said, noting Trump’s 2020 loss as well as Lake’s failed bid despite hard-charging religious rhetoric.

According to Thomas Volgy, professor of political science at the University of Arizona, national-level campaigns appear to be struggling with Arizona’s unusual electorate.

“The key is not Republicans or Democrats, but independents,” he said. “They make the largest grouping of people, and they look a lot more on social issues — and in terms of their religious preferences — (like) Democrats rather than Republicans.”

Jon Ralston, a veteran journalist and expert on Nevada politics, said his state has also seen a surge in independent voter registration due to a new law that automatically adds people to voter rolls when they interact with the Department of Motor Vehicles. Like in Arizona, Trump has made campaign stops at churches in the state, but Ralston was skeptical that courting religious votes alone could secure a victory for either candidate.

“It’s a very mercurial electorate, and even more so now, because there’s been a huge upsurge in independent registration,” Ralston said.

Both Nevada and Arizona have also seen an influx of new residents moving in from blue states such as California. In Arizona’s case, Volgy said, the shift has “likely made the state more liberal” while also diminishing the voting power of religious groups such as members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints — a traditionally Republican-leaning group which polls nonetheless show have long been skeptical of Trump.

Meanwhile, 1 in 4 Arizona voters are expected to be Latino this year. It’s a demographic analysts say is up for grabs: In a June 2023 Axios-Ipsos poll that surveyed Latino adults nationwide, a plurality (32%) said “neither” party represents them. And while Arizona’s Hispanic population leans heavily Catholic (along with pockets of evangelicals), their voting priorities often diverge from the views of church hierarchy on issues such as abortion, making Election Day outcomes hard to predict.

Michigan

Michigan, a state that had moderately supported Democratic presidential candidates since 1992, was an unexpected win in Trump’s first candidacy and a real blow to his second when he lost it. The Rev. Ralph Rebandt, founder of Michigan Lighthouse Ministries, said he’s determined to get his fellow Michigan evangelicals out to vote this fall, in hopes of returning the state to the Republican column in the presidential race. A former pastor turned political activist, Rebandt said that many Michigan evangelicals didn’t vote in 2022, when a constitutional amendment protecting abortion rights was on the ballot.

The measure, which Rebandt’s group opposed, passed.

“The church did not show up,” he said.

Rebandt — who resigned from the church he’d led for three decades in order to run for governor in 2022 — has traveled the state in recent months, hoping to boost turnout for the 2024 presidential election. He gives presentations about Christian influence in American history as well as telling churchgoers they have a duty to vote.

“It’s funny,” he said. “The church has been told to stay out of politics, but it’s politics that bring the church together.”

He added: “This is good versus evil.”

Corwin Smidt, a senior fellow at Calvin University’s Paul Henry Institute and longtime observer of Michigan politics, said the state’s religious diversity plays a role in its politics. Along with Catholics, mainliners and evangelicals, the state has a sizable Muslim and Black Protestant population.

It’s not clear how those groups will vote. Christians who lean evangelical, in places such as Grand Rapids and other parts of western Michigan, may not be as enthusiastic about Trump as they are in the Bible Belt or other Republican strongholds. The state’s Muslim voters, who have supported past Democratic candidates, may be less likely to vote for Biden because of the war in Gaza.

Turnout among Black voters, particularly in Wayne County, which includes Detroit, may prove key. Black Protestants have been staunch supporters of Democratic presidential candidates in the past, and a nationwide Pew Research poll from earlier this year found that 77% support Biden in the 2024 presidential race. Smidt pointed out that in 2016, Trump won Michigan largely because of a big drop-off in African American votes


U.S. Rep. Hillary J. Scholten. (Courtesy photo)

Engaging with religion can be a balancing act. U.S. Rep. Hillary J. Scholten, who represents Michigan’s Third District, is known for talking about faith and politics everywhere she goes — well, almost everywhere.

“For me, I leave my politics at the door whenever I go to church,” she said.

Scholten, a Gordon College graduate, grew up in a Dutch Reformed version of Christianity that straddles the line between evangelical and mainline versions. She described the people in her district as both independent and deeply spiritual. They don’t want government intrusion in matters that are personal, like in vitro fertilization, she said. Instead, she said, they want to be free to choose what they believe is the right thing to do. They also want faith to play a role in public life.

“I have seen just an overwhelming number of people who have been drawn to our campaign, because I have not been afraid about talking about my faith — and frankly being unapologetic about being a person of deep Christian faith,” she said.
Wisconsin

Back in Wisconsin, Berthoud said that during the election season, he tries to keep the focus on the common good and to help people listen to different of points of view. Berthoud, who described himself as a back-to-basics pastor, said he also tries to focus on Christian virtues such as kindness, honesty and loving your neighbor. While the church encourages voting, Berthoud does not endorse candidates and tries to walk a fine line of defending democracy without demonizing others.

“I’m not going to tell people to paint the house orange or blue,” he said. “But if someone’s threatening to burn down the house, then I feel like I need to say something.”



Pastor Charlie Berthoud. (Courtesy photo)

Kris Androsky, pastor of Community United Methodist Church in Elm Grove, Wisconsin, said the polarization of American culture and the upcoming election make pastoring in an election year difficult.

Her church, located in suburban Waukesha County, a Republican stronghold that Trump won by nearly 60,000 votes in 2020, was politically and theologically diverse when she arrived six years ago. Today the church is less diverse politically as people have begun to self-select in or out along political divides. COVID-19 split folks apart. The 2020 election and the polarization of the last four years have just deepened the divides.

“Pre-COVID and pre-Trump, we could think about our neighbors in a nice, clean, nonpersonal way,” she said. “Of course we love everybody.”

Now, she said, people are much more aware of who their political enemies are — and who their neighbors voted for. That makes the reality of loving your neighbors, and your enemies, much harder.

Androsky believes faith should play a role in how people vote on issues. The problem comes when outside politics divide a congregation and make it hard for people with different views to worship together. As the election approaches, things will become increasingly complicated.

“In election years, everything gets a little bit wonky and wild in general,” she said. “I suspect that that will be true for church leadership as well.”

Opinion

How Christian nationalism is going under the radar in this election

As the nonreligious population grows, many Americans are socially insulated from crucial political realities.

An attendee holds a “One Nation Under God Indivisible” poster during a Stop the Steal protest in Raleigh, N.C., on Jan. 6, 2021

. (Photo by Anthony Crider/Flickr/CC-BY 2.0)

June 20, 2024
By Paul A. Djupe

(RNS) — Some far-right Christian lawmakers have proposed that nonreligious Americans are not fit to govern because, without Christ, they are “evil.” Is it possible, given their relative lack of concern about such statements, that nonreligious Americans don’t know what Christian nationalism is?

In fact, it may be expected. As the nonreligious population grows, and as people increasingly choose where they live based on religion and politics, this group has less exposure to conservative Christian politics. While many nonreligious Americans today are aware of the political stakes and players, substantial minorities are socially insulated from religious forces and their effect on political realities as we head toward the 2024 election.

Mobilizing groups into politics can mean introducing terminology that helps people quickly make sense of the political world. Christian nationalism, a worldview seeking and legitimating Christian dominion in the U.S., is the crucial term here. While it may seem obvious that the nonreligious would have interests at stake were Christian nationalists to gain power, it actually comes as a surprise to a number of the nonreligious that they are combatants in a war for America.

A good example of Christian nationalism at work is the Texas Republican Party. As Texas Tribune reporter Robert Downen put it on X recently, “The [2024] Texas GOP convention was one, long and open call for spiritual warfare.” Speaker after speaker reinforced the theme that “they” — a loosely defined set of tags like liberals, globalists and LGBTQ Americans — “want to take God out of the country, and they want the government to be God.”

  
RELATED: At Florida homeschool convention, an education in MAGA politics

This “they” also certainly includes anyone who isn’t a Christian: “People that aren’t in Christ have wicked, evil hearts,” said one participant, according to the Tribune.

Proposals passed in the Texas GOP convention have required teaching the Bible in public schools and changing election procedures to protect the interests of rural, largely white, conservative Christians. These measures are designed to allow the government to force Christianity on others and to reinforce the privileged position of white Christians in power — a canonical case of Christian nationalism.

With such blatant Christian nationalism on the march, why aren’t more nonreligious Americans concerned?

The simplest answer may be that they don’t know about it. A recent report by Pew Research Center showed that in February 2024 slim majorities of Americans (54%) said they had not read or heard anything about Christian nationalism. Of those who identify as atheists, agnostics or “nothing in particular,” Pew found that a substantial minority (44%) had not heard of Christian nationalism.

But on examination the answer appears to be more complicated. Many nonreligious left a Christian congregation at some point in their lives to become nonreligious, often as the result of the visible, alienating presence of the Christian right in American politics. Such leavers, in fact, are the main source of growth of the nonreligious since 1995. Surveys show that those who left a Protestant church to become nonreligious were more likely to have heard of Christian nationalism, while estimating evangelicals to be a significantly larger group than the nonreligious.

In our May 2024 survey of 2,406 nonreligious American adults, which was funded by the Freedom From Religion Foundation, nonreligious respondents consistently reported evangelical Christians as a larger group than the nonreligious by 6 percentage points on average, estimating the nonreligious to be 34% of the U.S. population and evangelicals as nearly 40%. (Both estimates are too high.)

This overestimation of conservative Christians’ numbers seems to result from living in states with a majority of evangelicals. Having conservative Christian neighbors drives down their sense of their own numbers. So while the nonreligious are the largest “religious” group in the U.S. by at least a few percentage points and have been for a few years, many of them wouldn’t know it.

The stakes are clearer for this group, but they underestimate their influence.

Another growing group of nonreligious Americans, however, lacks the history and direct exposure to Christian conservatives, and that lack of experience may be equally politically consequential. Plenty of nonreligious Americans were raised nonreligious and remain so. In the General Social Survey, this number has been increasing since data collection began in 1973, when 15% of religious nones indicated they were raised that way. By 2000, that figure had stabilized at about 30%. In our survey, just over a third (37%) indicated that they were raised nonreligious and continue to be.

About 7 percentage points fewer of these never-churched have heard about Christian nationalism than those who have left Christian groups. They are also 15 percentage points less interested in learning about organizations fighting Christian nationalism (compared with those who left a Protestant group).

These nonreligious were also the least likely to realize that their action might be required. Our survey asked participants whether they agreed that “To combat Christian nationalism, the non-religious need to be vigorously involved in politics.” Only half of those raised nonreligious agreed, compared with 68% of those who had left Christianity. Only 43% of those who had not heard of Christian nationalism before our survey agreed that action was necessary, compared with 68% agreement among those who had.

 
RELATED: How Trumpism has pushed a fringe charismatic theology into the mainstream

The nonreligious are growing and diversifying in ways that defy easy assumptions. They no longer are simply “exes” with an extensive knowledge of a religion left behind. Without this context, many nonreligious need to be informed about the threat that radicalized Christian nationalism poses to their fundamental rights and liberties, as well as to the democratic constitutionalism that protects us all.

Without that education, many Americans may not understand the stakes of the coming elections, nor see the efficacy that the nonreligious have to promote a more inclusive future of the United States.


Paul A. Djupe. (Courtesy photo)
(Paul A. Djupe directs the Data for Political Research program at Denison University. He is the co-editor of “Trump, White Evangelical Christians, and American Politics: Change and Continuity” and is the academic editor of the series “Religious Engagement in Democratic Politics.” The views expressed in this commentary do not necessarily reflect those of Religion News Service.)

PCA cancels anti-polarization panel with David French for being too polarizing

Leaders of the conservative denomination canceled the discussion of dealing with polarization after online backlash.

 CANCEL CULTURE ORIGINATED FROM MCARTHYISM

David French, and the Presbyterian Church in America logo. (Courtesy images)

May 15, 2024

By 

Bob Smietana

(RNS) —The Presbyterian Church in America canceled a recently announced panel on helping pastors deal with polarization — saying the topic was too divisive.

“The concerns that have been raised about the seminar and its topic have been so significant that it seems wisest for the peace and unity of the church not to proceed in this way,” the PCA’s Administrative Committee said Tuesday (May 14) in canceling the event.

Instead of the panel—which the PCA referred to as a seminar—the PCA will hold a prayer time at the denomination’s General Assembly, scheduled for June 10-14 in Richmond, Virginia.

Leaders of the 393,000-member denomination, which has about 1,600 churches, had last week announced the panel, titled “How to Be Supportive of Your Pastor and Church Leaders in a Polarized Political Year.” The inclusion of author and New York Times columnist David French, a longtime PCA member who recently left the denomination, led to online outrage.

Critics — many from outside the PCA — labeled French, best known for his vocal opposition to Donald Trump, as liberal and divisive and accused PCA leaders of trying to cause “rancor and controversy” over politics. Those critics mostly disagreed with French’s political views.

Ben Dunson, a PCA minister and founding editor of the American Reformer, a publication that seeks to reform “Christian institutions that have become corrupted by false ideologies and practices,” called French the “most polarizing” panelist the denomination could have chosen.

“I cannot imagine a worse choice to help the PCA through the contentious issues we are facing,” Bunson wrote in opposing French’s presence on the proposed panel, which he said would disrupt the denomination’s “peace and purity.”

Critics also called out bestselling author Nancy French, David French’s wife, for being too critical of the PCA in her new memoir.

David French declined to comment for this story. 

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RELATED: Nancy French had it all — then along came Trump. Her new book ‘Ghosted’ tells all.   

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The panel would have also included Paul McNulty, the president of Grove City College, a conservative school that published a report rejecting “wokeness” in 2022, along with a pair of PCA pastors, but their inclusion received little attention relative to French’s.

As American society has become more polarized, religious groups have become increasingly divided along political lines. A majority of white Christians, including Catholics, mainline Protestants and evangelicals, are allied with the Republication Party, while Black Protestants, Hispanic Protestants, nones and non-Christians are allied with the Democratic Party. That means churches are less likely to be politically diverse, a reality that intensified during the Trump and COVID-19 era.

The hostility between parties has also grown in recent decades, with each side believing the other is more “immoral, dishonest and close-minded” than other Americans, according to Pew Research.

As a result, voting for the wrong candidate can be seen as a sign of sin or heresy. Cooperating across party lines is often viewed as a betrayal.

The Frenches, along with Christianity Today editor Russell Moore and writer and pastor Curtis Chang, recently launched a project called “The After Party,” designed to bring “Christian virtues like kindness, love and mercy” into political discussions at churches.

Chang said the cancellation of the PCA polarization panel illustrates the problem Christian groups are facing. 

“The PCA canceled David because it could not even tolerate hearing from a fellow Christian —David French — who might hold different views from some of its members on various partisan issues,” Chang said. “The PCA canceled David because it is elevating partisan differences over shared fidelity to Jesus.”

Bryan Chapell, the stated clerk of the PCA, did not mention David French by name when announcing the panel’s cancellation but said a panelist had caused controversy. Chapell also apologized for choosing that panelist.

“Had I known some of the ways that the panelist has expressed himself or been understood in past writings, I would have made a different choice for the purposes of this seminar,” he wrote.

AMERIKA

The number of religious ‘nones’ has soared — but not the number of atheists
Image via Shutterstock.

The Conversation
May 07, 2024

The number of individuals in the United States who do not identify as being part of any religion has grown dramatically in recent years, and “the nones” are now larger than any single religious group. According to the General Social Survey, religiously unaffiliated people represented only about 5% of the U.S. population in the 1970s. This percentage began to increase in the 1990s and is around 30% today.

At first glance, some might assume this means nearly 1 in 3 Americans are atheists, but that’s far from true. Indeed, only about 4% of U.S. adults identify as an atheist.

As sociologists who study religion in the U.S., we wanted to find out more about the gap between these percentages and why some individuals identify as an atheist while other unaffiliated individuals do not.
Many shades of ‘none’

The religiously unaffiliated are a diverse group. Some still attend services, say that they are at least somewhat religious, and express some level of belief in God – although they tend to do these things at a lower rate than individuals who do identify with a religion.

There is even diversity in how religiously unaffiliated individuals identify themselves. When asked their religion on surveys, unaffiliated responses include “agnostic,” “no religion,” “nothing in particular,” “none” and so on.

Only about 17% of religiously unaffiliated people explicitly identify as “atheist” on surveys. For the most part, atheists more actively reject religion and religious concepts than other religiously unaffiliated individuals.

Our recent research examines two questions related to atheism. First, what makes an individual more or less likely to identify as an atheist? Second, what makes someone more or less likely to adopt an atheistic worldview over time?
Beyond belief – and disbelief

Consider the first question: Who’s likely to identify as an atheist. To answer that, we also need to think about what atheism means in the first place.

Not all religious traditions emphasize belief in a deity. In the U.S. context, however, particularly within traditions such as Christianity, atheism is often equated with saying that someone does not believe in God. Yet in one of our surveys we found that among U.S. adults who say “I do not believe in God,” only about half will select “atheist” when asked their religious identity.

In other words, rejecting a belief in God is by no means a sufficient condition for identifying as an atheist. So why do some individuals who do not believe in God identify as an atheist while others do not?

Our study found that there are a number of other social forces associated with the likelihood of an individual identifying as an atheist, above and beyond their disbelief in God – particularly stigma.

Many Americans eye atheists with suspicion and distaste. Notably, some social science surveys in the U.S. include questions asking about how much tolerance people have for atheists alongside questions about tolerance of racists and communists.

This stigma means that being an atheist comes with potential social costs, especially in certain communities. We see this dynamic play out in our data.

Political conservatives, for instance, are less likely to identify as an atheist even if they do not believe in God. Just under 39% of individuals identifying as “extremely conservative” who say they do not believe in God identify as an atheist. This compares with 72% of individuals identifying as “extremely liberal” who say they do not believe in God.

We argue that this likely is a function of greater negative views of atheists in politically conservative circles.
Adopting atheism

Stating that one does not believe in God, however, is the strongest predictor of identifying as an atheist. This leads to our second research question: What factors make someone more or less likely to lose their belief over time?

In a second survey-based study, from a different representative sample of nearly 10,000 U.S. adults, we found that about 6% of individuals who stated that they had some level of belief in God at age 16 moved to saying “I do not believe in God” as an adult.

Who falls into this group is not random.

Our analysis finds, perhaps unsurprisingly, that the stronger an individual’s belief in God was at age 16, the less likely they are to have adopted an atheistic worldview as an adult. For instance, fewer than 2% of individuals who said that “I knew God really existed and I had no doubts about it” as a teenager adopted an atheistic worldview later on. This compares with over 20% of those who said that “I didn’t know whether there was a God and I didn’t believe there was any way to find out” when they were 16.

However, our analysis reveals that several other factors make one more or less likely to adopt an atheistic worldview.

Regardless of how strong their teenage belief was, for instance, Black, Asian and Hispanic Americans were less likely to later identify as an atheist than white individuals. All else being equal, the odds of individuals in these groups adopting an atheistic worldview was about 50% to 75% less than the odds for white individuals. In part, this could be a product of groups that already face stigma related to their race or ethnicity being less able or willing to take on the additional social costs of being an atheist.

On the other hand, we find that adults with more income – regardless of how strong their belief was at 16 – are more likely to adopt the stance that they do not believe in God. Each increase from one income level to another on an 11-point scale increases the odds of adopting an atheistic worldview by about 5%.

This could be a function of income providing a buffer against any stigma associated with holding an atheistic worldview. Having a higher income, for instance, may give an individual the resources needed to avoid social circles and situations where being an atheist might be treated negatively.

However, there may be another explanation. Some social scientists have suggested that both wealth and faith can provide existential security – the confidence that you are not going to face tragedy at any moment – and therefore a higher income reduces the need to believe in supernatural forces in the first place.

Such findings are a powerful reminder that our beliefs, behaviors and identities are not entirely our own, but often shaped by situations and cultures in which we find ourselves.

Christopher P. Scheitle, Associate Professor of Sociology, West Virginia University and Katie Corcoran, Associate Professor of Sociology, West Virginia University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Faith in numbers: Behind the gender difference of nonreligious Americans

Photo by Naassom Azevedo on Unsplash
praying woman inside church

The Conversation

March 25, 2024


One of the most consequential stories in American religion in recent years is the rapid and seemingly unceasing rise of “nones” – those who respond to questions about their religious affiliation by indicating that they are atheists, agnostics or “nothing in particular.”

According to some recent estimates, around 4 in 10 millennials and members of Gen Z, a group that comprises those born after 1980, do not identify with a religious tradition. In comparison, only about a quarter of baby boomers indicate that they are religiously unaffiliated.

Social scientists are only beginning to explore the demographic factors that drive individuals who no longer feel attached to a religious tradition.

But as someone who follows the data on religious trends, I note one factor appears to stand out: gender.

Scholars have long noted that atheism skews male. Meanwhile, critics have pointed toward the apparent dominance of male authors in the “new atheism” movement as evidence of a “boys club.” Indeed, a quick scan of the best-selling books on atheism on Amazon indicates that almost all of them are written by male authors.

According to data from the Nationscape survey, which polled over 6,000 respondents every week for 18 months in the runup to the 2020 election, men are in general more likely than women to describe themselves as atheists, agnostics or nothing in particular. The survey, conducted by the independent Democracy Fund in partnership with the University of California, Los Angeles, was touted as one of the largest such opinion polls ever conducted.

However, tracking the gender gap by age reveals that at one point the gap between men and women narrows. Between the ages of 30 and 45, men are no more likely to be religiously unaffliated than women of the same age.

But the gap appears again among older Americans. Over the age of 60, men are 5 to 8 percentage points more likely to express no religious affiliation.

Moreover, older Americans – both men and women – tend to be far less likely to identify as “nones” compared with younger Americans, according to respondents of the survey.
The ‘life cycle’ effect

What may be driving this pattern of young women and older women being less likely to identify as nones than their male counterparts?

One theory in social science called the “life cycle effect” argues that when people begin to marry and have children, some are drawn back into religious circles to raise their kids in a religious environment or to lean on support structures that religion may provide.

But once kids grow up and leave the house this attachment fades for many. I make this point in my forthcoming book called “The Nones.”

The data on gender and those with no religious affiliation could indicate that this drifting is especially acute for men. One explanation could be that men are more likely to be religious when they are part of a family unit, but when children grow up, that connection becomes weaker. Unfortunately, the survey does not offer a direct test of this hypothesis.

But it would fit with survey research over the past five decades that has consistently found that Christian women are more likely than men to attend church.

One word of caution about the data is necessary. The survey is just a single snapshot of the public in 2019 and 2020. It’s possible that this same pattern would look different if data were collected 20 years ago or 20 years from now. Either way, it offers a small window into how age and gender interact with the religious lives of Americans.

Ryan Burge, Assistant Professor of Political Science, Eastern Illinois University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.