(Just 20 percent of Republican Muslims attend mosque once a year.) In essence, many Americans are coming to the understanding that to be very religiously engaged and very politically conservative means that they are evangelical, even if they don’t believe in the divinity of Jesus Christ. For instance, half of Muslims who attend services at a mosque more than once a week and align with the G.O.P. Protestants and non-Protestants have a strong affinity for the Republican Party and the policies of Donald Trump, but non-Protestant evangelicals are much more religiously devout. Yet these non-Protestants are embracing the evangelical label for slightly different reasons. The number of self-identified evangelicals has most likely not increased over the last few years because evangelicals have been effective at spreading the Gospel and bringing new converts to the church. Evangelicals prided themselves on their distinctiveness from mainstream society, which insulated them from forces like secularization.īut they might hold off on patting themselves on the back too much.
Because these moderate traditions were so much like the culture around them, the story went, it was easy for their members to fall away from church attendance. The fact that denominations that allowed women pastors were declining while evangelical churches that took more conservative positions on views of gender and sexuality were holding their own was evidence for evangelicals that conservative religion has staying power. For years, stories have appeared in media outlets about how many of the more theologically moderate denominations like Episcopalians and the United Church of Christ have suffered staggering losses in membership.
Instead, the report found the opposite: During Donald Trump’s presidency, the number of white Americans who started identifying as evangelical actually grew.Ĭonservative Christians celebrated the news. Its most shocking revelation was that, between 20, there was no significant decline in the share of white Americans who identify as evangelical Christians. That’s why a recent report from the Pew Research Center came as a huge surprise. The data suggest that religious groups must be suffering tremendous losses as the Nones continue to increase in size and influence each year. In the 1970s, secular Americans (often called the Nones) made up just 5 percent of the population now, that number has climbed to at least 30 percent. The conventional wisdom about religion in the United States is that the number of people who have no religious affiliation is rising rapidly.
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