I have one question, especially in terms of Catholics, is to what degree ethnicity plays into this. I was born and grew up in the Chicago area and lived there from 1950 to 1992. Since that time I have lived on the west coast.. In the Chicago that I knew Catholic churches tended to be dominated by a particular ethnicity -- Polish, Italian, Irish. In fact I once had a Polish-American girl friend who took me to a church that did the mass in Polish. Since moving to the west coast one sees a different attendees at Catholic churches with many Hispanics as well as other ethnic groups. It strikes me that as the generations become farther removed from the immigrant generation the ethnic ties may weaken and the Church that once served as a community centere may lose some of its gravitational pull.
For the apparent "shift" of Evangelicals becoming more conservative, have the Evangelicals moved or has the Republican party moved in a direction more congenial to Evangelicals (more religious?)? At same time, Democrats might have moved further away, perhaps due to secularization and endorsement of policies seen by some as incompatible with religion. If Democrats and Republicans were more centrist in the past, then there would be less "compulsion" to choose between them.
Interesting - I actually think they speed it up. I have a few interactions with those leaving the evangelical fold: 1) their knowledge of basic Christian doctrine or even prayers (like the Lords Prayer, Creed) is close to zero 2) little or no regular church attendance practice (i think that shows in your stats too) 3) Christian commitment boils down to a few slogans and calling themselves “Evangelical”. When years ago i reached out to ex-mainliners who left for evangelical pastures only 20% still had any church affiliation - there others were “Evangelicals” who never attended church. Maybe just my sample but i view them as an intensive course before leaving church.
I think what you notice about evangelicals who leave "the fold" is true of the majority of Mainline and Catholics who are leaving too. They are people who were barely in the fold to begin with. "This is the way the world ends, not with a bang but a whimper." Most people don't come out guns blazing (though they get noticed), they just slowly fade away until they realize, "I guess I'm just not that anymore."
That could just as well describe the non-orthodox synagogues with alumni of congregational Hebrew Schools. Limited knowledge of history, Hebrew literacy, and liturgy limited to the parts that have tunes. A few regulars go each Saturday, most assemble three days a year. Yet even people with limited formal engagement are very sincere about their element of belonging, which Ryan's data did not cover this week. And political stances rarely affect acceptance, as we welcome spirited disagreements.
Thanks for the comment. I think that with Judaism there is also an ethnic element, which Christianity does not (generally) have with tge exception of Christian minorities from
Under islamic rule (Assyrians, Armenians, Greeks etc.) My point was that evangelical secularization is faster but hidden. But Ryan has the stats - this has just been my hunch. Thanks for engaging :)
I had to scroll through the other comments before asking: How do we know that the declines are related to "secularization"? I wonder if "that" captures what is going on.
I am confident about what the graphs and the others have described, i.e., varying belief in God, frequency of worship, politics, loss of institutional trust and of confidence in the Bible, etc. have some influence that is represented in the graphs. I'm really unsure that we can "throw a blanket over it" and call it secularization. I wonder if more is represented here.
"Evangelicals are declining more slowly than other Christians, not staying flat while everyone else falls." That's actually exactly what I would have guessed, based on my anecdotal experience. Any Evangelical ministry I've been involved in in central Ontario is shrinking generation by generation, it's just not dropping off a cliff the way the mainline churches in our areas have (my experience with Catholic churches is the most limited). Neat to see that represented in your data!
Always interesting. How can you refer to yourself as a Catholic and be uncertain about a belief in God? Would like to see parishes repeat the survey to learn more about the causes.
The most striking graph shows the marked increase in conservative identification among evangelicals, a much more demonstrative and consistent pattern than for other religious groups. Might a plausible explanation of this trend lie in the susceptibility of evangelicalism to politicization? It's not just a matter of high levels of religiosity but the marked tendency to turn religious concerns into political ones, using power to fight secularization and, though I hesitate to say, achieve dominance.
Not to oversimplify, but as an evangelical pastor for 30 years I would say our turn to conservative politics can be summarized in one word: Abortion. This single-issue voting pattern is beginning to change with Gen Z. though - it seems not as monolithically important.
My own experience is that the mainline churches got more and more political (left wing variety) over the last 30 years. I think the people who stayed mainline are generally both religious and left wing, a rather small group to draw on. No wonder they are shrinking fast. My own experience of Evangelical churches is that they concentrate more on the Bible than on politics. I realize this is not the current pop-culture picture of evangelicals, and it's certainly not always true, but it's what i have personally experienced. As for Catholics (and this is based on observation, not experience), there is a tremendous variation. If they were brought up Catholic, they often still call themselves Catholic, no matter what their current state of religious belief or participation.
I've bookmarked this chart and article by Ryan Burge that demonstrates your experience is true. Liberal Christians are more political than conservatives.
Ryan, I'd be interested in an aspect of these findings that relate to your work on _The Great Dechurching_. As someone who seeks ongoing spiritual challenge and maturity of faith, I'm never going back to my Evangelical roots (Mark Knoll's famous book explains why). I know my peers in mainline Christianity are seeing declining numbers and while read every update (as the rates change) there's nothing new in the general directions we've seen for twenty years.
Yet this is the point where worship attendance can't serve as a reliable indicator for traditional, Christian faith. Mainliners are okay with barely looking at the Bible and Evangelicals long ago turned their pulpits from Biblical theology to political ideology. I think it was Dallas Willard who pointed out it was easier to plant a church based purely on ideology, put a cross out front and mention Jesus a few times, than it was to form a Gospel-centered faith community.
In TGD, the pastor/co-writers pointed out that one of the biggest changes driving members out of churches has been the culture-warring encouraged by church leaders, especially Evangelical ones. Obviously if these two, Evangelical pastors are warning about this behavior it's not isolated or having minimal impact.
How might existing data help differentiate between those traditions promoting central tenets of historical Christianity and those equating faith with culture warring? I'm limited to Central NY but my experience says self-identified "Evangelical" churches are the most culture-warring of all, my own denomination is fairly diverse socially though many pastors promote social justice, and the Roman Catholic tradition is perhaps best at promoting central, Church doctrine regardless of the bent of the Priest. Anything else out there on this kind of thing? Would love to see large enough numbers distinguishing between ideology wrapped in Jesus-talk and attempts at real faith, similar to PRRI's tracking of Dominionism and White Christian Nationalism.
I know scores of pastors and only 2 that talk politics in sermons. But those 2 are active on social media. The largest evangelical churches in my county and a neighboring New York County never endorse a candidate. I think Burge's study show there are a lot of quite evangelical churches teaching Biblical theology and lifestyle, but they don't get noticed because it doesn't make anyone mad.
Thanks for the thoughtful reply, Bob. While it’s certainly true that a lot of White Evangelical churches don’t endorse candidates, it’s also true that of all Christian alignments, White Evangelical is the most likely to preach conservative ideology rather than established doctrine and studies show do so in the highest numbers. There’s a big difference between not endorsing candidates and not being ideologically-based.
We should also differentiate between what quantitative research and qualitative research do. Quants show trends and changes, and because that can be done over large numbers, can do so more accurately. Quantitative doesn’t purport to get at how respondents are “making meaning.” For example, when ideologically-aligned congregations say they don’t get political they often mean they avoid political controversy, while of course there’s little controversy when congregations and preachers are strongly aligned. Qualtitative studies show that members of large congregations who hold progressive views keep their ideology to themselves. Conservative views coming from the pulpit aren’t “political” to other conservatives, just as progressive views from pulpits aren’t “political” to other progressives - they’re just how things should be (always amazes me how the majority of U.S. Christians claim their political views are aligned with Bible/faith). We should really turn to qualitative studies to determine what’s happening ideologically in congregations, because ideology is all about meaning-making.
The study Ryan does is helpful because it shows that evangelical congregants are less likely than progressives to donate to a political party, work for a candidate or attend a political meeting or protest. That means something - and I think it breaks the narrative we often hear.
But you are right when it comes to morality being preached differently in different churches. Politics is about laws and laws are about right and wrong. Churches should have something to say about right and wrong. I see three separate religions in America that are all called "Christianity" but they have vastly different beliefs on God, humanity, sin, redemption, salvation, authority, etc.
I've read similar research in the past. A general truism is that on average, conservatives give more to churches and local organizations, including anti-poverty organizations, in both time and money. Progressives give more to politicians and equate voting with allying with persons in need - it's more big-picture and less relational.
We gain insights into things like participation from large polls, which is absolutely essential. We also have to be aware of limitations: people often behave differently from the responses they give to polls. Mixed-methods can get much more honest results when looking at granular items like behaviors, but focus groups need large-population surveys to know how to form and what questions to ask first. Neither can attempt to reasonably explain large-scale behaviors without the other.
Those boomers, now church officers, might look at the various measures of belief, attendance, and political homogeneity and wonder why their church's parking lots have so many more empty spaces on Sunday mornings than they remember. The time interval of 17 years may not be long enough for megatrends to declare themselves. The people of 2007 may not be very different from those of 2024 for any church group, but still long enough to have some turnover of membership. Their Membership VPs and treasurers might notice. That's one of the limitations of presenting data as percentages. If the political climate sent Democrats to the exit ramps, the percentages will reflect that but it will not identify that as a smaller membership.
I'm interested in the methodology used to conclude that 55% of Ohio is liberal. The most recent Gallup survey I could find pins iberals at 21% in Ohio. The conservative result corresponds to the sample you describe, at 36%. Moderates comprise 37%. I think it's highly unlikely that 100% of moderates would suddenly identify as liberal. Something's off. That, and Ohio is arguably much more politically conservative today than it was 30 years ago--2026 aside, when candidate quality and a national environment may give Democrats some wins in the state.
Evangelicals have become slightly more conservative since 2007, but Catholics and mainline Christians have not. Gen Z is the least conservative group of all.
I think a great question to include in this study would have rated biblical literacy. Two equally religious groups may have one super-emotional group with low literacy and a moderate group that emphasizes the Bible as the standard for faithfulness.
I taught at an HBCU for a few years starting in 2012. Most of the students had been raised in church. Compared to my experience with white college students, they were significantly less secularized. The institution itself (affiliated with the UMC) was significantly less secularized than the UMC affiliated university I had attended 30 years before. As an outside observer I've seen indications that Black Protestants in the past decade have been catching up on the rest of us in terms of secularization. In academia this may be partly due to a younger generation of faculty and administration.
In regards to Generation Z evangelicals: 74% are certain in their belief in the existence of God, 66% feel that religion is important (I suppose personally, in their own lives), yet only 49% attend church services on a regular weekly basis. That's a wide gap. Sounds like the makings for a new Christian denomination!
I have one question, especially in terms of Catholics, is to what degree ethnicity plays into this. I was born and grew up in the Chicago area and lived there from 1950 to 1992. Since that time I have lived on the west coast.. In the Chicago that I knew Catholic churches tended to be dominated by a particular ethnicity -- Polish, Italian, Irish. In fact I once had a Polish-American girl friend who took me to a church that did the mass in Polish. Since moving to the west coast one sees a different attendees at Catholic churches with many Hispanics as well as other ethnic groups. It strikes me that as the generations become farther removed from the immigrant generation the ethnic ties may weaken and the Church that once served as a community centere may lose some of its gravitational pull.
For the apparent "shift" of Evangelicals becoming more conservative, have the Evangelicals moved or has the Republican party moved in a direction more congenial to Evangelicals (more religious?)? At same time, Democrats might have moved further away, perhaps due to secularization and endorsement of policies seen by some as incompatible with religion. If Democrats and Republicans were more centrist in the past, then there would be less "compulsion" to choose between them.
Interesting - I actually think they speed it up. I have a few interactions with those leaving the evangelical fold: 1) their knowledge of basic Christian doctrine or even prayers (like the Lords Prayer, Creed) is close to zero 2) little or no regular church attendance practice (i think that shows in your stats too) 3) Christian commitment boils down to a few slogans and calling themselves “Evangelical”. When years ago i reached out to ex-mainliners who left for evangelical pastures only 20% still had any church affiliation - there others were “Evangelicals” who never attended church. Maybe just my sample but i view them as an intensive course before leaving church.
I think what you notice about evangelicals who leave "the fold" is true of the majority of Mainline and Catholics who are leaving too. They are people who were barely in the fold to begin with. "This is the way the world ends, not with a bang but a whimper." Most people don't come out guns blazing (though they get noticed), they just slowly fade away until they realize, "I guess I'm just not that anymore."
That could just as well describe the non-orthodox synagogues with alumni of congregational Hebrew Schools. Limited knowledge of history, Hebrew literacy, and liturgy limited to the parts that have tunes. A few regulars go each Saturday, most assemble three days a year. Yet even people with limited formal engagement are very sincere about their element of belonging, which Ryan's data did not cover this week. And political stances rarely affect acceptance, as we welcome spirited disagreements.
Thanks for the comment. I think that with Judaism there is also an ethnic element, which Christianity does not (generally) have with tge exception of Christian minorities from
Under islamic rule (Assyrians, Armenians, Greeks etc.) My point was that evangelical secularization is faster but hidden. But Ryan has the stats - this has just been my hunch. Thanks for engaging :)
I had to scroll through the other comments before asking: How do we know that the declines are related to "secularization"? I wonder if "that" captures what is going on.
I am confident about what the graphs and the others have described, i.e., varying belief in God, frequency of worship, politics, loss of institutional trust and of confidence in the Bible, etc. have some influence that is represented in the graphs. I'm really unsure that we can "throw a blanket over it" and call it secularization. I wonder if more is represented here.
"Evangelicals are declining more slowly than other Christians, not staying flat while everyone else falls." That's actually exactly what I would have guessed, based on my anecdotal experience. Any Evangelical ministry I've been involved in in central Ontario is shrinking generation by generation, it's just not dropping off a cliff the way the mainline churches in our areas have (my experience with Catholic churches is the most limited). Neat to see that represented in your data!
Always interesting. How can you refer to yourself as a Catholic and be uncertain about a belief in God? Would like to see parishes repeat the survey to learn more about the causes.
The most striking graph shows the marked increase in conservative identification among evangelicals, a much more demonstrative and consistent pattern than for other religious groups. Might a plausible explanation of this trend lie in the susceptibility of evangelicalism to politicization? It's not just a matter of high levels of religiosity but the marked tendency to turn religious concerns into political ones, using power to fight secularization and, though I hesitate to say, achieve dominance.
Not to oversimplify, but as an evangelical pastor for 30 years I would say our turn to conservative politics can be summarized in one word: Abortion. This single-issue voting pattern is beginning to change with Gen Z. though - it seems not as monolithically important.
My own experience is that the mainline churches got more and more political (left wing variety) over the last 30 years. I think the people who stayed mainline are generally both religious and left wing, a rather small group to draw on. No wonder they are shrinking fast. My own experience of Evangelical churches is that they concentrate more on the Bible than on politics. I realize this is not the current pop-culture picture of evangelicals, and it's certainly not always true, but it's what i have personally experienced. As for Catholics (and this is based on observation, not experience), there is a tremendous variation. If they were brought up Catholic, they often still call themselves Catholic, no matter what their current state of religious belief or participation.
I'm not sure when being moderate got one called "left wing". I think it's because evangelical "conservatives" have moved so far to the right.
I've bookmarked this chart and article by Ryan Burge that demonstrates your experience is true. Liberal Christians are more political than conservatives.
https://www.graphsaboutreligion.com/p/are-liberal-christians-more-politically?utm_source=publication-search
Ryan, I'd be interested in an aspect of these findings that relate to your work on _The Great Dechurching_. As someone who seeks ongoing spiritual challenge and maturity of faith, I'm never going back to my Evangelical roots (Mark Knoll's famous book explains why). I know my peers in mainline Christianity are seeing declining numbers and while read every update (as the rates change) there's nothing new in the general directions we've seen for twenty years.
Yet this is the point where worship attendance can't serve as a reliable indicator for traditional, Christian faith. Mainliners are okay with barely looking at the Bible and Evangelicals long ago turned their pulpits from Biblical theology to political ideology. I think it was Dallas Willard who pointed out it was easier to plant a church based purely on ideology, put a cross out front and mention Jesus a few times, than it was to form a Gospel-centered faith community.
In TGD, the pastor/co-writers pointed out that one of the biggest changes driving members out of churches has been the culture-warring encouraged by church leaders, especially Evangelical ones. Obviously if these two, Evangelical pastors are warning about this behavior it's not isolated or having minimal impact.
How might existing data help differentiate between those traditions promoting central tenets of historical Christianity and those equating faith with culture warring? I'm limited to Central NY but my experience says self-identified "Evangelical" churches are the most culture-warring of all, my own denomination is fairly diverse socially though many pastors promote social justice, and the Roman Catholic tradition is perhaps best at promoting central, Church doctrine regardless of the bent of the Priest. Anything else out there on this kind of thing? Would love to see large enough numbers distinguishing between ideology wrapped in Jesus-talk and attempts at real faith, similar to PRRI's tracking of Dominionism and White Christian Nationalism.
Ryan has a helpful article demonstrating conservative Christians are actually less likely to be politically involved than moderates or liberals. https://www.graphsaboutreligion.com/p/are-liberal-christians-more-politically?utm_source=publication-search
I know scores of pastors and only 2 that talk politics in sermons. But those 2 are active on social media. The largest evangelical churches in my county and a neighboring New York County never endorse a candidate. I think Burge's study show there are a lot of quite evangelical churches teaching Biblical theology and lifestyle, but they don't get noticed because it doesn't make anyone mad.
Thanks for the thoughtful reply, Bob. While it’s certainly true that a lot of White Evangelical churches don’t endorse candidates, it’s also true that of all Christian alignments, White Evangelical is the most likely to preach conservative ideology rather than established doctrine and studies show do so in the highest numbers. There’s a big difference between not endorsing candidates and not being ideologically-based.
We should also differentiate between what quantitative research and qualitative research do. Quants show trends and changes, and because that can be done over large numbers, can do so more accurately. Quantitative doesn’t purport to get at how respondents are “making meaning.” For example, when ideologically-aligned congregations say they don’t get political they often mean they avoid political controversy, while of course there’s little controversy when congregations and preachers are strongly aligned. Qualtitative studies show that members of large congregations who hold progressive views keep their ideology to themselves. Conservative views coming from the pulpit aren’t “political” to other conservatives, just as progressive views from pulpits aren’t “political” to other progressives - they’re just how things should be (always amazes me how the majority of U.S. Christians claim their political views are aligned with Bible/faith). We should really turn to qualitative studies to determine what’s happening ideologically in congregations, because ideology is all about meaning-making.
The study Ryan does is helpful because it shows that evangelical congregants are less likely than progressives to donate to a political party, work for a candidate or attend a political meeting or protest. That means something - and I think it breaks the narrative we often hear.
But you are right when it comes to morality being preached differently in different churches. Politics is about laws and laws are about right and wrong. Churches should have something to say about right and wrong. I see three separate religions in America that are all called "Christianity" but they have vastly different beliefs on God, humanity, sin, redemption, salvation, authority, etc.
I've read similar research in the past. A general truism is that on average, conservatives give more to churches and local organizations, including anti-poverty organizations, in both time and money. Progressives give more to politicians and equate voting with allying with persons in need - it's more big-picture and less relational.
We gain insights into things like participation from large polls, which is absolutely essential. We also have to be aware of limitations: people often behave differently from the responses they give to polls. Mixed-methods can get much more honest results when looking at granular items like behaviors, but focus groups need large-population surveys to know how to form and what questions to ask first. Neither can attempt to reasonably explain large-scale behaviors without the other.
Those boomers, now church officers, might look at the various measures of belief, attendance, and political homogeneity and wonder why their church's parking lots have so many more empty spaces on Sunday mornings than they remember. The time interval of 17 years may not be long enough for megatrends to declare themselves. The people of 2007 may not be very different from those of 2024 for any church group, but still long enough to have some turnover of membership. Their Membership VPs and treasurers might notice. That's one of the limitations of presenting data as percentages. If the political climate sent Democrats to the exit ramps, the percentages will reflect that but it will not identify that as a smaller membership.
I'm interested in the methodology used to conclude that 55% of Ohio is liberal. The most recent Gallup survey I could find pins iberals at 21% in Ohio. The conservative result corresponds to the sample you describe, at 36%. Moderates comprise 37%. I think it's highly unlikely that 100% of moderates would suddenly identify as liberal. Something's off. That, and Ohio is arguably much more politically conservative today than it was 30 years ago--2026 aside, when candidate quality and a national environment may give Democrats some wins in the state.
That was a thought experiment, Travis. I guess I should have made that more clear in the text.
It's just to illustrate a point about how aggregate change can happen.
Evangelicals have become slightly more conservative since 2007, but Catholics and mainline Christians have not. Gen Z is the least conservative group of all.
I think a great question to include in this study would have rated biblical literacy. Two equally religious groups may have one super-emotional group with low literacy and a moderate group that emphasizes the Bible as the standard for faithfulness.
I taught at an HBCU for a few years starting in 2012. Most of the students had been raised in church. Compared to my experience with white college students, they were significantly less secularized. The institution itself (affiliated with the UMC) was significantly less secularized than the UMC affiliated university I had attended 30 years before. As an outside observer I've seen indications that Black Protestants in the past decade have been catching up on the rest of us in terms of secularization. In academia this may be partly due to a younger generation of faculty and administration.
In regards to Generation Z evangelicals: 74% are certain in their belief in the existence of God, 66% feel that religion is important (I suppose personally, in their own lives), yet only 49% attend church services on a regular weekly basis. That's a wide gap. Sounds like the makings for a new Christian denomination!