1. The “word for word literal” vs. “inspired but parts symbolic” question is poorly worded. You’re probably thinking about things like Genesis 1-11. But I know people who would consider Genesis 1-11 to be completely literal history yet would still agree the Bible is partly symbolic, because of the Psalms and so on. The Adam and Eve question gets closer to the real answer.
2. For Roman Catholic clergy, I think the only point here with surprisingly high support that disagrees with Catholic doctrine is the denial of hell. On the question of Scripture having errors, I believe the Catholic doctrine is there might be minor historical errors (e.g. the size of the armies in Joshua) but the core of the historical narrative is all true.
3. Psychologically, the seeming lack of faith among Roman Catholic clergy compared to evangelical or black Protestants is interesting, when they have given the most up. But maybe for that reason it’s also the hardest to leave? I would also guess that there’s a generation gap here, with older Catholic priests harboring more doubts.
EDIT: I realize I was mistaken on this point about hell -- best I can tell universalism is accepted as a valid opinion within the RCC.
I wouldn't say picking a more nuanced option is lack of faith. As one Biblical scholar and priest I knew said, everything in the Bible is true with a big T but not necessarily true with a little t. The description of Adam and Eve and the loss of innocence in Genesis is a profoundly true account of man's relationship with God. But it doesn't mean it exactly happened as a later author existing in time understood and wrote down the story. In my mind, God can hold all these truths in parallel.
I wasn't really thinking of the Adam and Eve point in that comment -- I don't think that's a denial of RCC doctrine.
But denial of Jesus' bodily resurrection, for example, is a denial of RCC doctrine, and the numbers are still somewhat lower there.
I also don't really know where the RCC stands on missions. I thought it officially still supported them. But this survey is showing support its clergy's support missions is in line with the Mainline. Also the RCC officially claims to be the one true church, in a way that most evangelical churches do not. But in practice its clergy also seem to be more OK with people not belonging to that church -- or perhaps even to Christianity.
Yes, evangelization is still very important to the Roman Catholic Church, although it must respect people's concience and not prostletyze. I do think there is concern about trying to convert other Christians especially Eastern Orthodox or other Eastern churches with valid sacraments but not in communion with the Roman Catholic Church or even Jewish believers. That may be reflected in the responses to the question about whether everyone should be your religion. I think the emphasis is more on evangelizing those who are looking or who don't have anything.
I doubt you could track it in this survey (I'd bet the Vatican has this data but probably not easily available), but I bet there would be some fun cleavages if you broke it out by order
At least for the Catholic clergy respondents, it’s worth noting that the most “strident” response does not necessarily reflect the Catholic Church’s authoritative teaching, or the statements may be ambiguous because they’re not written in theological language. For example, on the Biblical question that you highlight, a Catholic could likely affirm both (2) and (3) based on completely orthodox doctrine, e.g., regarding the New Covenant.
So, there's always room to wonder about the space between survey response and what's actually going on in somebody's heart and mind, but I think that's particularly important here with respect to evangelical pastors and their very strong "fully believe, no doubts" responses, which in your closing remarks you seem to take at face value. Evangelical epistemology leans really really hard on certainty, and on a whole edifice of truth that has to all hang together. There's not a lot of space for acknowledging doubt in that world (until and unless it becomes unmanageable and things come crashing down). I'm not the right person to say something coherent about this - but there's a substantial sociological literature on the subject; it shouldn't be hard to find. In addition to having studied some of that along the way, I've also worked with my fair share of ex-evangelicals on their way into (or through) the Episcopal Church over the years. People can have deep, deep questions and dissatisfactions, while living in the evangelical world, and just never feel safe enough to surface or name them, often even to themselves. So taking these pastors' responses as Gospel truth, so to speak, rather than what evangelicals have to say when questioned about their faith, seems like something worth a little pushback to me. Thanks for all this interesting work!!
A valid point, and the Bible acknowledges doubt: "I believe; help my unbelief!"
If a pastor can't preach on this verse, he's going to have problems. And in my experience, plenty of evangelical pastors preach on it. They acknowledge doubt.
But the question asked here was about belief in God, which is a very low bar. I have plenty of doubts from time to time on some questions, but, by the grace of God, I don't think I'm constitutionally capable of doubting God's existence. The idea that the universe and the physical laws were created accidentally by a blind idiot process for no reason isn't a notion that makes any kind of rational sense to me.
I would say that first of all I am not a Christian, I am a Jew. I do not think belief in anything and specifically belief in God is a question of rationality. When people talk about God they mean many things and often visualize God in their image rather than the reverse. It is difficult to see such things when we mostly have physical reference points for something spiritual. For myself I think about the image of Jacob as the God wrestler. But perhaps for Christians the questions are different because Jesus walked on the earth with a physical body. My wife who is a Christian has told me that the whole point of Jesus was that God wanted to know what it felt like to be human. I once heard a Catholic theologian in Chicago say that for the resurrection to have any meaning it must be a spiritual not a physical one -- adding God does not need to do tricks to impress people. But what was meant by a spiritual resurrection is beyond my understanding..
What a great post, thanks as always Ryan. Is there any data-over-time for this? I wonder if the level of doubt in different groups of clergy has changed over time? My suspicion is that it has not but that *admitting* it has become significantly more acceptable.
This does feed into the current popular idea that society is dividing into groups of fervent hard-core believers which are all-but impossible to engage with on their group's tenets (not just religious, also political and other areas) and often much larger groups of people are unengaged / uninterested in those topics. It often feels like casual interest and active debate are both things that are dying out.
Where this concerns me the most, even as someone who is British, is the influence of some conservative religious groups in the highest halls of government in the USA in an environment where such groups are less and less likely to listen to any out-group voices.
First, the concept of preaching itself. I often think of the privilege it is to stand in front of a room full of people, week after week, and talk uninterrupted for 15-20 minutes. and how rare that is. Thank you for putting that out there.
also, mainline Protestants have the largest number of 'doubters' among the clergy. And are also declining the fastest. Coincidence? I think not.
I say this as an Episcopal priest, btw. And count me as 100% sure of God.
As you mentioned towards the end I am surprised at how consistent evangelical and black Protestant clergy tend to be with each other! (Minus the last two questions of course). I don’t know that someone outside of these traditions would guess that.
This is actually a problem I’ve read that many black denominations aren’t sure where to send people for seminary because of the difficulties both with evangelical and mainline Protestant seminaries. Check out Esau McCaulley’s “Reading While Black”!
I agree — though I had picked up on this trend with some of Ryan’s earlier data.
I’m an evangelical but not that familiar with the black Protestant tradition. The best-known black clergyman of all time was of course MLK, who was famously very theologically liberal, denying the Resurrection and many other core doctrines around Jesus.
But he was atypical. Attended UTS, which is a very liberal Mainline seminary. The liberalism of Mainline clergy is reinforced by the Mainline’s liberal network of seminaries, which tend to be attached to secular private universities.
Where do black Protestant clergy mostly go to seminary? I’m not entirely sure, though I found this list of the AME’s official seminaries.
There are a lot and I haven’t heard of any of them — but that leads me to think they’re probably a good deal more conservative than Mainline seminaries and many might resemble the small Bible colleges that many small town Baptist pastors attend.
The data you've uncovered in this post, including the attatched previous post on LGBTQ, goes a long way toward explaning why evangelicals, especially nondenominational evangelicals, are growing by leaps and bounds, while the mainlines continue to spiral down in terminal decline. The data, all of it viewed together, speaks for itself very clearly.
I would love to know more about the “non-Christian” respondents. There is a common anti-faith argument aimed at Christians that goes something like “How can you be so sure your faith is the one true faith. If you were born into a different religion you would think that was the one true religion.” On the surface the data here don’t seem to support that notion, at least literally interpreted.
The Adam and Eve question is a bit misleading for Catholics because all Catholics are obliged to believe, with the assent of divine faith, that humankind descends from an original pair of “First Parents.” Whether their names were “Adam” and “Eve,” and whether the event whereby they broke communion with God was in a garden with an angel in snake-form, is up for debate. I bet if the question asked about the First Parents of humanity, it would be at least a few points higher. Though the Boomer priests would probably still be skeptical.
Some thoughts:
1. The “word for word literal” vs. “inspired but parts symbolic” question is poorly worded. You’re probably thinking about things like Genesis 1-11. But I know people who would consider Genesis 1-11 to be completely literal history yet would still agree the Bible is partly symbolic, because of the Psalms and so on. The Adam and Eve question gets closer to the real answer.
2. For Roman Catholic clergy, I think the only point here with surprisingly high support that disagrees with Catholic doctrine is the denial of hell. On the question of Scripture having errors, I believe the Catholic doctrine is there might be minor historical errors (e.g. the size of the armies in Joshua) but the core of the historical narrative is all true.
3. Psychologically, the seeming lack of faith among Roman Catholic clergy compared to evangelical or black Protestants is interesting, when they have given the most up. But maybe for that reason it’s also the hardest to leave? I would also guess that there’s a generation gap here, with older Catholic priests harboring more doubts.
EDIT: I realize I was mistaken on this point about hell -- best I can tell universalism is accepted as a valid opinion within the RCC.
I wouldn't say picking a more nuanced option is lack of faith. As one Biblical scholar and priest I knew said, everything in the Bible is true with a big T but not necessarily true with a little t. The description of Adam and Eve and the loss of innocence in Genesis is a profoundly true account of man's relationship with God. But it doesn't mean it exactly happened as a later author existing in time understood and wrote down the story. In my mind, God can hold all these truths in parallel.
I wasn't really thinking of the Adam and Eve point in that comment -- I don't think that's a denial of RCC doctrine.
But denial of Jesus' bodily resurrection, for example, is a denial of RCC doctrine, and the numbers are still somewhat lower there.
I also don't really know where the RCC stands on missions. I thought it officially still supported them. But this survey is showing support its clergy's support missions is in line with the Mainline. Also the RCC officially claims to be the one true church, in a way that most evangelical churches do not. But in practice its clergy also seem to be more OK with people not belonging to that church -- or perhaps even to Christianity.
Yes, evangelization is still very important to the Roman Catholic Church, although it must respect people's concience and not prostletyze. I do think there is concern about trying to convert other Christians especially Eastern Orthodox or other Eastern churches with valid sacraments but not in communion with the Roman Catholic Church or even Jewish believers. That may be reflected in the responses to the question about whether everyone should be your religion. I think the emphasis is more on evangelizing those who are looking or who don't have anything.
I doubt you could track it in this survey (I'd bet the Vatican has this data but probably not easily available), but I bet there would be some fun cleavages if you broke it out by order
At least for the Catholic clergy respondents, it’s worth noting that the most “strident” response does not necessarily reflect the Catholic Church’s authoritative teaching, or the statements may be ambiguous because they’re not written in theological language. For example, on the Biblical question that you highlight, a Catholic could likely affirm both (2) and (3) based on completely orthodox doctrine, e.g., regarding the New Covenant.
So, there's always room to wonder about the space between survey response and what's actually going on in somebody's heart and mind, but I think that's particularly important here with respect to evangelical pastors and their very strong "fully believe, no doubts" responses, which in your closing remarks you seem to take at face value. Evangelical epistemology leans really really hard on certainty, and on a whole edifice of truth that has to all hang together. There's not a lot of space for acknowledging doubt in that world (until and unless it becomes unmanageable and things come crashing down). I'm not the right person to say something coherent about this - but there's a substantial sociological literature on the subject; it shouldn't be hard to find. In addition to having studied some of that along the way, I've also worked with my fair share of ex-evangelicals on their way into (or through) the Episcopal Church over the years. People can have deep, deep questions and dissatisfactions, while living in the evangelical world, and just never feel safe enough to surface or name them, often even to themselves. So taking these pastors' responses as Gospel truth, so to speak, rather than what evangelicals have to say when questioned about their faith, seems like something worth a little pushback to me. Thanks for all this interesting work!!
From my perspective doubt is an important element of belief. Without doubt belief is quite shallow.
A valid point, and the Bible acknowledges doubt: "I believe; help my unbelief!"
If a pastor can't preach on this verse, he's going to have problems. And in my experience, plenty of evangelical pastors preach on it. They acknowledge doubt.
But the question asked here was about belief in God, which is a very low bar. I have plenty of doubts from time to time on some questions, but, by the grace of God, I don't think I'm constitutionally capable of doubting God's existence. The idea that the universe and the physical laws were created accidentally by a blind idiot process for no reason isn't a notion that makes any kind of rational sense to me.
I would say that first of all I am not a Christian, I am a Jew. I do not think belief in anything and specifically belief in God is a question of rationality. When people talk about God they mean many things and often visualize God in their image rather than the reverse. It is difficult to see such things when we mostly have physical reference points for something spiritual. For myself I think about the image of Jacob as the God wrestler. But perhaps for Christians the questions are different because Jesus walked on the earth with a physical body. My wife who is a Christian has told me that the whole point of Jesus was that God wanted to know what it felt like to be human. I once heard a Catholic theologian in Chicago say that for the resurrection to have any meaning it must be a spiritual not a physical one -- adding God does not need to do tricks to impress people. But what was meant by a spiritual resurrection is beyond my understanding..
What a great post, thanks as always Ryan. Is there any data-over-time for this? I wonder if the level of doubt in different groups of clergy has changed over time? My suspicion is that it has not but that *admitting* it has become significantly more acceptable.
This does feed into the current popular idea that society is dividing into groups of fervent hard-core believers which are all-but impossible to engage with on their group's tenets (not just religious, also political and other areas) and often much larger groups of people are unengaged / uninterested in those topics. It often feels like casual interest and active debate are both things that are dying out.
Where this concerns me the most, even as someone who is British, is the influence of some conservative religious groups in the highest halls of government in the USA in an environment where such groups are less and less likely to listen to any out-group voices.
hoo-boy, you hit home with this one!
First, the concept of preaching itself. I often think of the privilege it is to stand in front of a room full of people, week after week, and talk uninterrupted for 15-20 minutes. and how rare that is. Thank you for putting that out there.
also, mainline Protestants have the largest number of 'doubters' among the clergy. And are also declining the fastest. Coincidence? I think not.
I say this as an Episcopal priest, btw. And count me as 100% sure of God.
As you mentioned towards the end I am surprised at how consistent evangelical and black Protestant clergy tend to be with each other! (Minus the last two questions of course). I don’t know that someone outside of these traditions would guess that.
This is actually a problem I’ve read that many black denominations aren’t sure where to send people for seminary because of the difficulties both with evangelical and mainline Protestant seminaries. Check out Esau McCaulley’s “Reading While Black”!
I agree — though I had picked up on this trend with some of Ryan’s earlier data.
I’m an evangelical but not that familiar with the black Protestant tradition. The best-known black clergyman of all time was of course MLK, who was famously very theologically liberal, denying the Resurrection and many other core doctrines around Jesus.
But he was atypical. Attended UTS, which is a very liberal Mainline seminary. The liberalism of Mainline clergy is reinforced by the Mainline’s liberal network of seminaries, which tend to be attached to secular private universities.
Where do black Protestant clergy mostly go to seminary? I’m not entirely sure, though I found this list of the AME’s official seminaries.
https://www.ame-church.com/directory/institutions-of-higher-education/
There are a lot and I haven’t heard of any of them — but that leads me to think they’re probably a good deal more conservative than Mainline seminaries and many might resemble the small Bible colleges that many small town Baptist pastors attend.
Fascinating
The data you've uncovered in this post, including the attatched previous post on LGBTQ, goes a long way toward explaning why evangelicals, especially nondenominational evangelicals, are growing by leaps and bounds, while the mainlines continue to spiral down in terminal decline. The data, all of it viewed together, speaks for itself very clearly.
I would love to know more about the “non-Christian” respondents. There is a common anti-faith argument aimed at Christians that goes something like “How can you be so sure your faith is the one true faith. If you were born into a different religion you would think that was the one true religion.” On the surface the data here don’t seem to support that notion, at least literally interpreted.
The Adam and Eve question is a bit misleading for Catholics because all Catholics are obliged to believe, with the assent of divine faith, that humankind descends from an original pair of “First Parents.” Whether their names were “Adam” and “Eve,” and whether the event whereby they broke communion with God was in a garden with an angel in snake-form, is up for debate. I bet if the question asked about the First Parents of humanity, it would be at least a few points higher. Though the Boomer priests would probably still be skeptical.
This is really informative. I’m interested what the clergy in the diocese I serve would say.