Fascinating breakdown, Ryan—what strikes me most is how evangelicalism’s distinctiveness isn’t just preserved in spite of secularization but because of it. The embattlement narrative doesn’t just survive cultural change; it metabolizes it into fuel. There’s something potent—and also deeply dangerous—about a movement that thrives through contrast rather than coherence.
At what point does “cultural distinction” become a performance of opposition rather than a pursuit of truth? When belief becomes a posture of resistance rather than relationship or inquiry, is it still belief—or is it identity defense dressed in theological clothes?
Thanks for laying out the data so clearly. It opens the door to deeper questions about what kind of scaffolding actually supports faith—and what just props up tribal belonging.
Ryan I wonder how this would interact with your running thesis that politics and not religion is the guiding principle for people today.
Because, to be honest it's hard to believe these stats. As an evangelical I've seen over and over again over the last decade (both on the ground and from evangelical leaders) the steady secularization of evangelicalism, from a transcendent mission to becoming caught in the immanent frame. It hasn't shown itself in "official" beliefs per say, but in a change in ethics and in mission.
I have 10 years worth of examples (collected for a Master's thesis), and so maybe I am guilty of confirmation bias or focusing too hard in one place, but evangelicalism from the inside looks to be deeply compromised.
Yeah I purposefully didn't name any specific issues for that exact reason. Historically whenever there are huge social/cultural/economic changes evangelicals typically said "welp, time to double down on evangelism (in word and deed) and trust the Holy Spirit is working out ahead of us." Whether it was the frontier or the industrialization of cities or suburbanization, they went out and did the work. In the social/cultural changes of the last decade I have not seen that at-large. It's been either a despair at lost cultural influence (which was really just the broader culture doing the heavy lifting for them) or it's an aggressive "take the country for God" which has to do less with evangelical persuasion and more trying to seize the reigns of power.
With the schism of the UMC and Episcopal Church, you do wonder if the same thing might happen to certain Evangelical institutions (probably not, say, the SBC, but maybe at certain seminaries or other denominational flagships?).
Most Southern Baptist pastors were in favor of abortion in the 1970's. (https://www.baptistpress.com/resource-library/news/how-southern-baptists-became-pro-life/) Many Southern Baptist University professors couldn't sign their doctrinal statement in the 1980's. I think we forget or romanticize the past in odd ways. We also tend to exaggerate the present "crisis". I have to stop rolling my eyes every time someone uses the word, "Unprecedented."
I agree with you that Evangelicals are struggling against secularization. But this is not new. The stats are slightly encouraging.
Deuteronomy 4:2, "Do not add to or subtract from these commands I am giving you." In Jesus' day the Sadducees subtracted (no belief in the resurrection, accepted only the first 5 books of the Bible, etc.). The Pharisees added extra rules and traditions to the Bible to "help people". Jesus condemned both. Fundamentalists are the modern Pharisees. Liberals are the modern Sadduccees. It should not be surprising that the Jesus way works better.
Be careful. Jesus himself both added (e.g. be baptized, take the bread and water in memory of Him, love one another) and subtracted (Law of Moses fulfilled). It’s not so much the fact of adding and subtracting, but who is doing it that matters.
Like my medical world, some data is better presented as percentage or relative risk, while other information is more revealing as absolute numbers as the incidence and prevalence of conditions change.
If there are fewer evangelicals now, which I think is true but maybe not, those remaining would be more all-in. Thus percentages of those committed would go up, the less committed are attrition, dropping out of the percentages. If there are more evangelicals now than in 1998, the percentage rise, as high as it has become, would underestimate the tenacity of the movement. This is one setting where absolute numbers of those in church every week would be more revealing than the fraction in church every week.
I think people see the decline of Southern Baptists and other evangelical groups but don't realize how the non-denominational movement has more than made up for those losses.
“The decline [of mainline Protestantism] represents the structural consequence of Protestantism's liberal cultural triumph on behalf of such values as individualism, freedom, pluralism, tolerance, democracy, and intellectual inquiry.”
I think a bird’s eye view of other faiths, like Judaism or Mormonism, would support this idea. Costly social signaling in evangelicalism is still going strong, as it is within more fundamentalist versions of the aforementioned religions.
Do you have any data on people’s self-reported reasons for leaving evangelical Christianity? I’ve seen laymen surveys on Reddit and Twitter where intellectual inquiry (I.e. bible contradictions, access to biblical scholarship, study of religion etc) scores high. I’d love to see your own data on the topic but haven’t been able to find it.
I would venture that LDS/Mormons are as deeply subculture as evangelicals even though they also have integrated into society. They have a highly honed sense of persecution complex, and while not strict Biblical literalists, a large portion of the community still accepts it as primarily true happenings (flood, Tower of Babel, Abraham, Moses, exodus from Egypt etc). They are very high attenders and evangelists (80,000 missionaries). Would be interesting to see comparison although LDS are much smaller percentage of population.
Your posts appear to be straight statistics with little interpretation, and while I enjoy them I also enjoy posts that lead me toward being a better Christian.
The two books that have most influenced me last year are;
1. The Religion of Whiteness: How Racism Distorts Christian Faith (with over 3000 interviews as its statistical base with both control and test questions.
"---it has become reasonable to wonder which of the adjectives in the phrase "White Christian Nationalism" takes precedence.
In this book, Michael O. Emerson and Glenn E. Bracey II respond definitively: the answer is "white." The majority of white Christians in America, they argue, are believers in a "Religion of Whiteness" that shapes their faith, their politics, and more. The Religion of Whiteness, they argue, raises the perpetuation of racial inequality to a level of spiritual commitment that rivals followers' commitment to Christianity itself." https://www.amazon.com/Religion-Whiteness-Racism-Distorts-Christian/dp/0197746284
2. Faith Unleavened: The Wilderness Between Trayvon Williams and George Floyd by Tamice Spencer-Helms (which is a separate personal story of the conclusion reached by The Religion of Whiteness).
"At a young age, the Black church introduced her to a God of love, empowerment, and joy. But an encounter with White Jesus set her on a path that nearly destroyed her faith altogether. Persistent police brutality against Black people, and the white church's persistent excuses for it, forced Spencer-Helms to carefully identify how the idol of whiteness keeps Christians captive"
In my area some cultural evangelicals have joined Roman Catholicism and brought many of these traits with them into their new community. I wonder what effect this cross pollination will have long term. It probably wouldn’t appear in the data for a long time though if it ever does
I think this is definitely true. However, I also suspect that evangelicalism can be thought of in terms of "Christianity for the modern mono-culture". It tends to thrive in cultures where people see themselves as authentic individuals, rather than members of a community.
The embattled posture of evangelicalism is responsible, in part, for its success. But probably also has something to do with certain failures it has with regards to achieving influence in mainstream institutions. In relation, for example, to Catholics and Mormons.
There is a strand of thinking among evangelical intellectuals -- which I sympathize with greatly -- that would prefer we be more like the Mainline in our posture, but theologically orthodox, if that is somehow possible. Jake Meador and Aaron Renn both had some good discussions on this topic; see here for example:
I don't know that it needs to be. If someone comes up with and implements a successful model of what the "Protestant church of the Fourth American Republic" looks like, others will move in that direction.
In a world dominated by non-denoms, trying to steer the ship from the top is never going to work. But taken as a whole, this decentralization confers a dynamism and adaptiveness, a sink or swim mentality, that more hierarchical and bureaucratic polities tend to lack. Winning models rise to the top.
Fascinating breakdown, Ryan—what strikes me most is how evangelicalism’s distinctiveness isn’t just preserved in spite of secularization but because of it. The embattlement narrative doesn’t just survive cultural change; it metabolizes it into fuel. There’s something potent—and also deeply dangerous—about a movement that thrives through contrast rather than coherence.
At what point does “cultural distinction” become a performance of opposition rather than a pursuit of truth? When belief becomes a posture of resistance rather than relationship or inquiry, is it still belief—or is it identity defense dressed in theological clothes?
Thanks for laying out the data so clearly. It opens the door to deeper questions about what kind of scaffolding actually supports faith—and what just props up tribal belonging.
Ryan I wonder how this would interact with your running thesis that politics and not religion is the guiding principle for people today.
Because, to be honest it's hard to believe these stats. As an evangelical I've seen over and over again over the last decade (both on the ground and from evangelical leaders) the steady secularization of evangelicalism, from a transcendent mission to becoming caught in the immanent frame. It hasn't shown itself in "official" beliefs per say, but in a change in ethics and in mission.
I have 10 years worth of examples (collected for a Master's thesis), and so maybe I am guilty of confirmation bias or focusing too hard in one place, but evangelicalism from the inside looks to be deeply compromised.
This is what I absolutely love about my job.
If I did a focus group with 100 very engaged evangelicals, a lot of them would say that the movement seems 'deeply compromised.'
If I probed further about what they mean by that some would say, "It's because they've stopped welcoming the stranger, caring for the orphan, etc."
While others would say, "it's because they have capitulated to the culture on sexuality and gender issues."
So, which is the "true evangelicalism"?
Yeah I purposefully didn't name any specific issues for that exact reason. Historically whenever there are huge social/cultural/economic changes evangelicals typically said "welp, time to double down on evangelism (in word and deed) and trust the Holy Spirit is working out ahead of us." Whether it was the frontier or the industrialization of cities or suburbanization, they went out and did the work. In the social/cultural changes of the last decade I have not seen that at-large. It's been either a despair at lost cultural influence (which was really just the broader culture doing the heavy lifting for them) or it's an aggressive "take the country for God" which has to do less with evangelical persuasion and more trying to seize the reigns of power.
With the schism of the UMC and Episcopal Church, you do wonder if the same thing might happen to certain Evangelical institutions (probably not, say, the SBC, but maybe at certain seminaries or other denominational flagships?).
If you look at evangelicals it's basically Southern Baptists (12.7M), Assemblies of God (3M), then all those non-denoms (probably 35M-40M).
So the possible denominations to schism is approaching zero.
I think something similar is happening in evangelical churches that happened to the mainline churches a couple generations ago.
Most Southern Baptist pastors were in favor of abortion in the 1970's. (https://www.baptistpress.com/resource-library/news/how-southern-baptists-became-pro-life/) Many Southern Baptist University professors couldn't sign their doctrinal statement in the 1980's. I think we forget or romanticize the past in odd ways. We also tend to exaggerate the present "crisis". I have to stop rolling my eyes every time someone uses the word, "Unprecedented."
I agree with you that Evangelicals are struggling against secularization. But this is not new. The stats are slightly encouraging.
Deuteronomy 4:2, "Do not add to or subtract from these commands I am giving you." In Jesus' day the Sadducees subtracted (no belief in the resurrection, accepted only the first 5 books of the Bible, etc.). The Pharisees added extra rules and traditions to the Bible to "help people". Jesus condemned both. Fundamentalists are the modern Pharisees. Liberals are the modern Sadduccees. It should not be surprising that the Jesus way works better.
Be careful. Jesus himself both added (e.g. be baptized, take the bread and water in memory of Him, love one another) and subtracted (Law of Moses fulfilled). It’s not so much the fact of adding and subtracting, but who is doing it that matters.
Like my medical world, some data is better presented as percentage or relative risk, while other information is more revealing as absolute numbers as the incidence and prevalence of conditions change.
If there are fewer evangelicals now, which I think is true but maybe not, those remaining would be more all-in. Thus percentages of those committed would go up, the less committed are attrition, dropping out of the percentages. If there are more evangelicals now than in 1998, the percentage rise, as high as it has become, would underestimate the tenacity of the movement. This is one setting where absolute numbers of those in church every week would be more revealing than the fraction in church every week.
There aren't fewer evangelicals today. There are (from a raw numbers perspective) many more evangelicals today than fifty years ago.
I think people see the decline of Southern Baptists and other evangelical groups but don't realize how the non-denominational movement has more than made up for those losses.
“The decline [of mainline Protestantism] represents the structural consequence of Protestantism's liberal cultural triumph on behalf of such values as individualism, freedom, pluralism, tolerance, democracy, and intellectual inquiry.”
I think a bird’s eye view of other faiths, like Judaism or Mormonism, would support this idea. Costly social signaling in evangelicalism is still going strong, as it is within more fundamentalist versions of the aforementioned religions.
The mainline failed because it succeeded!
Your data suggests as much!
Do you have any data on people’s self-reported reasons for leaving evangelical Christianity? I’ve seen laymen surveys on Reddit and Twitter where intellectual inquiry (I.e. bible contradictions, access to biblical scholarship, study of religion etc) scores high. I’d love to see your own data on the topic but haven’t been able to find it.
Wrote a whole book about it - The Great Dechurching.
I would venture that LDS/Mormons are as deeply subculture as evangelicals even though they also have integrated into society. They have a highly honed sense of persecution complex, and while not strict Biblical literalists, a large portion of the community still accepts it as primarily true happenings (flood, Tower of Babel, Abraham, Moses, exodus from Egypt etc). They are very high attenders and evangelists (80,000 missionaries). Would be interesting to see comparison although LDS are much smaller percentage of population.
Your posts appear to be straight statistics with little interpretation, and while I enjoy them I also enjoy posts that lead me toward being a better Christian.
The two books that have most influenced me last year are;
1. The Religion of Whiteness: How Racism Distorts Christian Faith (with over 3000 interviews as its statistical base with both control and test questions.
"---it has become reasonable to wonder which of the adjectives in the phrase "White Christian Nationalism" takes precedence.
In this book, Michael O. Emerson and Glenn E. Bracey II respond definitively: the answer is "white." The majority of white Christians in America, they argue, are believers in a "Religion of Whiteness" that shapes their faith, their politics, and more. The Religion of Whiteness, they argue, raises the perpetuation of racial inequality to a level of spiritual commitment that rivals followers' commitment to Christianity itself." https://www.amazon.com/Religion-Whiteness-Racism-Distorts-Christian/dp/0197746284
2. Faith Unleavened: The Wilderness Between Trayvon Williams and George Floyd by Tamice Spencer-Helms (which is a separate personal story of the conclusion reached by The Religion of Whiteness).
"At a young age, the Black church introduced her to a God of love, empowerment, and joy. But an encounter with White Jesus set her on a path that nearly destroyed her faith altogether. Persistent police brutality against Black people, and the white church's persistent excuses for it, forced Spencer-Helms to carefully identify how the idol of whiteness keeps Christians captive"
https://www.amazon.com/Faith-Unleavened-Wilderness-Between-Trayvon-ebook/dp/B0BTZ9J6LJ
My aim is to be descriptive, not prescriptive.
In my area some cultural evangelicals have joined Roman Catholicism and brought many of these traits with them into their new community. I wonder what effect this cross pollination will have long term. It probably wouldn’t appear in the data for a long time though if it ever does
I think this is definitely true. However, I also suspect that evangelicalism can be thought of in terms of "Christianity for the modern mono-culture". It tends to thrive in cultures where people see themselves as authentic individuals, rather than members of a community.
Politically speaking, evangelicalism is becoming more of a monoculture.
But on things like education, income, race, age, etc. they are actually pretty darn diverse. Much more so than the Mainline.
Insightful.
The embattled posture of evangelicalism is responsible, in part, for its success. But probably also has something to do with certain failures it has with regards to achieving influence in mainstream institutions. In relation, for example, to Catholics and Mormons.
There is a strand of thinking among evangelical intellectuals -- which I sympathize with greatly -- that would prefer we be more like the Mainline in our posture, but theologically orthodox, if that is somehow possible. Jake Meador and Aaron Renn both had some good discussions on this topic; see here for example:
https://www.aaronrenn.com/p/rebuilding-mainline-protestantism
I find both those authors helpful, but it doesn't seem like mainstream evangelicalism is super receptive.
I don't know that it needs to be. If someone comes up with and implements a successful model of what the "Protestant church of the Fourth American Republic" looks like, others will move in that direction.
In a world dominated by non-denoms, trying to steer the ship from the top is never going to work. But taken as a whole, this decentralization confers a dynamism and adaptiveness, a sink or swim mentality, that more hierarchical and bureaucratic polities tend to lack. Winning models rise to the top.