Religion as a Cultural and Political Identity

Republicans like the *idea* of religion, without the actual religion part.

You know what phenomenon just fascinates me recently? Stolen valor. It’s when people misrepresent their past when it comes to military service. It could be saying that they served in the Armed Forces when they never did. Or saying that they earned medals that were never awarded.

Exposing these people is an entire genre of YouTube video.

For a lot of people who try and portray themselves as military veterans the goal is gain all the benefits and accolades of having served without any of the real sacrifices that go along with that service.

I think the same thing that is happening with religion, too. I am seeing this more and more in the data. People like the *idea* of religion, without the actual trappings of said religion. They are the kind of folks that talk about concepts like biblical values without every stepping foot inside a church. They want (primarily) Christian values to be protected, but they don’t actually want to spend much time understanding the theology around the values.

For them, religion has become a social and cultural marker - not a spiritual one. It’s basically become another cudgel in the culture war. So, when the debate heats up over issues of sexuality, gender, or abortion these are the kind of folks who will post memes on Facebook that include references to scripture verses, despite the fact that they themselves never read the Bible.

Let me show you what I mean by this.

The Cooperative Election Study asks everyone who takes the survey if they self-identify as an evangelical. It also asks folks how often they attend religious services. I’ve written about this phenomenon extensively, but this NYT Op-Ed really summarizes the point I’m trying to make.

In 2008, 3% of self-identified evangelicals never attended religious services and another 13% were attending less than once a year. In comparison, 59% of self-identified evangelicals were attending religious services at least once a week. I think that largely fits the predominant understanding of evangelicalism: very devout folks who are religiously engaged.

But notice what’s happened to the overall religious attendance of evangelicals in the last decade or so? They don’t attend nearly as much as they used to. Now, 27% of self-identified evangelicals attend services less than once year. That’s double the rate of 2008. At the same time, the share who attend weekly services has how dropped below 50%. Note also that those who attend more than once per week has declined 11 percentage points since 2008.

It’s evangelicalism without the religion part. Before I get the inevitable backlash in the comments let me make this plain: You don’t own the term “evangelical.” Neither do I. I’m not a gatekeeper here. I don’t have to engage in any boundary maintenance. If someone says on a survey that they are an evangelical, it’s not my job to try to refute that, it’s my job to try and explain that choice. I did an entire debate with Andrew Walker about this, if anyone is interested in hearing more of my thoughts on this topic.

Here’s a key part of this narrative that is easy to overlook, though: I think this is largely being driven by politics. Here’s the evidence for that. I took the sample and divided it into Democrats and Republicans than I calculated the share who self-identified as evangelical at every attendance level from 2008 through 2022.

Among never attending Democrats, 4% were evangelical in 2008. In 2022, that was 5%. Among never attending Republicans, 7% identified as evangelical in 2008. In 2022, that had risen to 18%. Yeah, that’s not a small difference.

That same general pattern shows up among seldom attenders, as well.

Democrats in 2008 vs 2022: 15% → 18%

Republicans in 2008 vs 2022: 26% → 37%

Among Democrats, the only attendance level where self-identified evangelicalism has risen noticeably is among monthly attenders: 35% to 44%.

Among Republicans, it’s risen dramatically at every attendance level except those who attend more than once a week (and that’s likely because of a ceiling effect).

Evangelicalism has become a cultural and political marker.

If you have followed my work, you know that I have written about that quite a bit. I am going to extend that line of thinking now. The CES asks this fun little question, “How important is religion to you?” The response options range from not at all important to very important. I love it because it a question about how someone thinks, not what someone does. It’s entirely a psychological affinity question.

So, here is what I did. I calculated the share of Democrats and Republicans who say that religion is very important but also the share who attend religious services every week. I did that for every year of the survey dating back to 2008. I wanted to see if one starts to fall faster than the other.

Look at the slope of the lines. They aren’t even close to the same. The Republican line is much steeper than the Democrats. Here’s what that means practically.

The share of Republicans saying religion is very important has dropped from 58% in 2008 to 52% in 2022. A six-point decline. At the same time, the share attending weekly has dropped from 45% to 35%. A ten-point decline.

For Democrats, the share saying religion is very important went from 38% to 26%. A twelve-point decline. Weekly attendance has dropped from 23% to 17%. That’s a six-point decline.

For Democrats, religious importance dropped at twice the rate as religious attendance.

For Republicans, religious attendance dropped faster than religious importance.

See what’s happening here? Democrats are moving away from the *idea* of religion faster than they are moving away from actual religion. For Republicans, it’s the opposite. They are moving away from religious attendance faster than they are moving away from the *idea* of religion.

Again, it’s about religion as a cultural marker. Not necessarily a theological pursuit that someone engages in.

Let me simplify and enhance that second point a bit more. I restricted the sample to just those who say that they never attend religious services. Then, I divided the sample into Democrats and Republicans.

Among never attending Democrats, the share who say that religion is not important at all was 62% in 2008. In 2022, that had risen to 70%. The share saying it was very important dropped from 8% to 5%. That’s kind of how we should assume this should work. Never attenders shouldn’t think that religion is important.

But that logic does not apply to never attending Republicans. In 2008, 48% of them said religion was not important at all. In 2022, that number had dropped to 40%. In 2008, 29% of Republicans who never attended religious services said that religion was “somewhat” or “very” important to them. In 2022, that share had risen to 38%.

To me, this is very tangible support the idea that the average Republican likes what religion means, but not necessarily wants to participate in it. In my mind, this places religion in the same basket as other cultural markers like, “progressive”, “conservative”, “traditional values”, or “liberal.”

My bias is that I believe that religion is a net positive for a functioning society. I’ve been clear about that for quite a while now. But there’s a huge caveat when it comes to that assertion. Religion is a net positive only when people actively engage in all the aspects of religious life - including regular corporate worship.

The very first paper I ever published was about the issue of political tolerance, which is the idea that we should just put up with people with disagree with. Not that we should affirm their views, merely that they should have the right to speak their mind.

When it comes to religion, guess who are the least tolerant? Those who believe the Bible is literally true.

Guess who are the most tolerant? Those who attend religious services at least once a week.

The belief facet of religion is often caustic. It drives division and eschews compromise. It says, “I’m right and why should I tolerate your wrongness?”

The behavior facet of religion (should) put us in contact with people who are different than us. Economically, politically, educationally, and racially. That builds bridges and cultivates tolerance.

What American religion has become is primarily all the harmful aspects of religion and very little of the democracy building activities that we very desperately need. It’s been reduced to a weapon that is wielded in the culture war debates without any training in it’s proper use.

That’s why religion has become so polarized - because the type of religion that most Americans see now has been stripped bare of all the best parts. And all we are left with is the division, the hate, and the vitriol. The pews are emptying because they aren’t full.

Code for this post can be found here.