This is very helpful, Ryan. I am working with mainline Protestant congregations and denominations on navigating our current culture. What I find with them is that they don’t expect America to be a Christian culture at the same time that they are grieving their loss of influence in a culture that is becoming less Christian every year.
I am the farthest thing from a statistical expert that you can ever imagine, but I have to ask myself the question, “did anyone set a definition for what a Christian culture really means?“ Here’s my point: there are some American value constructs that have been so intertwined in our world that I’m not sure that a person who is unfamiliar with biblical/Christian values would recognize them as such. For example, if you said that “love your neighbor as you love yourself“ or “due to others what you would want them to do to you“ is a Christian value, the average American might respond, “no it’s not! It’s just common sense!“ Maybe the problem is that I’m TO Christian, so I see so much of our culture as being built on a deep bedrock of basic biblical/Christian values and principles. Am I way off base?
Well said. I totally agree. I think we have seen some recognition of this in the new atheist movement with some atheists even recognizing that while they think Christianity is a farce, it has a lot of societally helpful beliefs. This is something they did not recognize until it was gone or partially removed.
This isn't really your wheelhouse Ryan, but I think about what's upstream from the answers to this question. As we near the 250th year of this great nation, I wonder what stories people are telling themselves about America and its culture, for culture is created by the stories we tell. For most of our history, Americans identified themselves with the Israelite story of enslavement, redemption, and a journey to the Promised Land, which is not "technically" a Christian story, but the early Christians adopted it as their own as well.
An interesting survey question could be something like "Do you believe that America is an exceptional or chosen nation?"
"It’s tapping something more amorphous – do you think that having a Christian culture is a net positive for the country?"
An interesting analysis. It reminded me of the recent comments of ardent atheist Richard Dawkins in the UK who stated that he views himself as a "cultural Christian." He elaborated what he meant by this term by stating that he could not imagine the advancement of science, the arts, and democracy as he understands them from a humanist Western viewpoint as ever developing in, say, Muslim cultures, among others.
If Pew had asked the question, "How important do you think it is for the United States culture to be based on traditional/historical American values," I think the anwsers would have been much different accross the various demographics. Problem is most people don't know enough about the actual history of American values and basic Christian beliefs to recognize they are essentially the same. Hence, a lot of people are subject to the influence of radical politics and ideologies.
So many helpful things here that could be worth commenting on. The one that I'll actually engage at this point is the question about women in vs. outside of Evangelical circles. As someone who's spent a lot of time in and, more recently, on the margins of Evangelicalism, my experience is that liberal women have very little place in the tradition - significantly less so than liberal men, as little as that may be. They feel this, and it generally results in them leaving. So, I think there's a self-sorting mechanism at work here, where the women who remain Evangelical are equally or often even more socially conservative than the men.
“ How important is it for the United States to have a culture based in Christian religious beliefs?”
What is the difference between the United States culture and Christian religious beliefs? The aim of the U.S. system of government is to enable citizens (We the People) to work together towards “a more perfect Union.”
Perfect can be described as all needs (physical, psychological, spiritual) being met. Given that man is imperfect, there will always be a gap or variation between the current situation and the ideal (perfect). The more needs that are met, the less harm is caused to people as a result of unmet needs. Consequently, continuous improvement is a moral imperative.
God is Love. Love is an action – willing the good of others in thoughts, words, deeds.
Actions taken to successfully reduce crime lead to fewer victims, resulting in a more “perfect” union.
Shouldn’t the foundational principle of the culture of both the United States and Christianity be continuous improvement by reducing variation?
Feedback from "Gemini" on the comment :-) Is “Continuous Improvement” the Ultimate Shared Baseline for America and Christianity?
Been updating the post and included commentary from ChatGPT that remarked "that continuous improvement is not an alternative to Christianity or the American experiment; it is the mechanism through which both pursue their aims" and ended with the question: "If the most fundamental observable principle is the sustenance and flourishing of life amid variation, then is love best understood as the motivation for improvement, while reducing variation is the mechanism by which improvement occurs?"
Always good Ryan. Really interesting about younger evangelicals. I wonder if their lack of interest is because they've given up on the rest of the country and are just looking to make their group religiously secure and separate. I doubt you have the data to measure that but it's an interesting and concerning possibility.
This is different from the “Christian Nation “ question. America was never officially intended to be a Christian nation. It has, however, had at various times a more or less Christian culture, with some glaring inconsistencies.
How do you think abortion affects this poll? I suspects it impacts quite a bit.
I believe you had a recent poll where only 23% of Catholic were against abortion. I think that many of the pro abortion Catholics especially the women would be against pro Christian policy for this reason
Two words, young man. Lee Atwater. Evangelical Boomers converted in the 70s and 80s, under the strong influence of Atwater's merging of politics and religion.
This is very helpful, Ryan. I am working with mainline Protestant congregations and denominations on navigating our current culture. What I find with them is that they don’t expect America to be a Christian culture at the same time that they are grieving their loss of influence in a culture that is becoming less Christian every year.
I am the farthest thing from a statistical expert that you can ever imagine, but I have to ask myself the question, “did anyone set a definition for what a Christian culture really means?“ Here’s my point: there are some American value constructs that have been so intertwined in our world that I’m not sure that a person who is unfamiliar with biblical/Christian values would recognize them as such. For example, if you said that “love your neighbor as you love yourself“ or “due to others what you would want them to do to you“ is a Christian value, the average American might respond, “no it’s not! It’s just common sense!“ Maybe the problem is that I’m TO Christian, so I see so much of our culture as being built on a deep bedrock of basic biblical/Christian values and principles. Am I way off base?
This is a comment I get a lot whenever I post a graph that tracks liberals and conservatives over time, "Well, did you define liberal?"
I don't. We don't. It's very rare to define any term in polling. There a couple of reasons for that.
More text in the question == more time for the respondent to read the full question == less time to ask other questions.
And, can anyone agree on how to define liberal? Conservative? Christian culture?
My approach has always been: I ask you if you are BLANK and you say yes or no.
Then I try to figure out why you got there.
“did anyone set a definition for what a Christian culture really means?“
Great question, especially when we learn that our "founding fathers" were, at best, heterodox Christians in that the majority were professing Deists.
There are versions of the Golden Rule and other similar items in other cultures that predate Christianity.
Well said. I totally agree. I think we have seen some recognition of this in the new atheist movement with some atheists even recognizing that while they think Christianity is a farce, it has a lot of societally helpful beliefs. This is something they did not recognize until it was gone or partially removed.
This isn't really your wheelhouse Ryan, but I think about what's upstream from the answers to this question. As we near the 250th year of this great nation, I wonder what stories people are telling themselves about America and its culture, for culture is created by the stories we tell. For most of our history, Americans identified themselves with the Israelite story of enslavement, redemption, and a journey to the Promised Land, which is not "technically" a Christian story, but the early Christians adopted it as their own as well.
An interesting survey question could be something like "Do you believe that America is an exceptional or chosen nation?"
Woe to you, posters and Influencers, who make causal conclusions with correlational data!
"It’s tapping something more amorphous – do you think that having a Christian culture is a net positive for the country?"
An interesting analysis. It reminded me of the recent comments of ardent atheist Richard Dawkins in the UK who stated that he views himself as a "cultural Christian." He elaborated what he meant by this term by stating that he could not imagine the advancement of science, the arts, and democracy as he understands them from a humanist Western viewpoint as ever developing in, say, Muslim cultures, among others.
If Pew had asked the question, "How important do you think it is for the United States culture to be based on traditional/historical American values," I think the anwsers would have been much different accross the various demographics. Problem is most people don't know enough about the actual history of American values and basic Christian beliefs to recognize they are essentially the same. Hence, a lot of people are subject to the influence of radical politics and ideologies.
So many helpful things here that could be worth commenting on. The one that I'll actually engage at this point is the question about women in vs. outside of Evangelical circles. As someone who's spent a lot of time in and, more recently, on the margins of Evangelicalism, my experience is that liberal women have very little place in the tradition - significantly less so than liberal men, as little as that may be. They feel this, and it generally results in them leaving. So, I think there's a self-sorting mechanism at work here, where the women who remain Evangelical are equally or often even more socially conservative than the men.
“ How important is it for the United States to have a culture based in Christian religious beliefs?”
What is the difference between the United States culture and Christian religious beliefs? The aim of the U.S. system of government is to enable citizens (We the People) to work together towards “a more perfect Union.”
Perfect can be described as all needs (physical, psychological, spiritual) being met. Given that man is imperfect, there will always be a gap or variation between the current situation and the ideal (perfect). The more needs that are met, the less harm is caused to people as a result of unmet needs. Consequently, continuous improvement is a moral imperative.
God is Love. Love is an action – willing the good of others in thoughts, words, deeds.
Actions taken to successfully reduce crime lead to fewer victims, resulting in a more “perfect” union.
Shouldn’t the foundational principle of the culture of both the United States and Christianity be continuous improvement by reducing variation?
Feedback from "Gemini" on the comment :-) Is “Continuous Improvement” the Ultimate Shared Baseline for America and Christianity?
https://qualityleadershipblog.com/2026/06/18/is-continuous-improvement-the-ultimate-shared-baseline-for-america-and-christianity/
Been updating the post and included commentary from ChatGPT that remarked "that continuous improvement is not an alternative to Christianity or the American experiment; it is the mechanism through which both pursue their aims" and ended with the question: "If the most fundamental observable principle is the sustenance and flourishing of life amid variation, then is love best understood as the motivation for improvement, while reducing variation is the mechanism by which improvement occurs?"
Always good Ryan. Really interesting about younger evangelicals. I wonder if their lack of interest is because they've given up on the rest of the country and are just looking to make their group religiously secure and separate. I doubt you have the data to measure that but it's an interesting and concerning possibility.
This is different from the “Christian Nation “ question. America was never officially intended to be a Christian nation. It has, however, had at various times a more or less Christian culture, with some glaring inconsistencies.
How do you think abortion affects this poll? I suspects it impacts quite a bit.
I believe you had a recent poll where only 23% of Catholic were against abortion. I think that many of the pro abortion Catholics especially the women would be against pro Christian policy for this reason
I'm not completely convinced that abortion is the key issue that it's made out to be.
I wrote this one a while ago: https://religionnews.com/2021/08/09/abortion-just-isnt-the-motivating-issue-for-evangelicals-it-once-was/
and then this one based on abortion ballot initiatives:
https://www.graphsaboutreligion.com/p/how-did-abortion-ballot-initiatives
I read the articles. However if you enshrined Christian ethics Many would equate that with anti abortion laws and even anti gay marriage laws.
Two words, young man. Lee Atwater. Evangelical Boomers converted in the 70s and 80s, under the strong influence of Atwater's merging of politics and religion.
Boogie Man is one the finest political documentaries ever released.