If there’s one catch phrase in my little corner of the social science world it’s, “The God Gap.” It’s the simple idea that the Republicans have become the party of religious folks, while the Democrats are much less religiously inclined.
I am very excited for the upcoming book. It is imperative that we can forecast how our culture will look like in the near and far future. Great article.
A set of charts that would have been interesting to include would have been an inverse of the membership charts. Since you clumped all religious identification into four categories, instead of two bars per decade, you could have had four and shown what percentage of Protestants, Catholics, Nones, and other identified as D or R. It would be interesting to see what kind of shift there might have been by believers in their partisan leaning alongside the shift in religious identification among the parties.
"Evangelical Christians made up about 17% of the U.S. population in 1972; in 1993, that had rised to 30%."
Evangelicalism is a more-individualistic religious leaning, and the democratic party has an (arguably) more-individualistic platform. I wonder if Joe Heinrich's individualism vs. tribalism metrics show an inflection point in the 90s or just before.
"When faced with the strident rhetoric of the Revs. Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson and the rest of the religious right leaders, many moderates headed for the church exits and never came back.."
Strauss and Howe (I know... but their work does get the wheels spinning) would suggest that the Nomadic Gen X reaction against the Prophetic boomers could be a factor and that the current boom of Gen-Z (Artist) Catholics may be the pendulum swinging back.
1. The 90s are the decade that the traditional white Southern Democrat was fully dead and buried in Congress. And while the South started leaning R in Presidential elections with Nixon, there was a further lunge starting in 2000 -- even independent of the Perot effect. A lot of polarization data starts to increase with this marker.
2. A lot of tradition seems to have been lost with the Boomers, and not just religious tradition. Maybe technology is to blame, or maybe changing parenting styles, cf. Leonard Sax's "The Collapse of Parenting." E.g., I've heard countless examples where the "old family recipe" was at best half-imparted upon the Boomers and not imparted at all upon the Millennials. My wife's grandmother is a great traditional Southern cook and her mother is OK, but my wife doesn't know any of her family's cooking traditions; everything she knows how to cook she learned from friends/roommates or the Internet, and basically none of it is traditional Southern cooking. Many such cases.
She DID keep the family Southern Baptist religion, but she's the outlier there among peers.
I like number 2. Traditions just stopped. I would suggest this reflects changes in educational philosophy (critical pedagogy turning teachers against traditional American culture), legal changes removing Christianity from schools, and perhaps most importantly, careerism (including fewer stay at home parents) reducing the time and emphasis on passing down traditions in the home.
I tend to be skeptical of political explanations. I tend to think politics is a lagging indicator rather than a leading one.
Your #2 thought dovetails with my first suggestion above (individualism) which Heinrich has a method for measuring, though I've only read his work on history. He's writing a book now which looks at the current state of individualism vs. tribalism, which will be interesting to see whether it points to the 90s.
I'd mostly agree with your point about political explanations, but I think there's something to the idea that there's a vicious cycle whereby a highly polarized two-party system can feed back into polarization/tribalism in other dimensions. If Christianity is seen as mostly a Republican thing, that can feed into the idea that Democrats should cast aside or marginalize Christianity. On the other hand, it might cause secular-inclined Republicans to at least hold Christianity in somewhat higher regard, perhaps even identify as a never-attending Evangelical.
Though I suppose you could take a step back and ask why the traditional Southern Democrat died in the 1990s and not the 1980s or the 2000s. And I don't really have an answer for that right now, other than perhaps fatigue and alienation after two terms under a Southern Democrat POTUS and VP.
I think the Gilded Age is regarded as the previous era of intense political polarization. There might be some takeaways from that era, but I'm not knowledgeable enough about the social trends of the time to identify them. I think Robert Putnam wrote a book on it; not sure how good it is. And I still think technology will change things up this time. Community was supposedly weaker in that era than in the mid-20th century, but it's weaker than ever now. It's easier to have a para-relationship with politicians that you can watch 24/7 on YouTube if you're so inclined, as opposed to reading daily newspaper articles about them. It's easier to find bubbles and echo chambers online than in the real world.
When speaking of genocide, I don't think historical divisions along traditional ethnic or ethno-religious lines is a good parallel to intense political polarization in the context of the contemporary US.
The Gilded age also included major changes to media technology.
The article Burge references suggests that the internet wasn't the cause of the 90s realignment (too early). The fact that TV had been around so long already makes me think it's not the sole cause of a rapid shift in the 90s.
Was there a major religious re-alignment during the Gilded age?
there is more than one interpretation. People could choose their religion first, then use that as a guide to political belief. Or people could already be affiliated politically and opt out of religion without changing their political druthers. To figure which would need another piece of information or two. I would expect something bimodal, the older people are the same religiously and politically by die out over the fifty year interval of the graph. They are then replaced by the religious distribution of younger people migrating into the Republican Party, while the people who have already become Nones migrate preferentially into the Democratic party.
These trends are especially worrying when one also considers the intolerance of the non-religious. The Masterpiece Cakeshop Supreme Court case, where the justices didn't even have to address the free speech or free exercise questions because of the overt hostility a member of the Colorado Civil Rights commission displayed toward the baker and his religious beliefs, is a clear example of this -- as is the follow-up, where the other members of the commission, meeting for the first time after the Court issued its decision, gave their support to the commissioner cited by the Court and what he had said.
One factor that affect church attendance is the drift of the church hierarchy to progressive, DEI, CRT thinking. Faith should stand for something, without being exclusive. Once you start ignoring doctrine, teachings, and then the Bible as a sort of something to follow, you have very little left. The leadership of the church is just fine with a relative faith that can fit dozens of interpretations while they mouth the liturgy. People see through it very quickly. It is the issue facing faith today — what do they represent and how is that related to how those who were churched in the1950’s, 60’s, 70’s, 80’s and 90’s think about what their faith meant to them.
I wonder how much of the difference is due the requirement to belong rather than believe. Atheism — or, at least, non-belief — has been increasing since the 90s but it took a while before it became socially acceptable for Democrats. I'd guess it's much less acceptable for Republicans and they would keep their non-belief to themselves.
Of course, this makes a real difference to actual beliefs when there is less need for the next generation to follow fading conventions but I suspect that the original differences came from a difference in belonging than believing.
I am very excited for the upcoming book. It is imperative that we can forecast how our culture will look like in the near and far future. Great article.
A set of charts that would have been interesting to include would have been an inverse of the membership charts. Since you clumped all religious identification into four categories, instead of two bars per decade, you could have had four and shown what percentage of Protestants, Catholics, Nones, and other identified as D or R. It would be interesting to see what kind of shift there might have been by believers in their partisan leaning alongside the shift in religious identification among the parties.
My own research on church trends keeps pointing me to the 90s as well. That's when LDS growth stopped.
If you ever generate a list of possible reasons for the importance of this decade, I'd love to see it. A few of mine:
1. The rise of the internet
2. The emergence of Fox News ('96)
3. The end of stagflation and the re-emergence of growth.
4. Nixon
https://religionnews.com/2022/04/13/how-americas-youth-lost-its-religion-in-1990s/
How interesting.
"Evangelical Christians made up about 17% of the U.S. population in 1972; in 1993, that had rised to 30%."
Evangelicalism is a more-individualistic religious leaning, and the democratic party has an (arguably) more-individualistic platform. I wonder if Joe Heinrich's individualism vs. tribalism metrics show an inflection point in the 90s or just before.
"When faced with the strident rhetoric of the Revs. Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson and the rest of the religious right leaders, many moderates headed for the church exits and never came back.."
Strauss and Howe (I know... but their work does get the wheels spinning) would suggest that the Nomadic Gen X reaction against the Prophetic boomers could be a factor and that the current boom of Gen-Z (Artist) Catholics may be the pendulum swinging back.
1. The 90s are the decade that the traditional white Southern Democrat was fully dead and buried in Congress. And while the South started leaning R in Presidential elections with Nixon, there was a further lunge starting in 2000 -- even independent of the Perot effect. A lot of polarization data starts to increase with this marker.
2. A lot of tradition seems to have been lost with the Boomers, and not just religious tradition. Maybe technology is to blame, or maybe changing parenting styles, cf. Leonard Sax's "The Collapse of Parenting." E.g., I've heard countless examples where the "old family recipe" was at best half-imparted upon the Boomers and not imparted at all upon the Millennials. My wife's grandmother is a great traditional Southern cook and her mother is OK, but my wife doesn't know any of her family's cooking traditions; everything she knows how to cook she learned from friends/roommates or the Internet, and basically none of it is traditional Southern cooking. Many such cases.
She DID keep the family Southern Baptist religion, but she's the outlier there among peers.
I like number 2. Traditions just stopped. I would suggest this reflects changes in educational philosophy (critical pedagogy turning teachers against traditional American culture), legal changes removing Christianity from schools, and perhaps most importantly, careerism (including fewer stay at home parents) reducing the time and emphasis on passing down traditions in the home.
I tend to be skeptical of political explanations. I tend to think politics is a lagging indicator rather than a leading one.
Your #2 thought dovetails with my first suggestion above (individualism) which Heinrich has a method for measuring, though I've only read his work on history. He's writing a book now which looks at the current state of individualism vs. tribalism, which will be interesting to see whether it points to the 90s.
I'd mostly agree with your point about political explanations, but I think there's something to the idea that there's a vicious cycle whereby a highly polarized two-party system can feed back into polarization/tribalism in other dimensions. If Christianity is seen as mostly a Republican thing, that can feed into the idea that Democrats should cast aside or marginalize Christianity. On the other hand, it might cause secular-inclined Republicans to at least hold Christianity in somewhat higher regard, perhaps even identify as a never-attending Evangelical.
Though I suppose you could take a step back and ask why the traditional Southern Democrat died in the 1990s and not the 1980s or the 2000s. And I don't really have an answer for that right now, other than perhaps fatigue and alienation after two terms under a Southern Democrat POTUS and VP.
Do you have another historical example of this phenomenon that's old enough that we can see how it played out fully?
Preferably one that occurred without overwhelming confounding factors such as war or genocide.
I think the Gilded Age is regarded as the previous era of intense political polarization. There might be some takeaways from that era, but I'm not knowledgeable enough about the social trends of the time to identify them. I think Robert Putnam wrote a book on it; not sure how good it is. And I still think technology will change things up this time. Community was supposedly weaker in that era than in the mid-20th century, but it's weaker than ever now. It's easier to have a para-relationship with politicians that you can watch 24/7 on YouTube if you're so inclined, as opposed to reading daily newspaper articles about them. It's easier to find bubbles and echo chambers online than in the real world.
When speaking of genocide, I don't think historical divisions along traditional ethnic or ethno-religious lines is a good parallel to intense political polarization in the context of the contemporary US.
Interesting example.
The Gilded age also included major changes to media technology.
The article Burge references suggests that the internet wasn't the cause of the 90s realignment (too early). The fact that TV had been around so long already makes me think it's not the sole cause of a rapid shift in the 90s.
Was there a major religious re-alignment during the Gilded age?
there is more than one interpretation. People could choose their religion first, then use that as a guide to political belief. Or people could already be affiliated politically and opt out of religion without changing their political druthers. To figure which would need another piece of information or two. I would expect something bimodal, the older people are the same religiously and politically by die out over the fifty year interval of the graph. They are then replaced by the religious distribution of younger people migrating into the Republican Party, while the people who have already become Nones migrate preferentially into the Democratic party.
These trends are especially worrying when one also considers the intolerance of the non-religious. The Masterpiece Cakeshop Supreme Court case, where the justices didn't even have to address the free speech or free exercise questions because of the overt hostility a member of the Colorado Civil Rights commission displayed toward the baker and his religious beliefs, is a clear example of this -- as is the follow-up, where the other members of the commission, meeting for the first time after the Court issued its decision, gave their support to the commissioner cited by the Court and what he had said.
Time to strip tax free status from any religious organization that engages in partisan politics.
"Less Religious" is code for "Pagan"
One factor that affect church attendance is the drift of the church hierarchy to progressive, DEI, CRT thinking. Faith should stand for something, without being exclusive. Once you start ignoring doctrine, teachings, and then the Bible as a sort of something to follow, you have very little left. The leadership of the church is just fine with a relative faith that can fit dozens of interpretations while they mouth the liturgy. People see through it very quickly. It is the issue facing faith today — what do they represent and how is that related to how those who were churched in the1950’s, 60’s, 70’s, 80’s and 90’s think about what their faith meant to them.
I wonder how much of the difference is due the requirement to belong rather than believe. Atheism — or, at least, non-belief — has been increasing since the 90s but it took a while before it became socially acceptable for Democrats. I'd guess it's much less acceptable for Republicans and they would keep their non-belief to themselves.
Of course, this makes a real difference to actual beliefs when there is less need for the next generation to follow fading conventions but I suspect that the original differences came from a difference in belonging than believing.