When looking for commentary on trends in Gallup poll numbers about religion, it never hurts to do a few online searches and look for wisdom from the late George Gallup, Jr.
Reporters should also consider placing a call to John C. Green, a scholar and pollster who has followed trends in religion and politics for decades. Of course, it always helps to collect files of charts from political scientist Ryan Burge, a GetReligion contributor who is an omnipresent force on Twitter (and buy his latest book, “20 Myths about Religion and Politics in America”).
Gallup, Green and Burge (#DUH) played prominent roles in this week’s “Crossroads” podcast (CLICK HERE to tune that in), which focused on a Religion News Service story (via the Washington Post) about a now-familiar trend in America’s public square. That headline: “Poll: Americans’ belief in God is dropping.” The overture:
Belief in God has been one of the strongest, most reliable markers of the persistence of American religiosity over the years. But a new Gallup Poll suggests that may be changing.
In the latest Gallup Poll, belief in God dipped to 81 percent, down six percentage points from 2017, the lowest since Gallup first asked the question in 1944.
This raises an obvious question: Who is losing faith in God?
This news report links the trend to politics (#DUH, again) and makes a very interesting connection, in terms of cause and effect. Read this carefully:
Belief in God is correlated more closely with conservatism in the United States, and as the society’s ideological gap widens, it may be a contributor to growing polarization. The poll found that 72 percent of self-identified Democrats said they believed in God, compared with 92 percent of Republicans (with independents between at 81 percent).
In recent years there has been a rise in the number of Americans who acknowledge being Christian nationalists — those who believe Christian and American identities should be fused.
“It could be that the increase in the number of atheists is a direct result of Christian nationalism,” said Ryan Cragun, a sociologist at the University of Tampa who studies the nonreligious.
I’ll provide some additional details in the rest of the post to back up what I’m about to say. The big idea in this story, interpreting these latest Gallup numbers, appears to be this: Lots of young people in liberal and progressive forms of religion are so upset about the rise in vaguely defined Christian nationalism that they openly declaring that they are atheists and agnostics.
Say what? Hold on, because this gets complicated.
In the podcast, I tried to connect a few dots on this. Start with this RNS commentary from Burge: “Evangelicalism isn’t dying, and Catholics are going Republican.” Then jump to this GetReligion “think piece” linked to Burge: “Gray Lady prints some complex Ryan Burge insights on Democrats and religion.”
The key is that American evangelicalism isn’t growing, but in terms of active participants, evangelicalism isn’t going away, either. Meanwhile, the world of liberal Protestantism is in a demographic death dive. See this recent Burge essay — “And this just in: The Episcopal Church gets more sobering news from the book of numbers.”
Here is another piece of that puzzle, from a Lutheran blog: “New projections forecast just 16,000 in worship across the entire ELCA by 2041. Why is this happening and what can be done?” Here is a taste of that:
According to projections from the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America’s (ELCA) Office of Research and Evaluation, the whole denomination will have fewer than 67,000 members in 2050, with fewer than 16,000 in worship on an average Sunday by 2041.
That’s right: according to current trends, the church will basically cease to exist within the next generation.
Maybe some of those young Episcopalians and liberal Lutherans are so upset that they are headed over into the growing world of agnostics, atheists and “nones”?
Meanwhile, there is a major trend among evangelicals that is causing some decline in a few religious bodies (think Southern Baptist Convention) — more and more people are joining totally independent, nondenominational churches. This is a really hard trend to follow, but reporters digging into some big stories in recent years (think Jan. 6th riot at U.S. Capitol) will see lots of evidence of nondenominational clout on the right.
All of this is part of the dominant trend of our age — the vanishing middle in American life, politics and religious faith.
That brings us, once again, to that remarkable 2008 lecture that Green delivered at the old Washington Journalism Center. He was digging into some of the early numbers in the Pew Research Center work that would eventually become the headline-generating study entitled “Nones on the Rise.”
Once again (see “The day after: The prophet John Green, revisited”), here is a taste of what Green had to say while talking to a circle of journalists from around the world:
On the right side of the American religious marketplace, defined in terms of doctrine and practice, is a camp of roughly 20 percent (maybe less) of believers who are seriously trying to practice their chosen faith at the level of daily life, said Green. Then, on the other end of the spectrum, there is a growing camp of people who are atheists, agnostics or vaguely spiritual believers who define their beliefs primarily in terms of the old doctrines that they no longer believe. This is especially true when it comes to issues of salvation and sex. As the old saying goes, on these issues these spiritual-but-not-religious believers reject all absolute truths except the statement that there are no absolute truths.
In recent national elections this growing camp of secularists and religiously unaffiliated people have formed a powerful coalition with Catholic liberals, liberal Jews and the declining numbers of people found in America's liberal religious denominations (such as the "seven sisters" of oldline Protestantism). Add it all up, Green said … and you had a growing camp of roughly 20 percent or so on the cultural left.
The bottom line: This coalition was emerging as the dominant voice in the modern Democratic Party on matters of culture and religion. Just as Republicans have, in recent decades, had to wrestle with the reality — the pluses and the minuses — of the energy found on the Religious Right, leaders in the Democratic Party will now be faced with the delicate task of pleasing the Religious Left and its secular allies. This could, to say the least, shape the party's relationships with the Catholic Church, Orthodox Jews, Muslims and other major religious bodies.
Green said, long ago, that it would be crucial to watch how the Democrats attempted to finesse religious and cultural issues when dealing with three crucial parts of their big-umbrella coalition — Catholics, Latinos and, eventually, African-Americans.
So, yes, there are some big changes on the political and cultural left and some of them are linked to Americans leaving what we could call “blue” pews. The “Religious Left” is rapidly evolving into a large army of openly secular Americans that is (see the next Burge chart) very, very politically active.
At the same time, many blue-collar Americans are — paradox warning — becoming more Republican AND are less likely to be active in real-life evangelical congregations. But that’s a story for another day.
But let’s end where we began, with Gallup.
Decade after decade, Gallup asked his researchers to pursue information about two realities in American life and faith. The big idea: Americans remain quite religious, but they do not appear to be SERIOUSLY religious, when it comes to practicing their faith.
This connects directly to the “belief in God” number that is currently making headlines. Here is a big chunk of my “On Religion” tribute when Gallup died of cancer in 2011: “God in the Gallup details.”
More than 90 percent of Americans said, "yes" when asked if they believe in God — a number has changed little since the 1940s. Nearly 80 percent insisted they are "Christians," in some sense of that word. How many claimed to have attended a worship service in the previous week or so? That number hovered between 41 and 46 percent.
These are the kinds of numbers religious leaders love to quote when trying to intimidate politicians, educators, journalists and Hollywood producers. Nevertheless, these poll numbers consistently failed to impress one significant authority — George Gallup Jr.
"We revere the Bible, but don't read it," warned the famous pollster, in an address to the Evangelical Press Association. "We believe the Ten Commandments to be valid rules for living, although we can't name them. We believe in God, but this God is a totally affirming one, not a demanding one. He does not command our total allegiance. We have other gods before him."
The bottom line, he said, in an interview after that 1990 address, is that most American believers simply "want the fruits of religion, but not the obligations."
How many religious believers seriously practice a traditional form of religion, in terms of how they spend their time, how they spend their money and how the make their decisions? Gallup argued that this number hovers around 20% or so — basically the same result as the Pew numbers mentioned earlier.
Has that number changed? That’s a question that journalists should ask. And if that number has not changed, then where are all those candid atheists and agnostics coming from, in terms of the spectrum of American religious life?
Enjoy the podcast and, please, pass it along to others.
FIRST IMAGE: Illustration from a “Who Needs God?” sermon file at Gateway Church in Ontario, Canada.