U.S. Religion Census

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Handy religion info for political-desk files: Iowa is not a very evangelical state

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Handy religion info for political-desk files: Iowa is not a very evangelical state

I don’t know if you knew this or not, but there was a bit of a dustup in Iowa’s Capitol building a few weeks ago. Here’s a quick summary.

The statehouse has a policy that allows different groups to put up a display for a period of time. The Satanic Temple made a written request to use this opportunity to display a Baphomet statue. After some back and forth on details, it was approved.

The display went up and folks got angry. The governor urged folks to pray over the building.

A Mississippi man, Michael Cassidy, drove across the country, entered the State Capital and destroyed the display with a hammer.

Cassidy was charged with a crime for his actions. However, there is a small (but very vocal) contingent of true believers on X (formerly Twitter) that believes Cassidy to be a hero and that all charges should be dropped.

The following tweet is illustrative of that (and click here for tmatt’s GetReligion post on the media coverage). But, I would argue that Ben Zeisloft has a fundamentally incorrect understanding of the religious composition of Iowa. In fact, Iowa is not some throwback to when America was very religious. Just the opposite - it reflects the overall movement away from religion in places where it used to dominate.


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Trying to count religious believers in United States? Good luck with that ...

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Trying to count religious believers in United States? Good luck with that ...

QUESTION:

How many members do major U.S. religious groups have?

THE RELIGION GUY’S ANSWER:

Well, that’s impossible to say with any accuracy since there’s no one agreed-upon statistical source and some groups do not collect or issue good numbers.

We do know two things for sure about the U.S. (1) It remains predominantly Christian despite a recent decline, and (2) There’s been notable growth in non-Christian religions through immigration and conversion.

Recently, some noteworthy new numbers about U.S. Christianity became available. We’ll review those below, but let’s begin with complexities regarding the major non-Christian faith groups.

Judaism is traditionally second in population size to Christianity. The American Jewish Population Project at Brandeis University reports there are 7,631,000 American Jews, children included, among which 4,873,000 are adults and “Jewish by religion” as opposed to a secular ethnic identity. That’s similar to the 7,387,992 ethnic total reported by the American-Israeli Cooperative Enterprise.

A major report by the Pew Research Center, a go-to-source for surveys on American religion, said that as of 2020 there were “approximately” 5.8 million Jewish adults, of whom 4.2 million were “Jews by religion.” Then we can consult these two standard sources:

* The 3rd edition of the “World Christian Encyclopedia” (Edinburgh University Press), compiled by a study center at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, contains extensive information on all religions in all nations, not just Christianity and not just the United States. It counts 5.6 million Jews of all categories.

* The U.S. Religion Census, compiled once each decade by the Association of Statisticians of American Religious Bodies, yielded 2020 data on 372 religious bodies posted here. With Jews, the Census primarily used groups’ own reports given to the Synagogue Studies Institute.


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The past is dead? Time for news analysis of America's scrambled Protestant marketplace

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The past is dead? Time for news analysis of America's scrambled Protestant marketplace

Starting with a band of Anglicans landing at Jamestown in 1607 and then Pilgrim dissenters at Plymouth in 1620, various forms of Protestantism collectively dominated what became the United States. That broad cultural hegemony persisted through Revolution, Civil War, Catholic immigration, industrialization, globalization, and Protestants’ countless internal squabbles, splits and reunions.

But the Religious Landscape Study from the Pew Research Center tells us the U.S. population is now only 46.6% Protestant. Add to that these newsworthy numbers on Protestantism’s Big Three and we find a scrambled scenario of historic proportions that invites thorough journalistic analysis.

* Last week the Southern Baptist Convention reported its worst-ever decline of 457,371 members from 2021 to 2022 – and of 1.5 million just since 2018 – to the current 13.2 million. The denomination had posted steady gains over a century until recent years. 

Oh, here’s a newsroom calendar alert: That slide should roil the Baptists’ important June 13-14 annual meeting in New Orleans, alongside disputes over female pastors and sexual abuse response, and a competitive presidential election.

* The news service of the United Methodist Church, #3 in size among U.S. Protestant groups, last week posted tabulation of departures since 2019 of 2,996 conservative congregations, roughly one-tenth of the denomination, with more in process. Most are joining the newborn Global Methodist Church. (Update: This week, Methodist conservatives put dropouts at 3,356 congregations, with another 1,000 or more likely.)

* Meanwhile, other Protestants are gaining. In particular, The Religion Guy has proclaimed the following as 2022’s “Story of the Year.” In November, the latest U.S. Religion Census revealed that independent, non-denominational congregations are now decisively the nation’s largest grouping of Protestants, with 21 million adherents in 44,319 congregations. Most are Evangelicals. This relegates the Southern Baptists down to #2 in size.

Pew Research defined three categories, “Evangelical Protestants” at 25.4% of Americans, “Mainline Protestants” at 14.7%, and members of “Historically Black” church groups at 6.5%.


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Repeat after me: White Catholics voting in 2004. White Catholics voting in 2024 ...

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Repeat after me: White Catholics voting in 2004. White Catholics voting in 2024 ...

The topic of this Memo will not surprise readers.

It’s time to focus on the U.S. Catholic vote in 2024, following up a prior Memo assessing religion angles with Donald Trump’s prospects. The Guy once again advises journalists and other observers that Catholics are more pivotal politically than unbudgeable Democrats such as Black Protestants, non-Orthodox Jews and non-religious Americans.

Ditto with the long-running lockstep Republican loyalty among white evangelical Protestants and Latter-day Saints, in national-level elections when they are pushed into a two-party vise. As for America’s other major religious bloc, the more liberal “Mainline” Protestants, they are nearly split down the middle, usually with slim Republican majorities, and they are declining in influence as memberships shrink.

The past generation saw two U.S. political earthquakes. With one, many Southern white Protestants left the Democrats, effectively ending that party’s “Solid South” that dated from the Civil War, Reconstruction and the New Deal eras. Earthquake No. 2 was the move of white (that is, non-Hispanic) Catholics away from Democratic identity that originated in 19th Century immigration, reinforced in the presidential nominations of Al Smith and John F. Kennedy (who won 78% of Catholic voters in 1960, according to Gallup).

Today, this chunk of the broadly defines “Catholic vote” provides pretty consistent and modest but all-important Republican majorities. The Pew Research Center reports they were evenly split between the two parties as recently as 1994, the year Republicans finally won the U.S. House after four decades of failure. By 2019 they identified as Republican by 57% (and weekly Mass attenders moreso) even though the G.O.P. has never nominated a Catholic. (Could Florida’s Ron DeSantis be the first?)

Around two-thirds of Hispanic Catholics have consistently identified as Democrats, but the media will want to closely monitor their float toward the G.O.P in certain regions, especially pivotal parts of Florida and Texas. Note that Pew newly reports that 67% of Hispanics identified as Catholic in 2010 but only 43% in 2022. The cause was not Protestant inroads, but a remarkable jump from 10% to 30% over a mere dozen years in those who lack religious identity.


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Has Donald Trump won nomination already? Careful. And keep a hawkeye on Iowa ...

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Has Donald Trump won nomination already? Careful. And keep a hawkeye on Iowa ...

In nationwide polls, Donald Trump has defied multiple legal snarls to pad his already healthy margin over potential challenger Ron DeSantis for the Republican nomination. So far, those two swamp all other possible names, such as Nikki Haley.

As for state polling, South Carolina numbers last week from Winthrop University have Trump at 41% and DeSantis 20%, while the two locals got only 18% (Haley), and 7% (Tim Scott). Likewise in New Hampshire with its first primary, where a St. Anselm College poll in late March reported Trump 42%, DeSantis 29%, popular Governor Chris Sununu a mere 14% and Haley 4%.

Reporters on the politics, religion, and religion-and-politics beats should especially keep a hawkeye (so to speak) on Iowa, with its crucial first-in-the-nation caucus next January — turf already well-trod by GOP hopefuls. An April 4 poll of likely G.O.P. caucus-goers by J.L. Partners shows Trump 41%, DeSantis 26%, and Haley a 5% also-ran.


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