Greetings, I hope everyone is doing well as they read this; if not, well wishes to you & whatever the situation might be! This will be quick and primarily visual today. I will let everyone read the sources for more information by clicking the links I will be dropping at the end and along the writing.
Just wanted to break down the landscape of American religion. Most people probably never care to look at a breakdown of these things, but understanding the religious landscape is honestly critical to understanding the geopolitics of American society. One does not exist without the other.
The two main polling data we will rely on are Gallup, which is one of the oldest public survey think tanks in the nation who has tracked religious views since before 1950. They have amazing data to shape a historical comparative.
Pew Research Center is one of the best modern non-partisan think tanks that dedicates itself to tracking & researching public opinion on a host of topics. They have been around 20 years as of this year. So happy anniversary to them I suppose.
I will give some of my own takes along the way and at the end, but let me start by stating to please keep in mind that questions are never perfect and can change how someone answers, but these are generally well done.
Overall Affiliation to Denominations/Religions
If we look at Pew Research data for one of the largest surveys they have performed, The Religious Landscape Study, they polled 35,000 people in 2007 & 2014. Here is what we get.
Keep in mind on the above categories that when we get to Unaffiliated that this group is extremely diverse. Atheism only states they do not believe in a God; that leaves everything else philosophically open to question. Agnostics have no hard position.
Unaffiliated could be anything & is a wild card of beliefs. One could mainly possess a staunch Protestant theology, but have some major divergence in a couple areas which led them to leave main religious branches. Then the next be the spiritual yoga sex guru who follows God in an unnafliated to organized religion manner. That wide range is why it is growing.
Moving on, from 2007 to 2014 Protestant’s decreased 7.8% while Unaffiliated’s increased 6.7%.
Questions about overall beliefs & actions.
Looking at the Gallup Poll below, they have taken since 1948. Truly a great reference for how the American religious demographics have shifted over the years.
Religious Practices & Views
So how have attitudes and behaviors changed? Starting off with general beliefs - I would associate the general decline in a belief in God to be due to the overwhelming suffering and lack of intervention vs a more knowledge driven rationale around theology itself. Most Christians do not possess a basic grasp of theology, let alone a nuanced understanding.
I found the image below on intervention interesting and again I throw my causation to the overall suffering. It was easier in 1970 when one could not log into Twitter or Tik Tok and see mass war casualties on a daily basis.
I would be curious to ask that 35% a follow up questions trying to assess rather they are actually Deists. To shortly rabbit hole on Deism vs Theism.
Deism holds that a god must exist, based on the evidence of reason and nature only, not on supernatural evidence. Some deists believe that a god created the world but is indifferent to it. Theism holds that there is a God who is still actively engaged with the universe in some way.
Then you have Monotheism like Judaism, Christianity, Islam vs Polytheism like Zoroastrianism, Greek & Roman Pantheon. Mono = 1 Poly = Multiple
Polytheism ruled the world & the Ancient Hebrews were originally Polytheistic. Thus the entire point of making a blood pact with Yahweh in specific and fighting the worshippers of Baal and such in the OT. The ‘Thou shalt have no there Gods before me” is literally in the polytheistic expression. There’s your Bible history for the post :)
What about the Bible & Church Attendance?
What one believes regarding the Bible is the most critical aspect to their belief system. If one is rigid and believes the Bible is Inerrant, you have an Evangelical Fundamentalist. If one takes the “inspired” approach - it’s a rabbit hole unique to that individual.
What about Morality? Republicans view the state of US morality as Poor at a whopping 74% vs 38% for Democrats. 51% for Independents.
Political Makeup
This has been this way for the last 50 years basically, only gotten more polarized and rigid along political lines. Conservatives are always Evangelical. Liberals have Christians, but they are not Fundamentalists in any sense.
Social Views
One aspect socially since the 90’s that all public opinion polls among most categorical demographics we could throw at this - people are more polarized and unhappy. The result is a host of behaviors like people believing less in God & the ones that do - they attend church less.
As stated prior I would argue the critical factor in this large shift is due to the rising acceptance of Homosexuality within the younger generation. This put a critical theological burden on both sides of the argument in varying ways.
If one believes the Bible is Inerrant - which 40% did in 1980 - there is no way to resolve the Biblical verses in both the OT & NT that establish Homosexuality is not acceptable in the eyes of God as far as the Biblical writings are concerned. That is a fact, not an interpretation. Only 20% of the population would argue the Bible is Inerrant today; that is half the people in 1980.
A lot of people have offspring that are LGBTQ or at least openly supportive of such. It makes it harder to hardline that LGBTQ are these morally bankrupt abominations in God’s eyes when one watches their homosexual kid grow up being that way since a child.
What about LGBTQ?
Regarding Gender and Sex it is about as one would expect, although not all.
Two points on the above Gender poll. Knowing any demo is key to being more understanding; religious / science overlap due to the generational divides. Thus why 40% believe gender & sex can be different with Scientific views informing them and 9% with religious views informing them.
Breaking it down from 2017-2022 - Most groups are doubling down Gender being determined by sex at birth. The only group that is lower than 2017 are Atheists but they rose 4% from 2021 to 2022 so it is trending up as people become more and more frustrated in American society.
Scientific Views
4/10 Evangelicals believe in Creationism specifically within a 10,000 year timeframe. That is Young-Earth Creationism. Only 20% believe in an Evolutionary Theory that is outside of theism..although I suppose we could discuss individually what it means for God to “guide” evolutionary action.
If I were maintaining a Christian doctrine I would shift to Theistic Evolution in the sense that God created the necessary natural laws/mechanisms to function since the beginning & leave any continued intervention out of the picture for the natural world outside of miracle experiences.
I come from a state where even the D1 State University had issues teaching Evolution in Gen 101 Biology. I had Kent Hovind come to my private christian school teaching young earth creationism. Young Earth Creationism is more common than one could imagine. Only 44% of 18-29 year olds believe humans evolved over time due to natural processes. Still less than half is wild.
I would be more curious to have information and polling on the Big Bang, but Creationism describes the creation of the universe (big bang) & the creation of man (evolution) in Genesis so it covers both in one question as written.
Religious Nones
I kept this section separate because we have seen a significant rise in religious unaffiliated and they range from Atheist person who believes rigid naturalism to the psychic lady down your street who just does her own thing. There are some interesting data points here.
Most Nones simply do not want a category. Very few commit to remaining Agnostic, even fewer hardline as an Atheist. A lot of Nones believe in a spiritual existence and items beyond the material/natural world. The box only becomes less defined outside of established Monotheism.
Most who do choose to hardline Atheist or especially if they are stubborn enough to maintain the philosophical nuance of Agnosticism…they’re likely college educated and have both experience with Christians and Biblical Theology. Like myself. It is personal for a lot of us.
Which is why we have a much more critical take on the religious institutions. Most people will ignore the issues like indoctrinating kids, or thoughts on homosexuality, abortion, and science at large and how it filters through all aspects of society I have shown today….Atheists are sensitive to the dogma and often have a less than kind take on religious systems as a whole.
I grew up in a highly religious system so I battle with how I feel often on this myself, but at the end of the day - I do give the religious zealots the benefit that in most cases their intent is pure. That does not make excuse the damage, but it does matter for something.
Most Atheists grasp we live in a Theocracy with 70% Christians and 40% who think the Earth is 10,000 years old. Our desire to contribute charity and change to such a population is lacking, and I will be the first to concede that point all day.
I have states where Atheists still can’t hold public office & Atheists polled on par with rapists in the 2000’s….there is a reason I want to move to a nation like Finland, Norway or Denmark where it’s 70% Atheist or more. Who would ever guess a nation not riddled with a religious cult dictating social and economic policy would consistently poll top 5 in the world with economic freedom, happiness, life expectancy, wages, healthcare, and education.
Nontraditional None Beliefs
The religious nones are much more open to spirituality in a broader sense of the universe.
Most Christians only assign humans with souls, not the Nones.
Concluding Thoughts
The Religious Landscape of America matters because everyone’s religious beliefs infiltrate the rest of their life. For most Protestants things as critical as morality are defined by their God and a large chunk believe in a literal young earth creationist view. This shows up in the population as we navigate things like LGBTQ Rights, Abortion, and even the politics. Things like Israel & Palestine.
As we keep getting further and further into the Information Era we will likely see an additional spike in Evangelicals just due to birth rates being higher in more religious demographics. Religious people marry younger and have families sooner. In the current era a lot of Millennials and Gen Z are not having kids or having fewer.
Overall though, the decline of rigid religious belief should continue to slip away from traditionalist ideology to more individualized understandings.
One aspect of having more “open” societal beliefs, like we have experienced with the sexual rights categories - is that it having more than a few categorical labels makes it difficult for everyone outside the community to understand and keep up with the additional jargon. And that should be fair; we have cognitive data that has shown for decades that humans struggle with more than 4 options on average.
The reality regardless of which side one falls is that we have a mismatched value system that has largely grown that way in the last 15 years. Neither side feel positive about the state of the nation, and the culture wars are fragmenting the populations.
As someone who lived as an Evangelical for 13 years of my life and as an Atheist for 13 going on 14…I often find myself in the more middle ground because I simply understand where both sides are coming from while those who are more rigidly tied to their system are often biased, defensive, and resistant to new ideas that contradict or oppose their own ideology.
As a result, instead of having solutions and a multicultural population that works together. We have all these varying sides trenched into their own positions, largely unwilling to engage with the other in any earnest or meaningful manner.
Over the next 20 years though, the demographics will start to switch as the generational divides start to fade away. More spirituality, less organized religion is the way I see the future continuing to trend. The information era has made it more difficult to keep younger evangelicals in the system.
Thanks for reading :)
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