Protestants and non-Protestants have a strong affinity for the Republican Party and the policies of Donald Trump, but non-Protestant evangelicals are much more religiously devout. Yet these non-Protestants are embracing the evangelical label for slightly different reasons. In fact, there’s evidence that the share of members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Orthodox Christianity and Hinduism who identify as evangelical is larger today than it was just a decade ago. For example, the share of Catholics who also identified as evangelicals (or born again) rose to 15 percent in 2018 from 9 percent in 2008. The second factor bolstering evangelicalism on surveys is that more people are embracing the label who have no attachment to Protestant Christianity. The evidence points in one direction: For many Americans, to be a conservative Republican is to be an evangelical Christian, regardless of if they ever attend a Sunday service. The data from the Pew Research Center reinforces that - those who became evangelical between 20 had much warmer views of President Trump than those who didn’t feel warmly toward him. By 2019, that had risen to about 50 percent. In 2008, about a third of evangelicals who never attended church said they were politically conservative. But in 2020, that number jumped to 27 percent. For instance, in 2008, just 16 percent of all self-identified evangelicals reported their church attendance as never or seldom.
The first is that many Americans who have begun to embrace the evangelical identity are people who hardly ever attend religious services. Instead of theological affinity for Jesus Christ, millions of Americans are being drawn to the evangelical label because of its association with the G.O.P. What is drawing more people to embrace the evangelical label on surveys is more likely that evangelicalism has been bound to the Republican Party. The number of self-identified evangelicals has likely not increased over the last few years because evangelicals have been effective at spreading the Gospel and bringing new converts to the church. Evangelicals prided themselves on their distinctiveness from mainstream society, which insulated them from forces like secularization.īut they might hold off on patting themselves on the back too much. Because these moderate traditions were so much like the culture around them, the story went, it was easy for their members to fall away from church attendance. The fact that denominations that allowed women pastors were declining while evangelical churches that took more conservative positions on views of gender and sexuality were holding their own was evidence for evangelicals that conservative religion has staying power. For years, stories have appeared in media outlets about how many of the more theologically moderate denominations like Episcopalians and the United Church of Christ have suffered staggering losses in membership. Instead, the report found the opposite: During Donald Trump’s presidency, the number of white Americans who started identifying as evangelical actually grew.Ĭonservative Christians celebrated the news. Its most shocking revelation was that, between 20, there was no significant decline in the share of white Americans who identify as evangelical Christians. That’s why a recent report from the Pew Research Center came as a huge surprise. The data suggest that religious groups must be suffering tremendous losses as the Nones continue to increase in size and influence each year. In the 1970s, secular Americans (often called the Nones) made up just 5 percent of the population now, that number has climbed to at least 30 percent. The conventional wisdom about religion in the United States is that the number of people who have no religious affiliation is rising rapidly.
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