Crossroads Podcast: Rise Of The ‘Nones’ And Democrats’ Religion Problem

In 2012, the Pew Research Center released a survey — “Nones on the Rise” — that created waves of headlines and, in the years that followed, shock waves linked to that report rolled on and on.

The big news was obvious: A surging number of Americans, especially young adults, were “religiously unaffiliated” — either atheists, agnostics or best described as “none of the above” believers. In the years since, tensions between “Nones” and religious believers could be seen in many key arenas in American life, including politics, entertainment, academia and journalism.

During this week’s “Crossroads” podcast, host Todd Wilken and I discussed how journalists have, through the years, focused their attention on how the grassroots power of conservative religious believers — evangelicals, active Catholics, Orthodox Jews and others — have affected the Republican Party in regional and national elections. Less ink was dedicated to covering the rising impact of “Nones” in the Democratic Party.

Yet, back in 2012, there were clear signs of future ballot-box issues for Democrats. In my “On Religion” column about that Pew study, a key player in the development of that survey — political scientist John C. Green — noted some religion-and-politics implications that loomed in the background. Here is how that column ended:

The unaffiliated overwhelmingly reject ancient doctrines on sexuality with 73 percent backing same-sex marriage and 72 percent saying abortion should be legal in all, or most, cases. Thus, the “Nones” skew heavily Democratic as voters — with 75 percent supporting Barack Obama in 2008. The unaffiliated are now a stronger presence in the Democratic Party than African-American Protestants, white mainline Protestants or white Catholics.

“It may very well be that in the future the unaffiliated vote will be as important to the Democrats as the traditionally religious are to the Republican Party,” said Green. …. “If these trends continue, we are likely to see even sharper divisions between the political parties.”

In an interview at that time, Green said it was important to study trends among Hispanic believers, especially active Catholics and those in evangelical and Pentecostal churches. Tensions between secularists and religious believers may even, at some point, weaken one of the most important power centers in the Democratic coalition — Black churchgoers. Meanwhile, declining membership in liberal Christian denominations will be another complication on the left.

Obviously, strong support from secular voters and religious liberals — especially young women — was a huge plus for Democrats in the high-profile races in New York City, New Jersey and Virginia. However, a recent CNN feature by Eric Bradner — “Democrats’ red-state strategy rests on hope — and prayer” — looked at the other side of that equation, which can be seen in heartland states like Iowa and Bible Belt states like Texas. A key summary passage noted:

… The Democratic Party’s electorate has become increasingly secular. A Pew Research Center survey published in February found that more than three-quarters of atheists and agnostics identified as Democrats or lean toward the Democratic Party.

Meanwhile, 61% of Americans classified by the survey as “highly religious” are Republicans or Republican-leaning. Among Hispanics — a group that shifted strongly in the GOP’s favor in the 2024 election — 54% of Catholics align with the Democratic Party, while 58% of Hispanic evangelicals align with the GOP. And highly religious Hispanic Americans are more likely to align with the Republicans than the Democrats, 48% to 40%.

Actually, voters in Hispanic churches played a major role in key states in both the 2016 and 2020 elections as well. Could Donald Trump have won Florida in 2016, and thus the presidency, without the strong support of Hispanics in church pews?

The CNN feature noted that, at times, growing tensions about moral and cultural issues “break through and reveal deep divides within the Democratic Party over the role of religion in government.”

A few weeks before this week’s elections, political scientist and religion-statistics maven Ryan Burge packed many of these trends into one package with this newsy double-decker headline:

“The Democrats Have a Religion Problem

Most Americans are Still Christians -- Democrats Seem to Have Forgotten

In an analysis packed with takeaways worthy of study by journalists, here is an especially punchy summary:

In 2008, 57% of white Democrats attended a house of worship less than once a year, while 18% attended weekly. Among non-white Democrats, weekly attendance was nearly double that (34%). The share of non-white Democrats who never attended church was 13 points lower than their white counterparts, and their “seldom attend” group was six points lower.

By 2024, the gaps had grown. Here’s the tweetable stat: nearly three-quarters of white Democrats in 2024 seldom or never attended a house of worship. That’s remarkable when compared to the national figure of 55%. Only 12% of white Democrats attended weekly. Put differently: for every weekly-attending white Democrat, there are six who attend church less than once a year.

Then there was this statement that, for me, called back memories of Green’s 2012 predictions at the time of the “Nones” survey.

In his new essay, Burge noted (and I have added bold italics for emphasis):

In the 1970s, when more than 90% of Americans were Christian, both parties had to compete for their votes, drawing dividing lines in other ways. But in today’s America — with 60% Christian, 30% non-religious, and 10% other — the splits don’t align as neatly.

Democrats can’t win national elections on the backs of the non-religious alone, but they’ve also ceded large swaths of the Christian vote to Republicans. That leaves them with a coalition that risks alienating either Christians of color or secular whites, depending on how the message is framed.

Yes, that is precisely the political puzzle spotted long ago by Green.

Then there are other trends that are complicating life for Democratic strategists in flyover states far from the Northeast and the West Coast.

Since the early 1970s, membership numbers have crashed in the “seven sisters” of liberal Protestantism — the United Methodist Church, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), the Episcopal Church, the American Baptist Churches USA, the United Church of Christ and the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ).

Thus, in one X post Burge noted: “In 1975, about 30% of American adults were mainline Protestants. In 2024, the share dropped to a new all-time low: just 8.7%.” Then, in another X post, he added: “In 1972, just 20% of all Christians in the United States were evangelicals. Now, it’s 35%.”

The bottom line: There have been important, newsworthy trends taking place on the “religious left” as well as the “secular left.”

Have news consumers seen coverage of these issues during recent decades?

Probably not. Terms like “Religious Right” and “Christian Right” appear in hard news stories, not just editorials, all the time. “Religious Left” or the “Secular Left”? Not so much.

For a quarter of a century, political scientists Gerald De Maio and Louis Bolce of Baruch College, part of the City University of New York, have studied religion trends in both the Republican and Democratic parties. For example. see this “On Religion” column in 2004 about trends among elite Democrats: “Stalking the anti-fundamentalist voter.”

In 2017, I dug into their follow-up study in a column with this headline: “The quiet (in terms of news coverage) rise of a secular coalition in U.S. politics.” Here is the thesis:

“There’s a sharp divide in this country and it’s getting stronger. … This tension has been obvious for years, for anyone with the eyes to see,” said [Bolce]. “It’s all about moral and social issues. Some people don’t like the judgmental streak that they see in traditional forms of Christianity, like in evangelicalism and among traditional Roman Catholics.”

However, the two researchers said that content-analysis studies of elite news publications demonstrate that mainstream journalists have — for decades — shown little or no interest in the liberal side of this divide.

Let’s end with this passage, which is long, but important:

Journalists and political scientists focused all of their attention on the political activities of religious conservatives in the Republican Party, while failing to note a corresponding pattern, especially among white voters, on the left.

Now, as researchers are focusing attention on the rising number of “religiously unaffiliated” Americans — a third of Millennial generation adults are “nones” — Bolce and De Maio have noted that atheists, agnostics, “nones” and religious liberals are merging into a powerful coalition in the Democratic Party base.

Journalists have all but ignored this development.

“Partisan division rooted in religious differences — at least from the perspective of the mainstream press — was a Republican problem with occasional spillover effects afflicting the rest of America,” wrote Bolce and De Maio, in their 2014 academic study. “The secularist-Democratic contribution to an increasingly religiously polarized nation was, for all intents and purposes, invisible to the press.”

Most journalists and political professionals, said Bolce, “don’t get this story because they see the secular or liberal point of view as normal and mainstream. … It doesn’t stand out for them and, thus, it isn’t salient. It isn’t news.

“What’s newsworthy about normal people acting in what they believe is a normal, rational matter? But these conservative religious people stand out, and are seen as a threat, because their beliefs are not normal. That’s news.”

Can journalists grasp the fact that religious trends are affecting life in both major parties, especially in terms of which candidates appear on ballots in national-level races?

Those with eyes to see, let them see.

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