(ANALYSIS) I have held the title of “pastor” for basically half of my life.

After three years as a youth minister, I took my first stint as the senior pastor, lasting just a year, and then I took over the pulpit of First Baptist Church of Mount Vernon, Illinois. I preached my first sermon there at 24, and when we finally closed our doors, I was 42.

I have a great affinity for pastors. We almost have a “brother in arms” vibe when we get together. People who have served in vocational ministry share this bond that’s hard to describe. I’m not speaking at them — I’m speaking with them. It’s one of my favorite audiences, honestly.

They often ask me questions about how other pastors are trying to navigate their jobs and what the data is telling me about the role of the clergy in a rapidly secularizing society. These are great questions, but it’s not that easy to answer them because there is a real dearth of survey data that focuses specifically on clergy.

But there are a few datasets that I have found really helpful. One is the National Survey of Religious Leaders, which was fielded in 2019-2020 by Mark Chaves. Just as an aside, but Mark Chaves is one of the unsung heroes of the kind of work I do. Not only did he spearhead the NSRL, but he also has been the driving force of the National Congregations Study. It’s Yeoman’s work that often goes unnoticed, but I very much appreciate his contributions to the quantitative study of religion. He was kind enough to upload that clergy data to the ARDA last year, so the general public can access the instrument.

My interest was piqued by a single question in the NSRL: “Would you perform the wedding of a same-sex couple if your religious group allowed it?”

The reason I like it so much is because it doesn’t ask the respondent to describe the official position of their denomination; it asks the respondent about their personal position on the issue. So, this allows a left-leaning evangelical or a socially progressive Catholic priest to register their disagreement with their tradition.

Here’s how they answered the question:

For the record, a small portion of folks who took the survey said that they weren’t credentialed to officiate weddings, so I left them out of the analysis. But among those who were permitted to conduct a ceremony, a significant majority said that they wouldn’t personally preside over the nuptials of a same-sex couple.

Meanwhile, 58% said that they would “definitely not,” do so and another 9% said that they probably wouldn’t conduct a same-sex wedding. In this sample, just about a quarter said that they would “probably” or “definitely” preside over such an event. Pretty fair to say that the gay-affirming clergy portion of this sample is fairly small.

But what if I break the question down by religious tradition?

What should come as no surprise is the fact that evangelical clergy would not perform a same-sex wedding even if their tradition allowed it. In this sample, 90% of them said “definitely not” or “probably not.”

This is pretty compelling evidence that a lot of evangelical clergy are not just parroting the views of their denomination — this is a strongly held personal belief. What is also striking is how Black Protestant clergy look a whole lot like their evangelical cousins: 84% said they would not officiate a wedding for a gay couple. That’s just five points different from the evangelical clergy in the sample.

 To read the rest of Ryan Burge’s column, please visit his Substack page.

Ryan Burge is an assistant professor of political science at Eastern Illinois University, a pastor in the American Baptist Church and the co-founder and frequent contributor to Religion in Public, a forum for scholars of religion and politics to make their work accessible to a more general audience. His research focuses on the intersection of religiosity and political behavior, especially in the U.S. Follow him on X at @ryanburge.