As America Becomes More Secular, Its Soldiers Are Moving The Other Way
(ANALYSIS) I can pretty much pinpoint the moment I got the inspiration for this post. I was riding my spin bike in the basement, watching a series on my phone called “Band of Brothers.” I know, I know — I should have watched it multiple times by now.
It was released in 2001 and received basically universal acclaim for its gritty and accurate portrayal of Easy Company’s landing on the beaches of Normandy during D-Day and their subsequent 450-day odyssey driving the Germans to surrender during World War II.
It’s excellent, of course. One thing the series does incredibly well is make it plain how every single moment of every single day could have resulted in one of the men of Easy Company losing his life. Many of them did fall to a German bullet or a random mortar round. But others died because of friendly fire or just a freak automobile accident. Death was always around the corner.
Religion was woven in and out of the narrative, naturally. Almost every man in Easy Company had some kind of faith background, with Protestant Christianity, Roman Catholicism, and Judaism all represented.
I don’t really know if any of the soldiers said they were atheists. But that got me thinking — what about the modern-day military? I vaguely remembered that the Cooperative Election Study asked some type of question about service in the armed forces, and that was all it took to pull together a couple of graphs.
A lot of times when I poke around based on just a hunch, nothing good comes from it. That’s not at all the case here. There are actually some really interesting insights into the religiosity of the men and women who are serving the United States right now.
First off, let me describe how the question is asked. It’s a “check all that apply” situation, and there are a variety of options — including being an active member of the military, being a veteran, or having a family member in either scenario. They specifically mention “immediate family,” just for clarity.
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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.