(ANALYSIS) If someone asks me who the most famous preacher in the United States is, the answer is honestly quite simple. It’s Joel Osteen, by a mile. He leads Lakewood Church in Houston, Texas. His congregation meets in what used to be the home of the Houston Rockets basketball team. Its seating capacity is nearly 17,000.
Read More(ANALYSIS) One of the most important components of the Democratic coalition is the Black church. But I have to wonder if there are not cracks beginning to form in the alliance between the Democratic Party and Black Protestant Christianity.
Read More(ANALYSIS) White evangelicals vote for Trump because White evangelicals are Republicans, and Donald Trump is the standard bearer of the GOP. That’s the same reason they voted for McCain in 2008 and Romney in 2012. But have White evangelicals always been Republicans, or is this a very recent phenomenon?
Read More(ANALYSIS) I read a story a few weeks ago in the Free Press that had an intriguing title, “Latinos are flocking to evangelical Christianity.” The piece was an excerpt from a book called “Latinoland: A Portrait of America’s Largest and Least Understood Minority.” The book is based on over 200 interviews with Hispanics from all facets of American society in order to develop a clearer picture of what Hispanic culture looks like in the United States.
Read More(ANALYSIS) Most “nones” are not atheists. I do, however, believe that atheists are crucial for the future of American society and politics. As I’ve previously written, they are among the most politically active groups in the United States. But how many are there? The Cooperative Election Study can help us with an estimate.
Read More(ANALYSIS) Here’s a fun fact, the United States Census Bureau is prohibited from asking questions about religion on the decennial census. That’s the big data collection effort that is conducted every decade to get an accurate headcount of the United States for purposes of apportionment.
Read MoreBut I wanted to test this liberal Christian versus conservative Christian in a much more narrow way — by looking at which group is more politically engaged. Conservative Christians seem convinced that progressive Christians are the ones who are going to marches and working for candidates. Meanwhile, a lot of left of center folks seem convinced that White evangelicals punch way above their weight in the political arena. So, who is right?
Read More(ANALYSIS) There has been another implication of Dobbs that I don’t think the average American would have seen coming. In 2020, a couple sued a hospital in Alabama that had removed their frozen embryos from cold storage and dropped them on the floor. The couple argued this amounted to the wrongful death of a child. The Alabama Supreme Court agreed, writing that those embryos constituted persons who were entitled to the same rights as any other child.
Read More(ANALYSIS) There’s only one tradition where a majority say that they are born-again: Protestants. Which makes sense, right? The next highest is “something else.”
Read More(ANALYSIS) The story of Michael Foster got me thinking about how two concepts (environmentalism and religion) may be deeply intertwined with each other. In the current discourse about religion, climate change has not really taken center stage. It seems the debate is focused on social issues: same-sex marriage, the rights of transgender Americans and abortion.
Read More(ANALYSIS) For all the death and destruction that COVID-19 brought to the United States and every other country on Earth, it also gave us a tremendous window into how folks handled mental stress in near real time. Here we look at whether there’s an association between mental illness and religious attendance.
Read More(ANALYSIS) I swear I don’t try to write about abortion so much, but I always end up there. I just think it’s this issue that is like no other when it comes to social issues. What really spurred this post, was a previous one that I put together called, “Liberals Have Won the Cultural War.”
Read More(ANALYSIS) One thing I’m going to try and be intentional about in the new year is focusing on religion data outside the United States. Any casual reader of this Substack knows that almost all the posts here are focused on religion and politics in the this part of the world. But I have tried to branch out and try something different.
Read More(ANALYSIS) Among high income folks, the ones who are the most generous are those living in two places — the South and the Mountain West. Arkansas has the highest rate of charitable giving at 6.7% of adjusted gross income. Utah is right behind at 5.8%. There are several other states that are north of 3%, though. They include: Georgia, Tennessee, Mississippi, Alabama, Oklahoma, Wyoming, Idaho, and Washington state and Washington, D.C.
Read More(ANALYSIS) I have to admit that I was pretty gob smacked when I saw a post on X about the result of the Harvard Crimson’s annual poll of the school’s incoming class that will presumably graduate in 2027. The graph that grabbed all the traffic was about the political persuasion of these 18 year olds at one of the most elite universities in the world.
Read More(ANALYSIS) The composition of never attenders has also changed as that group has grown so much larger. What I really wanted to do is help readers better conceptualize this group — especially when it comes to politics. One of my hobby horses recently has been trying to convince people that they need to stop thinking about Republicans as incredibly religiously active and Democrats as the ones who have nothing to do with religion.
Read More(ANALYSIS) Here’s the purpose of this post: figuring out just how many Americans have shed that label in the last several years. The CES asks every single respondent, do you consider yourself a born-again or evangelical Christian or not? Only two response options — yes and no. It’s about as simple and straightforward as you can get. So, let’s get to it.
Read More(ANALYSIS) American religion is shifting rapidly now. The nones are climbing every single year. Mainline Protestants are losing ground day by day. And evangelicals are still having a huge impact on American culture, religion and politics. The purpose of this post is to give a broad overview of just how much the parties have shifted from the 1970s through today.
Read More(ANALYSIS) The group that is the most likely to attend services are not the poor, nor the wealthy. Instead, it’s people who are smack in the middle of the income distribution. This analysis points to the following conclusion: The people who are the most likely to attend services this weekend are those with college degrees. In other words, middle class professionals.
Read More(ANALYSIS) I can take a larger step back from the immediate conflict and talk about Judaism in the United States in a broader way. This is what reporters call “talking on background.” I do these kinds of calls with the media on a regular basis. Just trying to help them get a lay of the land. They aren’t looking for a pithy quote, they are just seeking to understand the topic in a more nuanced and empirically accurate way.
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