As the U.S. continues to debate the fusion of religion and politics, a sweeping recent survey reports that almost all American adults have a positive view of faith’s role in public life but consider its influence is waning.
The development appears to unsettle no less than half of the country, with growing concern amongst an array of spiritual Americans that their beliefs are in conflict with mainstream American culture.
That’s in line with a recent survey unveiled on Friday by Pew Research, which was conducted in February and seeks to tease out attitudes regarding the influence of faith on American society.
“We see signs of kind of a growing disconnect between people’s own religious beliefs and their perceptions concerning the broader culture,” Greg Smith, associate director of research at Pew Research Center, told Religion News Service in an interview.
He pointed to findings equivalent to 80% of U.S. adults saying religion’s role in American life is shrinking — as high because it’s ever been in Pew surveys — and 49% of U.S. adults say religion losing that influence is a foul thing.
What’s more, he noted that 48% of U.S. adults say there’s “an incredible deal” of or “some” conflict between their religious beliefs and mainstream American culture, a rise from 42% in 2020. The variety of Americans who see themselves as a minority group due to their religious beliefs has increased as well, rising from 24% in 2020 to 29% this 12 months.
The spike in Americans who see themselves as a non secular minority, while small, appears across several faith groups: white evangelical Protestants rose from 32% to 37%, white non-evangelical Protestants from 11% to 16%, white Catholics from 13% to 23%, Hispanic Catholics from 17% to 26% and Jewish Americans from 78% to 83%. Religiously unaffiliated Americans who see themselves as a minority due to their religious beliefs also rose from 21% to 25%.
“We’re seeing an uptick within the share of Americans who consider themselves as a minority due to their religious beliefs,” Smith said.
Researchers also homed in on Christian nationalism, an ideology that usually insists the U.S. is given special status by God and frequently features support for enshrining a particular form of Christianity into U.S. law. But while the movement has garnered distinguished supporters and vocal critics — in addition to backing from political figures equivalent to Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia — Pew found views on the topic were virtually unchanged from once they asked Americans concerning the topic in recent times.
“One thing that jumped out at me, given the quantity of attention that is been paid to Christian nationalism within the media and the extent of conversation about it, is that the survey finds no change over the past 12 months and half or so within the share of the general public who says they’ve heard anything about it,” Smith said.
About 45% of those polled said they’d heard of Christian nationalism or examine it, with 54% saying they’d never heard of the ideology — the identical percentages as in September 2022. Overall, 25% had an unfavorable view of Christian nationalism, whereas only 5% had a good view and 6% had neither a good nor unfavorable view.
Researchers also pressed respondents on fusions of faith and politics, revealing a spectrum of views. A majority (55%) said the U.S. government should implement the separation of church and state, whereas 16% said the federal government should stop enforcing it and one other 28% saying neither or had no opinion. Meanwhile, only 13% said the U.S. government should declare Christianity the nation’s official religion, in comparison with 39% who believed the U.S. shouldn’t declare Christianity the state religion or promote Christian moral values. A plurality (44%) sided with a 3rd option: the U.S. shouldn’t declare Christianity its official faith, but it surely should still promote Christian values.
When asked whether the Bible must have influence over U.S. laws, respondents were evenly split: 49% said the Bible must have “an incredible deal” of or “some” influence, while 51% said it must have “not much” or “no influence.”
But things looked different when Pew asked a further query of those that supported a Bible-based legal structure: If the Bible and the desire of the people come into conflict, which should prevail? Not quite two-thirds of that group — or 28% of Americans overall — said the Bible, but greater than a 3rd of the group (or 19% of the U.S. overall) said the desire of the people should win out.
Here again, opinions have remained largely static, with researchers noting the numbers “have remained virtually unchanged over the past 4 years.”
Respondents were also asked whether or not they believed the Bible currently has influence over U.S. laws, with a majority (57%) agreeing it has no less than some. But there have been notable differences amongst religious groups: White evangelicals (48%) and Black Protestants (40%) were the least more likely to say the Bible has no less than some influence on U.S. law, in comparison with slight majorities of white non-evangelical Protestants (56%) and each white and Hispanic Catholics (52% for each). The religiously unaffiliated (70%), Jewish Americans (73%), atheists (86%) and agnostics (83%) were the most certainly to agree that the Bible is a big think about the U.S. legal system.
The survey polled 12,693 U.S. adults from Feb. 13-25.
