Contrary to popular belief, politics and the so-called “culture wars” aren’t driving people to abandon their Christian faith.
That’s according to new findings from Pew Research.
Pew’s analysts examined American evangelicals along political and racial lines. Among other things, Pew notes that:
- There was no mass departure of White Americans from evangelical Protestantism between 2016 and 2020.
- There is no clear evidence that White evangelicals who opposed Trump were more likely than Trump supporters to leave the evangelical fold.
- The share of non-White U.S. adults who abandoned the born-again/evangelical label in recent years is offset by the share who adopted it.
In other words, there just doesn’t seem to be a mass exodus from evangelical churches over politics.
It’s worth pointing out that what many people call the “culture war” isn’t new. Churches have opposed abortion and infanticide for the better part of the past 1,900 years, and Christians have affirmed that marriage ought to be the union of one man to one woman since the first century. Believers have addressed these topics and others publicly for the past two millennia.
These conversations are nothing new, and this latest research from Pew just goes to show that they don’t seem to be hurting evangelical churches.
