Evangelical supporters of Donald Trump praying at a rally in Florida
An large number of Christians left
their churches following last November's election won by President Donald
Trump, including 10 percent of evangelicals who reported leaving their houses
of worship before last December, a new study has found.
Following the Nov. 8 election, three
political science professors conducted a survey of 957 individuals from across
the United States who were among 2,500 people previously surveyed in September
in an attempt to "to assess how politics might shape church
membership" and assess if the "conflicting sentiment" surrounding
Trump was "more likely to drive some out of their houses of worship."
In total, 14 percent of respondents
who said they attend a house of worship reported leaving their churches by
mid-November. When broken up into religious demographics, one in 10
evangelicals reported leaving their churches, while 11 percent of Catholic
respondents said the same. Eighteen percent of mainline Protestants also
reported leaving their houses of worship.
"This represents an enormous
amount of churn in the religious economy," professors Paul A. Djupe, Anand
E. Sokhey and Jacob R. Neiheisel wrote in an analysis published on
the blog Religion in Public.
"But was that churn influenced by
politics? To find out if they attended a 'political church,' we asked
respondents if their clergy addressed any of eight political topics. We also
asked, more generally, if seeing evidence of politics reminded them of how
divisive politics has become," the professors continued. "About 15
percent of those who believe that American politics has become divisive left
their political houses of worship. Of those who don't think politics is
inherently divisive, close to none left their political house of worship."
In the survey, evangelicals were asked
to identify their own level of support for Trump and then estimate their church
leader's support for Trump. On 0-to-100 scale, Trump's average level of support
from respondents was just 48, while the perceived support for Trump from
clergymen was only two points higher at 50.
The professors found that the two
groups that were the most likely to leave their churches were Trump supporters
who felt their clergy didn't support him and those who opposed Trump and
believed their church leaders strongly supported the billionaire real estate
mogul.
While some of the media coverage might
lead to the impression that church attendance was harmed by clergy support for
Trump, many evangelicals seemingly left because their pastor didn't support
Trump. Trump supporters who perceived a lack of Trump support from the pulpit
were actually more likely to leave than Trump opponents who thought their
pastor supported Trump.
"This finding might help explain
why evangelical clergy appear to have had little to say about Trump in their
churches this fall," the professors wrote. "It's very likely that
they were concerned about alienating some of their flock."
A line graph published with the
analysis shows that respondents who were extremely supportive of Trump but
attended churches with clergy who they believed were highly opposed to Trump
were almost twice as likely to leave their churches than "NeverTrump"
churchgoers who attended a church with a perceived Trump-supporting pastor.
In their analysis, the professors
point out that such a large churn in church membership is not unique to the
2016 election or the Trump campaign, adding that they have two decades of
gathered data that shows "marginal attenders leave churches when they
sense political disagreement."
"More specifically, for 20 years,
liberal to moderate evangelicals have been leaving their churches because they
disagree with the Christian right," the analysis reads. "This is
important because it allows us to recognize that this sorting process is
plural, local, and continual. It is not something owned by the left or right,
but a regular and expected part of life in all religious organizations."
"People leaving their houses of
worship over political disagreements is natural and to be expected," they
added. "It's certainly happened frequently, sometimes explosively, over
the history of religion."
The professors explain that the people
most likely to leave their church over political disagreement are usually
"infrequent attendees."
Djupe is an associate professor of
political science at Denison University and a scholar affiliated with the
Washington, D.C.-based Public Religion Research Institute. Neiheisel is an
assistant political science professor at the University at Buffalo. Sokhey is
an associate professor of political science at the University of Colorado at
Boulder and the associate director of the American Politics Research Lab.
Djupe and Sokhey also participated in
a study published last year that
found that evangelicals were more opposed to Trump after hearing various
warnings about how Trump's appeal to evangelicals "sounds dangerously
close to Satan's offer to Jesus in Luke 4:9" or how Trump "runs
directly against Matthew 25:40."
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