Questions regarding whether or not America is still a religious country have been circulating for years, and political science professor Ryan Burge believes he may have some answers.
In a General Social Survey Burge shared that spans from 1988 to 2022, the share of Americans who “believe in God without a doubt” has dropped across all political ideologies — but one more than others.
In 1988, 66% of Republicans believed in God without a doubt, and in 2022, that number dropped to 63%. For independents, the number was 59% but dropped to 51%. However, when it comes to godlessness, Democrats take the cake.
Beginning at 63% in 1988, only 39% of Democrats in 2022 reported believing in God without a doubt.
“What we’ve seen more and more over the last 25 years is that God gap has really sorted itself out now, where the Republican Party is definitely the party of religious people, and the Democratic Party has become the party of a couple different groups,” Burge tells Stu Burguiere on “Stu Does America.”
“The Republican Party has stayed relatively white and Christian. It’s still 75% white Christians today. The Democratic Party, however, is 45% nonreligious now and only about 35% white Christians,” he explains, adding, “In some ways, the Republican Party looks like what America looked like 30 or 40 years ago.”
While Republicans have held strong to their belief in God, what’s happened over the past few decades indicates a serious shift for all Americans regarding their priorities.
“For a long time in political science, we used to think that religion was first and politics lived downstream of that. So you know, your church, your pastor, the pope, your theology, taught you who to vote for, and then you voted for that candidate,” Burge says.
“What we’re realizing more and more now, is that people pick their church based on their politics. So politics is first, and religion lives downstream of politics. So whether someone chooses to go to an evangelical church or a Catholic mass or no religion at all, that’s really a political calculation,” he continues.
“People are going to pick a house of worship that aligns with their politics, you know, how they see the political world,” he adds.
Stu is not thrilled by what he’s hearing.
“This strikes me as very bad,” he comments.
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