Survey: Religiously, Congress doesn't reflect America
Congress Religion
FILE - "In God We Trust" is engraved in stone above a U.S. flag in the House of Representatives chamber at the Capitol in Washington on Tuesday, March 1, 2022. Even though nearly three in 10 Americans claim no religious affiliation — a rate that has steadily risen in recent years — only two of the 534 incoming members of Congress will admit to as much. (Sarahbeth Maney/The New York Times via AP, Pool)
ASSOCIATED PRESS
PETER SMITH
Wed, January 4, 2023
Religiously speaking, the incoming 118th Congress looks like America — that is, the America of decades past, rather than today.
Congress is far more Christian, and religious overall, than today's general population.
Even though nearly three in 10 Americans claim no religious affiliation — a rate that has steadily risen in recent years — only two of the 534 incoming members of Congress publicly identify as such.
Those are among the conclusions of an analysis by Pew Research Center of the 118th Congress, which was expected to start this week pending a House leadership vote.
The
Congress “remains largely untouched by two trends that have long marked
religious life in the United States: a decades-long decline in the
share of Americans who identify as Christian, and a corresponding
increase in the percentage who say they have no religious affiliation,” said the Pew report, released Tuesday. It was based on a CQ Roll Call survey of members of Congress.
Nearly
88% of members of Congress identify as Christian, compared with only
63% of U.S. adults overall. That includes 57% of congresspersons who
identify as Protestant and 28% as Catholic, both higher than national
rates. Also, 6% of members of Congress identify as Jewish, compared with
2% of the overall population.
While 29% Americans claim no
religious affiliation, they'd have to squint to see themselves reflected
in Congress. The only overtly non-religious members are U.S. Rep. Jared Huffman, D-Calif., who identifies as humanist, and Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, independent of Arizona, who says she’s religiously unaffiliated.
Pew
listed 20 other members of Congress as having unknown religious
affiliations, either because they declined to answer CQ Roll Call's
query or because the answers are otherwise muddled (such as in the case
of New York Republican George Santos, along with much else in his background).
Historically, lacking a religious identity was seen as a political liability.
Only
60% of Americans told a Gallup survey in 2019 that they'd be willing to
vote for an atheist — fewer than would vote for gays or lesbians or
various religious or ethnic groups.
But Huffman said he experienced no political blowback.
“If anything, there’s a political upside,” he said. “People appreciate the fact that I’m just being honest.”
He
said many colleagues in Congress find religion to be politically
useful, “particularly across the aisle, how so many of them exploit and
weaponize religion but seem to be totally divorced from any authentic
connection to the religion they're weaponizing."
The ranks of
Christians in Congress has dipped only slightly over the decades, though
it's a different story with the general population. Since 2007,
Christians have gone from 78% to 63% of the population, while the
non-affiliated rose from 16% to 29%, according to Pew. The trend line is
even more dramatic when looking back to 1990, when nearly nine in 10
Americans identified as Christian, while less than one in 10 identified
as non-religious, according to researchers at Trinity College in
Connecticut.
In some ways, the two political parties conform to perception.
The
Republican congressional delegation is a staggering 99% Christian, with
the rest Jewish or unknown. Republicans — who have long embraced
Christian expressions in their political functions and where an
aggressive form of Christian nationalism has become more mainstream —
include 69% Protestants, 25% Catholics and 5% other Christians (such as
Mormon and Orthodox).
Democrats have more religious diversity, at
about 76% Christian (including 44% Protestant, 31% Catholic and 1.5%
Orthodox) and 12% Jewish. They have about 1% each of Buddhist, Hindu,
Muslim and Unitarian Universalist representation.
But Democrats' paucity of openly non-affiliated members contrasts starkly with a constituency to which it owes much.
Religiously unaffiliated voters
opted overwhelmingly for Democrats candidates in the 2022 midterms.
They voted for Democrats over Republicans by more than a 2 to 1 margin
in House races, according to AP VoteCast, an expansive survey of more
than 94,000 voters nationwide. And in some bellwether races, the
unaffiliated went as high as 4 to 1 for Democrats.
“The fact that
the (Democratic) leadership doesn’t reflect an open, secular identity is
paradoxical, but I think it’s the nature of realpolitik,” said Phil
Zuckerman, professor of sociology and secular studies at Pitzer College
in Claremont, California. He said Democrats know that non-religious
voters align with them on the issues, but party leaders also don't want
to alienate other, more religious parts of the party's base,
particularly Black Protestants.
Party leaders “speak to the politics of secular people but don’t want to take on the identity," he said.
Zuckerman
added that conservative Christians face the “branding problem” similar
to what atheists once faced. Many voters, he said, have reacted against
Christian nationalism, and young voters in particular are alienated by
conservative Christian stances against LGBTQ people, while many voters
of all ages have reacted against Christian nationalism.
He cited a
prominent incident in 2020 when authorities forcibly cleared Black
Lives Matter protesters in Lafayette Park in Washington, after which
President Donald Trump walked to a nearby church and held up a Bible.
“When
Trump held up that Bible in front of that church in D.C., he did more
damage to the Christian brand than Hitchens and Dawkins and Harris
combined,” Zuckerman said, referring to popular atheist authors.
In
2018, Huffman helped found the Congressional Freethought Caucus. It had
a roster of about 15 members in the previous Congress.
“It’s
people of different religious perspectives, but what brings us together
is a common belief that there should be a bright line of separation
between church and state and that we should make public policy based on
facts and reason and science, and not religion,” he said.
He predicted that in time, more members of Congress would identify with secular values.
“It’s
going to be a trailing reflection of this change that has been
happening for a couple of decades now,” he said. ”It takes a while for
politicians to figure out that it’s OK to do things like this."
The
Pew report analyzed one short of Congress’ capacity of 535 because one
member, Rep. A. Donald McEachin, D-Va., died in November after being
re-elected.
Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.