Ryan Burge

I never talked about politics from the pulpit, but people before and after church, I'd hear them talk all the time about politics.

And it was

You know, it was Republican politics, to be quite honest with you, because I'm in a Republican area.

That's what's happening in a lot of these churches.

What's happened in America, especially white Christianity, is coded as Republican.

And that's not always been the case, by the way.

I think this is a point that people forget is even in the 1980s,

Among the white evangelical church, the share who are Republicans and share of Democrats was the same.

Same in the mainline church.

So what we're seeing here is really a unique moment.

The number one predictor of whether you're going to be religious or not in America, besides obviously the religion questions, is what is your political ideology?

If you're a liberal...

50-50 chance you're a non-religious person.

If you're a conservative, it's about a 12% chance that you're a non-religious person.

I think people are being attracted to church because they see it in America, especially white people, as being a conservative institution.

And we're even seeing the rise of people say they're evangelical who don't go to church because they like what the word evangelical means.

And so what religions become is another tribal marker of who you vote for on election day as opposed to what it used to be.

I think young people think that like, I'm a liberal, so I'm going to be irreligious.

They don't even accept the possibility that you can be a liberal Christian anymore.

And I think this is the problem with the mainline is they thought the solution to the right-wing movement of the evangelical movement is to become super left-wing.