Study: Clinton Voters Twice as Likely to Leave Evangelicalism as Trump Voters
Source: Christianity Today, by Paul A. Djupe and Ryan P. Burge
*****
One in six Americans who voted for Hillary Clinton (16%) had self-identified as evangelical or born again at the beginning of the survey period but had dropped the labels (which overlap) by 2017. Clinton voters were almost twice as likely as Trump voters (9%) to stop identifying as evangelical or born-again Christians.
This trend indicates that Clinton voters did not see their choice as welcome among the evangelical community. Perhaps they felt marginalized among evangelicals to begin with, and the election provided additional motivation to find a new church home or none at all. In fact, among those who stopped identifying as evangelical or born again, 22 percent left religion altogether.
*****
The long-term fallout is not clear, but the consequences of the divide over Trump are bound to linger in America’s religious landscape. The continued rise of the religious nones has run in parallel to the involvement of the Christian Right in American politics. Marginal evangelicals, especially younger ones, have seen increasing numbers of their peers become unaffiliated in recent years, and their reasons to stay aligned with evangelicalism may be getting less and less persuasive.
*****
The study results also indicate that American churches could benefit from being a place that welcomes, tolerates, or charitably engages voters of either party. As research has shown again and again, churches tend to be diverse places where people have the chance to work with others around a shared mission and shared faith. There are clearly Democrats in evangelical churches, given that Donald Trump did not win all the evangelical vote.
*****
Read it all at: https://www.christianitytoday.com/news/2018/april/clinton-trump-voters-evangelical-identity-2016-election.html
