Religion in Public Life: New Poll of American Attitudes

The Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life released a much-discussed poll last Thursday. The poll examined American religious convictions and their attitudes toward religion in public life. A few reactions:

Both parties will have a harder time appealing to religious motivations in the Fall elections. A scant 26 percent see the Democratic Party as friendly to religion, and while 47 percent see the Republican Party that way, that’s down from 51 percent last year. Significantly, the number of evangelicals who see the GOP as friendly to religion, dropped from 63 percent last year to 49 percent this year.

It appears that, on the left, recent efforts to rally religious “progressives” to liberal political causes may prove difficult. And on the right, it doesn’t look like conservative politicians will be able to take the evangelical vote for granted. The poll didn’t explore the reasons for the waning enthusiasm of evangelicals over the GOP, and it doesn’t appear that evangelicals are changing parties. Likely they will just stay home on voting day this year.

The public wants more religious influence in public life, but they’re wary of more religious influence in public policy. Most Americans (59%) continue to say that religion's influence on the country is declining, and most of those who express this view believe that this is a bad thing. Seventy-one percent of respondents wanted more religious influence in American life. There’s less enthusiasm, however, when it comes to religious influence over government policy, especially among Democrats. About a third of Republicans said they thought religion's influence on government was growing, and by a wide margin (23 percent vs. 10 percent), they saw that as good. Among Democrats, 45 percent said religion has a greater impact on government now, but they generally saw that as bad (28 percent vs. 14 percent). Independents agreed with the Democrats. From the poll report:

Fully 69% of Americans say that liberals have gone too far in keeping religion out of schools and government. But the proportion who express reservations about attempts by Christian conservatives to impose their religious values has edged up in the past year, with about half the public (49%) now expressing wariness about this.

It appears that the public is open to religious influence in the public square, but what is perceived as religious imposition is not welcome. In other words, it seems that people are open to seminars and op-ed pieces and sermons designed to change minds, but wary about rallys and voter guides and campaigns designed to change laws.

The Philiadelphia Inquirer article, “U.S. conflicted on religion,” was one of many American papers covering the poll. The poll also reviewed America’s opinion about Israel, science and religion (specifically evolution), the environment (especially global warming), the Bible, and the second coming of Jesus Christ.