Evangelicals and Politics

 

Since the 80s Evangelicals have tended to vote 70-80% Republican. A new study by Duke’s Mark Chaves and Joseph Roso found that their clergy are pretty much in sync with those views, while other Christian groups have other stories.  First they did a study asking clergy if they were more or less or much more liberal or conservative than church members.

                More liberal    same     more conservative

Evangelicals     12%      74%        14%

Black Prot.         15%      70%        16%

Catholic              53%     28%        20%

Mainline             53%      33%        16%

For years it has been known that mainline clergy are more liberal and 21% call themselves much more liberal. Only 1% of Catholic clergy say they are much more liberal.  So as it turns out Evangelical  and Black Protestant clergy say they pretty much the same as their parishioners.  True in practice? They asked how clergy and laity voted in 2016 how many voted for Trump

                     Laity           clergy

Evangelicals  66%           80%

Black Prot.     1%             5%

Catholic         49%           24%

Mainline         49%           16%

So in fact, Evangelical pastors voted more for Trump than did parishioners. Blacks voted very low for Trump but note that pastors voted more conservative than the laity. Catholic clergy were half as likely to have voted for Trump and Mainline pastors were 1/3 as likely. What this shows is that in his first election, Trump did not get very many black votes at all and fewer evangelicals than most R Presidents, only 66%.  This was much hyped in the media. What the Black and Evangelical politics shows is that when there are many like-minded pastors the church can function well in GOTV efforts.