Hey churchgoers: How long has it been since you heard a political sermon?
Wait. We need to pause and discuss what a political sermon might sound like. For example, I think everyone would agree that an open endorsement of a political candidate from the pulpit would be “political.”
But what if a congregation or a denomination invited a political leader to speak in a worship service or some other event? This is something that happens on the political left and right. For generations, to name one example, Democrats have accepted warm, strategic invitations to speak — or perhaps simply exchange greetings — in African-American churches. It makes headlines when GOP leaders address major evangelical bodies (think Vice President Mike Pence and the Southern Baptist Convention).
More questions: What if a bishop or a preacher addresses issues that are clearly both doctrinal AND political, such as right-to-life concerns or threats to the environment? What about a conference focusing on ways religious groups can defend First Amendment rights, such as freedom of speech, freedom of association and freedom of religious practice? Is a liberal rally on abortion more “theocratic” than one organized by believers on the doctrinal right?
I ask these questions because of a piece GetReligion contributor Ryan Burge, he of the omnipresent charts and info on Twitter, wrote for Religion News Service. Here’s the newsy headline “When preachers get political, do they change minds? Preachers tend to risk political speech only when they know it will receive a warm reception.” The overture:
One of the most important and difficult questions among those who study religion and politics is just how important a pastor, rabbi, imam or other religious leader is when it comes to shaping the worldviews of their congregation. These figures get a weekly chance to dominate the attention of the people who come to listen to their sermons. They have a nearly unique opportunity to mold their congregants’ view of the theological, social and political world around them.
How often do pastors actually use that opportunity to speak out about the pressing issues of the day? Some new data gives us a look.
A Pew Research Center poll fielded in March of 2021 asked people if they had heard sermons that contained references to the fallout from the 2020 presidential election in the previous month. The survey asked about four topics specifically: the possibility that the 2020 election was rigged, former President Donald Trump’s inaccurate statements about election fraud, as well as support for or opposition to those who stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
That is certainly a rather Donald Trump-era dominated list, but that reflects several years of headlines.
Meanwhile, it’s safe to say that President Joe Biden is in the White House, in large part, because of support from voters in Black churches during several primaries. But I digress.
At this point, it’s crucial to note that Burge, and his frequent research partner Paul A. Djupe, are very interested in the political activities of leaders on the Religious Left (let’s capitalize that term) and believe this is a topic that deserves more press attention.
Readers: If you never dug into their 2020 essay “The Religious Left is Small But Loud,” this might be a good time to do so. The Big Idea therein:
It’s easy to find activists, organizations, and vocal clergy to represent the religious left, but what we really need are estimates of population proportions. We have ample survey data for this task in the Cooperative Congressional Election Study series from 2006-2018, all of which have enormous samples (~50-65k) and most of which have appropriate questions.
Let’s get right to it. The religious left is the most active group in American politics. The figure below shows the average number of political activities (campaigning, putting up signs and stickers, protesting, donating to a party or candidate, contacting public officials, and attending local meetings) in 2018 separated by church attendance and ideology. In each ideological category, more church involvement boosts political activity, reflecting long established findings in the literature (paper pdf). And very liberal citizens are quite a bit more active than any other ideological group (by at least .5 activities). The average score of those who identify as very liberal who attend weekly is close to 2 activities, which is a common definition of a political activist used by political scientists.
That chart looks like this:
With that in mind, let’s jump back to that RNS piece by Burge:
The results of the poll are most interesting when broken down by the political partisanship of the person hearing the political discussion.
Democrats, the poll found, were just as likely as Republicans to hear the winner of the presidential election mentioned from the pulpit. However, when asked if their pastor had called Trump out for making false statements about election fraud, Democrats were nearly three times more likely to answer affirmatively compared with Republicans (20% vs. 7%).
More?
On the subject of the Jan. 6 insurrection, Democrats were more likely to have heard messages either supporting or opposing the actions of those who breached the Capitol. Ten percent of Democrats said they had heard a sermon where the protesters were praised for their actions, compared with just 4% of Republicans. Yet 27% of Democrats said that they heard a pastor denounce the actions of those protesters on Jan. 6 — twice the share of Republicans at just 14%.
It’s notable that in both cases, Democrats were much more likely to hear Jan. 6 addressed than Republicans. But it’s crucial to point out that pastors were two to three times more likely to deliver messages opposing the insurrection as ones supporting those actions.
The bottom line here is quite simple: Preachers tend to preach to their choirs and, well, the Religious Left was certainly united in its opposition to Trump’s vision of America.
What about conservative flocks? It would appear that they — White evangelicals, even — were much more divided in this case, as opposed to being monolithic supporters of Orange. Man. Bad. Preaching pro-Trump sermons, thus, would be risky in most of these churches.
So here is one final quote from Burge:
Congregational leaders often get a sense of the political leanings of their congregation and know when to steer clear of divisive issues. That explains both why Trump’s most ardent supporters were less likely to hear messages that opposed Jan. 6 but also why so few people heard positive messages about the actions of the insurrectionists.
In both cases, the pastor had little to gain by speaking up, so avoiding the issue became the best way forward.
By all means, read it all.
Do these findings ring true in terms of trends in mainstream coverage of “political” activism about the Religious Left and the Religious Right?
FIRST IMAGE: Illustration with a feature entitled “Politics in the Pulpit?” at the Andrew R. Jones weblog.