Christian communities face growing political divide as religious affiliation declines

Ryan Burge:

For a long time, we always thought that religion was the first lens and politics was downstream of that. So, what party I voted for, I looked at the Bible, I think about theology, how I view the world, and then I picked Republican or Democrat.

Now things have changed. The recent data says that we pick our religion based off our politics. So, if I’m a Republican, I’m going to seek out a congregation that affirms my views and really tells me what I want to hear. So that’s why a lot of people have left religion over the last 50 years.

So even today, amongst liberals, 50 percent of them are non-religious. Among conservatives, it’s only 12 percent. So what we’re seeing more and more is people go, well, I can’t do that.