Church Activism

A widely held assumption is that theologically conservative (i.e., evangelical) Christians are the most politically active religious group in the United States. That, however, is not the case, at least not at the congregational level. Over the past decade and a half, Roman Catholic and black Protestant churches have consistently been the most politically active, although in recent years they have switched places. In the late 1990s, black Protestant churches were the most active, but since the mid-2000s, Roman Catholic churches have been so. Over the same period of time, the political activism of mainline Protestant and evangelical Protestant churches has declined, with the evangelical congregations exhibiting the steepest drop. In fact, mainline Protestant congregations are more politically active than are evangelical ones, as are ...