# Understanding America's Overlooked Religious Middle  ## Metadata - Author:: [[Robert P. Jones]] - Full Title:: Understanding America's Overlooked Religious Middle - Category: #articles - URL: https://www.whitetoolong.net/p/understanding-americas-overlooked?r=3e10f&utm_medium=ios&triedRedirect=true ## Highlights >  ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01j9vbq1x4xsa4jv0zdpmx541b)) > You can also see the political chasms in the religious landscape on hot-button issues such as abortion and immigration. > • Three quarters (75%) of white evangelical Protestants say abortion should be illegal in all or most cases; by contrast, 70% of Black Protestants and 82% of religiously unaffiliated Americans believe abortion should be legal in all or most cases. > • Nearly three quarters (74%) of white evangelicals, compared to only about one quarter of Black Protestants (25%) and religiously unaffiliated Americans (23%), favor extreme measures at the US border, such as “installing deterrents such as walls, floating barriers in rivers, and razor wire to prevent immigrants from entering the country illegally, even if they endanger or kill some people” (PRRI, American Values Survey, 2023). ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01j9vbqcb9x5c8ncw960bhym7q)) #### These divides are troubling. And they are important for understanding the democratic challenges we are facing. But they are not the entire story. > Among the groups comprising the remainder of the religious landscape, the political divides are less lopsided.[1](https://www.whitetoolong.net/p/understanding-americas-overlooked?r=3e10f&utm_medium=ios&triedRedirect=true#footnote-1-143995502) **In this neglected religious middle, there are three groups whose partisan and ideological divides are the most balanced: white mainline/non-evangelical Protestants (14% of the population and 15% of 2020 voters), white Catholics (13% of the population and 14% of voters), and “Other race Protestants” (6% of the population and 4% of voters).**[2](https://www.whitetoolong.net/p/understanding-americas-overlooked?r=3e10f&utm_medium=ios&triedRedirect=true#footnote-2-143995502) These groups all lean Republican, but not overwhelmingly so; they each supported Trump over Biden in 2020 by slightly less than a 60-40 percent margin. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01j9vbt109etjh1b2my75xfpey)) > • **Trump and the Big Lie.** While just under six in ten of each group supported Trump in the 2020 election, majorities of each nonetheless reject the idea that the election was stolen from Trump (59% of white mainline Protestants, 59% of white Catholics, and 56% of Hispanic Protestants). By contrast 60% of white evangelicals believe the Big Lie that the 2020 election was stolen from Trump. > • **Political Ideology.** While a plurality of both white mainline Protestants and white Catholics identify as conservative, more than one third identify as moderate and about one in five identify as liberal. Among Hispanic Protestants, equal numbers identify as conservative or moderate (about four in ten each), and one in five identify as liberal. Among white evangelical Protestants, seven in ten identify as conservative. > • **Abortion.** Nearly two thirds (65%) of white mainline Protestants and 59% of white Catholics say abortion should be legal in all or most cases. Hispanic Protestants are more divided (46% legal vs. 53% illegal in all/most cases) but look significantly different than white evangelical Protestants, among whom only 24% believe abortion should be legal in all or most cases. > • **Same-sex Marriage.** Approximately three quarters of white mainline Protestants (77%) and white Catholics (73%) favor allowing same-sex couples to marry legally. Hispanic Protestants are divided (50% favor vs. 48% oppose) but considerably more supportive than white evangelicals (36% favor). > • **Immigration.** Majorities of white mainline Protestants (56%) and white Catholics (55%) believe that the growing number of newcomers from other countries threatens traditional American customs and values, compared to only 32% of Hispanic Protestants. At the same time, however, about 6 in 10 white mainline Protestants (59%) and white Catholics (58%), along with two thirds of Hispanic Protestants (66%), favor a policy that would provide a path to citizenship for immigrants currently living in the US illegally. On both of these measures, there is significant daylight between these center-right groups in the religious middle and white evangelical Protestants, among whom seven in ten say newcomers threaten American culture and only 45% support a path to citizenship. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01j9vbtawgxend3k5jqmegahxt)) >  ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01j9vbvpetgh4v12qnp6mchztj)) > But even using this short-term instrumentalist lens, if one is looking for ways to move the needle with a persuasion campaign, outreach to these religious middle groups will almost certainly yield a higher return on investment than efforts among more locked down groups like white evangelical Protestants. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01j9vbwb0bq69qpnbenthgnbqy)) > • Many white mainline Protestant denominations—most recently the United Methodist Church—have been roiled not only by debates over the morality of same-sex relationships but by contentious debates over their own historical complicity with white supremacy. Their churches house a [challenging clergy-laity gap](https://www.prri.org/research/clergy-and-congregations-in-a-time-of-transformation-findings-from-the-2022-2023-mainline-protestant-clergy-survey/), with clergy generally more liberal then their congregants. > • White Catholics are largely supportive of abortion rights and marriage rights for LGBTQ people, in direct contradiction to official church teachings. They are also experiencing tensions between the more progressive leadership of Pope Francis abroad and the more conservative bent of the US Catholic Bishops at home. > • Hispanic Protestants are a small but growing, and increasingly complex, group. They are more conservative on cultural issues, but their ties to family and friends who have immigrated to the US inoculate them against the worst of Trump’s xenophobic appeals. Their theological ties to white evangelicals on the right provide inroads for some of the apocalyptic and authoritarian MAGA appeals. But they also prioritize economic issues like health care, education, and rising costs of everyday items above culture war issues. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01j9vbx2dbhq2w6m9x5qdnkmhf)) > **But in our era of polarization, the disagreements that remain alive in America’s religious middle should be seen as a virtue.** **Amid the hyper-polarization plaguing our nation, we should be looking diligently for institutions that hold us together, not just in comfortable agreement but in good faith debates.** ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01j9vbxgaftc7d3qr2swad6j0n))