Five Charts Explain the Desperate Turn to MAGA Among Conservative White Christians

New data from PRRI’s Census of American Religion shows continued decline of white evangelicals as a proportion of the American population.

Robert P. Jones

I prefaced my 2016 book, The End of White Christian America (EWCA), with an “Obituary for White Christian America.” It read, in part: white Catholic—have declined across the last two decades. Notably, in the last ten years, white evangelical Protestants have experienced the steepest decline. As recently as 2006, white evangelical Protestants comprised nearly one-quarter of Americans (23%). By the time of Trump’s rise to power, their numbers had dipped to 16.8%. Today, white evangelical Protestants comprise only 13.6% of Americans. As a result of this precipitous decline, white evangelical Protestants are now roughly the same size as white non-evangelical/mainline Protestants, a group that experienced its own decline decades early but has now generally stabilized.

After a long life spanning nearly two hundred and forty years, White Christian America—a prominent cultural force in the nation’s history— has died. WCA first began to exhibit troubling symptoms in the 1960s when white mainline Protestant denominations began to shrink but showed signs of rallying with the rise of the Christian Right in the 1980s. Following the 2004 presidential election, however, it became clear that WCA’s powers were failing.

Although examiners have not been able to pinpoint the exact time of death, the best evidence suggests that WCA finally succumbed in the latter part of the first decade of the twenty-first century. The cause of death was determined to be a combination of environmental and internal factors— complications stemming from major demographic changes in the country and religious disaffiliation as many of its younger members began to doubt WCA’s continued relevance in a shifting cultural environment.

EWCA was published in July 2016, just as Donald Trump was securing the Republican nomination for president and the Make America Great Again (MAGA) worldview was supplanting policy considerations within the GOP (indeed, by the end of Trump’s presidency, the party officially abandoned any attempt to adopt an official policy platform). The data I had available at the time identified a watershed event that was driving this desperate movement: The U.S. had become—for the first time in our history—a country that was, demographically speaking, no longer a majority white Christian country.

The newly-released 2022 supplement to the PRRI Census of American Religion—based on over 40,000 interviews conducted last year—confirms that the decline of white Christians (Americans who identify as white, nonHispanic, and Christian of any kind) as a proportion of the population continues unabated.

As recently as 2008, when our first black president was elected, the U.S. was a majority (54%) white Christian country. As I documented in EWCA, by 2014, that proportion had dropped to 47%. Today, the 2022 Census of American Religion shows that figure has dropped to 42%.

As the fine print on retirement investment statements remind us, past trends are no guarantee of future performance. But there is no evidence suggesting any imminent reversal of these trends. The median age of all white Christian subgroups—54 for both white evangelical and nonevangelical/mainline Protestants, 58 for white Catholics—is considerably higher than the median age of all Americans (48), an indication of the exodus of younger adults from these congregations. By contrast, the median ages of Christians of color, non-Christian religious groups, and the religiously unaffiliated are all more consistent with or even below the median age of the country.

An examination of religious affiliation by age cohorts demonstrates a marked, linear decline in the share of white Christians in each successive younger group. Comparing the oldest (ages 65+) to the youngest (ages 1829) group of American adults reveals that white Christian subgroups have lost approximately half their market share across the generations alive today. For example, 18% of seniors, compared to only 9% of young adults, identify as white evangelical Protestants.

As Figure 2 below demonstrates, all white Christian subgroups—white evangelical Protestant, white non-evangelical/mainline Protestant, and demographic shockwave had generated: “The two divergent and competing narratives—one looking wistfully back to midcentury heartland America and one looking hopefully forward to a multicultural America—cut to the heart of the massive cultural divide facing the country today.” Trump’s ascendancy, leading ultimately to a violent insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, only heightened this fundamental divide over two incompatible visions of America.

As the number of white Christians has dropped, their presence in our two political parties has also shifted. Two decades ago, white Christians comprised approximately 8 in 10 Republicans, compared to about half of Democrats, a gap of about 30 percentage points. As their numbers have declined, this gap has increased to about 45 percentage points, with white Christians continuing to account for about 7 in 10 Republicans but only about one-quarter of Democrats.

While I held out some possibility in EWCA that white evangelicals and other conservative white Christians might accept their new place alongside others in an increasingly pluralistic America, their steadfast allegiance to Trump’s MAGA vision—actually increasing their support for him between 2016 and 2020—and their unwillingness to denounce either Trump’s Big Lie that the election was stolen or the violence on January 6 th have dashed those thin hopes. Back in 2016, here’s how I described the likely consequences if white conservative Christians dug in:

If we overlay the current ethno-religious composition of our two political parties onto the generational cohort chart, we see a stunning result. In terms of its racial and religious composition, the Democratic Party looks like 20-year-old America, while the Republican Party looks like 80-yearold America.

[White Christian Americans’] greatest temptation will be to wield what remaining political power they have as a desperate corrective for their waning cultural influence. If this happens, we may be in for another decade of closing skirmishes in the culture wars, but white evangelical Protestants will mortgage their future in a fight to resurrect the past.

But as alluring as turning back the clock may seem to White Christian America’s loyalists, efforts to resurrect the dead are futile at best—and at worst, disrespectful to its memory. Like Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, resurrection by human power rather than divine spirit always produces a monstrosity.

The continued demographic decline makes it clear that the MAGA goal of reestablishing their vision of a white Christian America can’t be realized by democratic means. But as I explained in my most recent posts, I’m deeply concerned that the embrace of Christian Nationalism by nearly two-thirds of white evangelicals and a majority of the Republican Party will spawn more theological monstrosities just ifying anti-democratic schemes to achieve this end.

In EWCA , I summarized the political polarization this cultural and

Link to article: https://robertpjones.substack.com/p/five-chartsthat-explain-the-desperate.

The Great Rising and the Promise of Resurrection and Equity

Rev. Dr. Angelique Walker-Smith

“He is not here, for he has risen, just as he said. Come, see the place where he was lying.” Matthew 28:6

Christ Has Risen! Christ Has Risen Indeed!

One of my favorite resurrection hymns is “Christ the Lord Has Risen Today!” Like Matthew 28:6, the melody and the words point not only to the glory of Jesus the Christ rising from the dead, but also to the realized promise of new life. It is because of this rising that verse four has special meaning:

Soar we now where Christ has led, Alleluia!

Following our exalted Head, Alleluia! Made like him, like him we rise, Alleluia! Ours the cross, the grave, the skies, Alleluia!

“Made like him, like him we rise, Alleluia!” suggests that we have a role to play in not only testifying to Jesus’ resurrection, but also in living out a calling to be instruments of God’s grace—for all to rise to new life. This includes the ministry and mission of advocacy for those affected by hunger—that they may have new and renewed life.

Hunger denies life and denies God’s promise of life for all. Studies have shown that food insecurity results in a wide range of physical and mental

health problems and can be lethal.

Matthew 28:6 and the hymn tell us all are invited to rise to new life because Jesus has already risen for us! Therefore, we have power and grace to be living testimonies and agents of this new life. Bread for the World is committed to promoting and supporting policies and practices that promote this promise of new and renewed life.

This new and renewed life invites us to redress the historic inequities that have resulted in diminished life—and even death. One of these inequities is evident in the ownership of farmland. During the twentieth century, black farmers were stripped of land and experienced crippling levels of discrimination when seeking government and private assistance. Did you know that black farmers in the United States account for less than 2 percent of the total number of the nation’s farmers, according to the latest Census of Agriculture? Farmers of color account for less than 5 percent.

The loss of this farmland has contributed significantly to the racial wealth gap. Breaking this cycle of discrimination in farming is an important aspect to consider when advocating for the farm bill. There are provisions in this bill that promote equity, sustainability, and nutrition.

Bread’s Policy and Research Institute provides valuable details on how food is produced today and the value of the farm bill as an expression of God’s promise of life for all.

Go here – https://www.bread.org/offering-letters/ – to learn more about your role in advocating for new and renewed life by advocating for the farm bill.

Walker-Smith is senior associate for Pan African and Orthodox Church engagement at Bread for the World.