Not Just Scripture: Social and Political Issues Are Hot Topics in Churches

Church-goers find politics being discussed from pulpits.

The presidential campaign fever has been caught by religious institutions too, with churchgoers saying that their clergy have started speaking politics. While people attend services in order to fulfill their spiritual needs, it looks like the clergy are fulfilling the need for political news too.

Not Just Scripture: Social and Political Issues Are Hot Topics in Churches[/tweetthis]

A study by Pew Research Center recently found that political issues are increasingly becoming the point of discussion from pulpits as the presidential campaigns increase in intensity. Chief among these issues are homosexuality and religious freedom.

Pew conducted the research on 4,602 adults. From this sample, 40 percent of the respondents have indicated that they have attended services at least once or twice in the few months preceding the survey. The issues that Pew focused on for the research are religious liberty, homosexuality, abortion, immigration, environmental protection and economic inequality. On the whole, 64 percent indicated that the clergy in their church have made a reference to at least one of these six social and political issues while 46 percent indicated that their clergy have spoken about more than one issue.

Homosexuality and religious liberty stood out to be the most spoken about issues among the six, as four-in-ten respondents said that their pastors have spoken about these issues during the sermons in the spring and early summer seasons. On a rough note, about 3 in 10 indicated that their pastors have spoken about abortion. The same number has said that their pastors have addressed the issue of immigration. The least spoken about issue is environmental protection and economic inequality at 1 in 10.

More interesting to me: 36% of people have clergy that aren't talking about "at least one social or political issue" https://t.co/uroIMu1Etx

— Thomas Whitley (@thomaswhitley) August 9, 2016

As for supporting a candidate directly, very few church goers have indicated that this is true for their churches. The highest percentage goes to African-American Protestants, who say that their pastors have indeed openly spoken in support of either Trump or Clinton, accounting for 29 percent of the sample. As for mainstream Protestant Churches and Catholics, very few have said that their pastors have named any of the candidates in their sermons or otherwise. 

Resources

• Pew Research Center – Many Americans Hear Politics From the Pulpit
• Pew Research Center – A Religious Portrait of African-Americans
• Religion News Service
• I Side With

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