{"id":39133,"date":"2025-04-01T12:30:00","date_gmt":"2025-04-01T12:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/?p=39133"},"modified":"2025-04-06T16:51:52","modified_gmt":"2025-04-06T16:51:52","slug":"america-the-secular-what-a-changing-religious-landscape-means-for-us-politics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/america-the-secular-what-a-changing-religious-landscape-means-for-us-politics\/","title":{"rendered":"America the secular? What a changing religious landscape means for US politics"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

David Campbell<\/a>, University of Notre Dame<\/a><\/em> and Geoffrey C. Layman<\/a>, University of Notre Dame<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

After climbing for decades, the percentage of Americans with no religion has leveled off<\/a>. For the past few years, the share of adults who identify as atheist, agnostic or \u201cnothing in particular\u201d has stood at about 29%, according to a major study the Pew Research Center released Feb. 26, 2025.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But this hardly means that the \u201cnones,\u201d or their impact on American life, are going away. In fact, their sheer size makes it likely that they will increase in political prominence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It will presumably come as no surprise that many secular voters lean to the political left<\/a>. It may, however, be surprising to learn that a fairly large number of nonreligious voters supported President Donald Trump<\/a> in the 2020 and 2024 elections.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If the above paragraph is a head-scratcher, that is because \u201cnonreligious\u201d and \u201csecular\u201d are often treated as two ways of saying the same thing. But as political scientists<\/a> who study religion<\/a> \u2013 and the lack thereof<\/a> \u2013 we have found that there is a fundamental difference between the two. While conventional wisdom holds that religious voters are Republicans and nonreligious voters are Democrats, the reality is more complicated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nonreligious vs. secular<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

So, what is the difference between people who are nonreligious vs. those who are secular?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The nonreligious tend to define themselves by what they are not: for example, not belonging to a religion, not attending worship services, not believing in God. In our surveys, many people without a religious affiliation do not cite any particular worldview or philosophy when asked what guides their life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Secular people, on the other hand, define themselves by what they are<\/a>: someone who has embraced a humanistic and even scientific worldview. That is, when asked about where they find truth, they turn to sources such as science and philosophy instead of scripture and religious teachings. Often, they identify as atheist, agnostic or humanist.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There are secular people, however, who also embrace some aspects of faith. Religiosity and secularity are not in a zero-sum relationship: more of one does not necessarily mean less of the other. In our research, we found many cases of people who belong to a religious congregation yet have a secular worldview<\/a>: This describes many Jews, mainline Protestants and even Catholics, for example.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

4 groups<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

To get a better sense of Americans\u2019 views, for over a decade we have worked on developing questions to identify people with a secular outlook, while also asking about religious commitment, such as how often someone attends services. Our findings culminated in the 2021 book \u201cSecular Surge: A New Fault Line in American Politics<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Based on the results, we can divide the U.S. population into four groups: Religionists, Nonreligionists, Secularists and Religious Secularists.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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