Poll: Let Churches Join Political Debate

In evidence of a striking change in Americans’ attitudes about religion and politics, a majority of the public now believes that churches should be allowed to express political opinions, a reversal from what the majority believed a generation ago, according to a nationwide survey of religious identity and political opinion.

Support for churches expressing political opinions runs highest among white evangelical, or born-again, Protestants, a group that has grown enough over the past decade so that they now comprise a quarter of the American electorate, putting them roughly on a par with white Roman Catholics and members of mainline Protestant churches, like Episcopalians and Presbyterians.

“The conservatism of white evangelical Protestants is clearly the most powerful religious force in politics today,” the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press says in a report released today.

Six in seven voting age Americans are Christian and regardless of denomination, the more religious they are, the more conservative they are, the study finds.

That conservatism goes beyond abortion, homosexuality and other moral questions to such issues as international security, the environment and gun control, the center reported in a study based on a national poll - May 31-June 9 - and analysis of previous surveys in 1994-95.