(RNS) — Despite the incessant tracking of evangelical Christian, Latino Catholic, Muslim and other religious groups through the recently ended election season, a study released on Election Day by the Hartford Institute for Religion Research showed that most congregations are politically inactive, with nearly half actively avoiding discussing politics at their gatherings.
The Hartford report, “Politics in the Pews? Analyzing Congregational Political Engagement,” focused on how congregations as a whole deal with politics, not religious individuals or their clergy alone. “Congregations often get left out of conversations about religion and politics but are inferred to be influential,” reads the report.
Even if members are politically active and many leaders are often outspoken about issues and candidates they support, most congregations make great efforts to keep politics out of the church.
“When they come together as a spiritual community, they don’t want politics directly involved. There’s a lot of pushback from the people in the pews,” said Scott Thumma, director of the Hartford Institute for Religion Research, who co-wrote the report with Charissa Mikoski, an assistant research professor.
The study’s data was drawn from a larger project developed by the institute to track congregational change, Faith Communities Today. It relies on surveys of 15,278 congregations conducted in early 2020. Responses were given by congregation leaders on behalf of their assemblies. (The project is funded by the Lilly Endowment, which also is a financial supp …