On October 29, the nation’s attention was focused on Yankee Stadium and game two of the World Series. But at Wheaton College, several hundred people chose instead to crowd into Barrows Auditorium to mark the public beginning of the Wheaton Center for Early Christian Studies.
As churchgoers head to the ballot box for midterm elections, most expect the rest of their congregation to be voting the same way they do.Half of US Protestant churchgoers say they’d prefer to attend a church where people share their political views, and 55 percent believe that to be the case at their congregation already, according to a study from Lifeway Research.
“Studies have shown that voting patterns and political affiliation correlate with the type of church and amount of church involvement someone has,” said Scott McConnell, executive director of Lifeway Research. “But when asked if churchgoers want political similarity to flow back into their church relationships, this is desirable for only half of churchgoers.”
Political preference
While 50 percent of churchgoers prefer a politically homogenous congregation, 41 percent disagree, and 10 percent aren’t sure. Overall, the percentage of those looking to attend a church where people share their voting preferences is similar to a 2017 Lifeway Research study, when 46 percent said the same. However, more churchgoers are adamant about worshipping alongside their political peers. Around 1 in 5 (19%) now strongly agree they prefer to attend a church where people share their political views, up from 12 percent in 2017.
“While almost 1 in 5 churchgoers is adamant that they want to attend church with those who share their political views, there are just as many who strongly disagree with that perspective,” said McConnell. “The 23 percent who strongly disagree are clearly saying the source of unity they have with others in their church has nothing to do with partisanship.”
Younger churchgoers are more likely than older ones to prefer sharing a pew with someone of the same politics. Almost 3 in 5 of those under 50 (57%) want a congregation with people who share their political views, compared to 47 percent of those 50 to 65 and 41 percent of those 65 and older.
Ethnicity and education also play a role. White (54%) and African American (53%) churchgoers are more likely to want a church with shared politics than Hispanic churchgoers (25%). Those who are high school graduates or less (44%) are among the least likely.
Denominationally, Methodist (88%) and Restorationist movement (80%) churchgoers are more likely to say they want their congregations to have a common political perspective than Baptists (47%), Presbyterian/Reformed (47%), Lutherans (38%) and those who attend a non-denominational church (38%).
Churchgoers with evangelical beliefs (44%) are less likely than churchgoers who don’t strongly agree with the four core evangelical theology statements (54%) to say they prefer a church where people share their political opinions.
Despite their preferences, churchgoers may stick around even if the rest of the congregation doesn’t share their views. Another 2017 Lifeway Research study found only 9 percent of Protestant churchgoers said they would consider changing churches over political views.
Political perception
Regardless of their preferences, most churchgoers believe they’re among their political tribe when at church. More than half (55%) of US Protestant churchgoers say their political views match those of most people at their church. Fewer than a quarter disagree (23%) or aren’t sure (22%).
Just as more churchgoers strongly prefer a congregation of similar politics today, more churchgoers also strongly believe they are a part of such a congregation. In 2017, 51 percent felt their church was politically homogenous, with 11 percent strongly agreeing. Today, 21 percent strongly agree.
Additionally, fewer churchgoers are seemingly unsure about the political opinions of their fellow congregation members. In 2017, 30 percent said they weren’t sure if their political views matched those of most others at the church. That dropped to 22 percent in 2022.
“If one looks at the culture today, you might assume that most churches have been arguing over politics as well. While it appears more churchgoers notice the political views of other attendees, only 28 percent of pastors agree (14 percent strongly) that their church has experienced significant conflict in the last year,” said McConnell. “Those who want political continuity may simply want a respite from political strife at church, and others may want to move together in political action.”
For many groups, their perception of their church matches their preferences. Older churchgoers, those 65 and older, are the least likely to think most people in their church share their politics (46%) and the most likely to say they aren’t sure (32%). African American (60%) and white (58%) churchgoers are also among the most likely to agree. Denominationally, Methodists (89%) and those a part of a Restorationist movement church (76%) believe most of the fellow churchgoers share their political views.
Churchgoers who don’t qualify as evangelical by belief are just as likely to say they prefer to worship in a church that shared their politics (54%) as they are to believe that is the case (53%). Churchgoers with evangelical beliefs, however, are different. They’re more likely to believe they belong to a congregation that predominantly agrees with them politically (59%) than they are to say that’s what they’d prefer (44%).
Based on an online survey of 1,002 Americans was conducted September 19-29, 2022. For more information, view the complete report and visit LifewayResearch.com.
Robert Louis Wilken, professor emeritus at the University of Virginia, promised baseball fans he’d keep the Center’s inaugural lecture brief. In his short address, he dashed through the church fathers’ approach to interpreting Scripture, touching the bases at Isaiah 6, Matthew 5, and Job 14, before coming home with key insights on patristic exegesis.
In addition to relating the Fathers’ comments on these passages, Wilken explored why evangelical Protestants in particular should pay attention to writers like Gregory the Great, Augustine, John Chrysostom and Gregory of Nyssa, and why evangelicals are indeed beginning to realize “that the early heritage is theirs also.”
The large majority of Wilken’s graduate students over the past ten years have been evangelicals, he said. The success of the ambitious Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture (InterVarsity Press) testifies to such interest as well. Now the opening of the Wheaton Center for Early Christian Studies institutionalizes that interest—and in a first-rate location.
First, Wilken posed the question, Why this renewed interest?
Precisely because evangelical theology and spirituality are built around Scripture, and so were those of the patristic writers. You cannot read them without an open Bible in your hand. Their writings are shot through with Scripture. Evangelicals and the church fathers thus have a natural affinity.
Second, Wilken asked whether giving some priority to these early interpreters of Scripture isn’t at cross-purposes with the evangelical principle of scriptural perspicacity. Evangelicals have long taught that the meaning of Scripture is open to every Spirit-led reader, and that biblical interpretation must not be held hostage by church tradition. Isn’t the Bible intelligible without the Fathers?
Yes, of course, in a sense it is. But the Fathers help us go more deeply into the Bible, Wilken said. They teach us to read it more slowly and enter it more deeply. He illustrated this by looking at several passages through their eyes, showing the way in which they treated the Bible as a single, coherent book in which difficult passages are illuminated by other passages. Indeed, those other texts raise the questions that lead us deeper.
Thus Isaiah‘s report in chapter 6 that the prophet “saw God” is clearly in tension with passages (such as John 1:18) that suggest no human has seen, or even can see, God. The key, however, is found in the Beatitudes, “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.” By mining the notions in that passage, the Fathers were able, not only to explain in what sense some might “see God,” but also to point the way toward the ideal Christian life. Thus to see God is to be united to him through purity of life. Understand, said Wilken, that the Bible is not primarily about the head; it is about the heart.
Third, Wilken reminded us, the patristic writers were the best minds of their day. From their engagement with Scripture, they forged the language with which we express the Christian faith. To ignore their reading of Scripture is also to undercut the foundations upon which the great creeds were built.
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The Fathers are replete with interpretations that diverge from the plain meaning of the text. This makes modern evangelicals nervous—though as Robert Webber has argued, because this approach is rich with imagery, it should have greater appeal to postmodern evangelicals. We have many ways of knowing, and imagistic thinking has been marginalized in some streams of evangelical theology.
Wilken made several key points about the Fathers’ nonliteral and image-laden reading of the Bible.
1. The New Testament authors clearly applied Old Testament texts in ways that departed seriously from the plain, surface meaning of the text. When Paul cites Psalm 19 in Romans 10 (“their voice is gone out into all the world”), he applies the Psalmist’s statement about the heavens to the preaching of the apostles. This runs against the plain meaning, said Wilken.
2. The books of Scripture do not bear their own significance. They must be united to something greater, which is Christ. Thus Paul interprets the creation of man and woman as a great mystery, which is Christ and the church; and he interprets the water-giving rock in the Sinai desert as Christ.
3. Typically, such creative renderings of the Bible are focused on the Old Testament. That is because the Old Testament text signifies Christ, but the New Testament text does not signify another Christ. It requires no allegory or analogy to reveal the Incarnate Word.
4. The Fathers also understood the interpretation of Scripture to require the reader’s participation in the spiritual reality of the text. Thus it is not enough to say that Christ was crucified. We must also say, “I am crucified with Christ,” and thus also I am raised with Christ.
All of this is new territory for many evangelical Protestants. It involves an ancient way of reading texts that is at odds with contemporary methods being taught in the classrooms of Christian colleges. Students will feel at first that the Fathers’ method places no limits on allegorical fantasy.
It will take some time for this kind of reading to take its place alongside our linguistic and historical approaches. Neither approach needs to edge out the other. But if we do not make an effort to imbibe the spirit of the church’s first interpreters, we can easily miss something close to the heart of Christian faith.
This entry is cross-posted at the Ancient-Evangelical Future Blog.
