Last week, Rev. Mariann Budde, the Episcopal Bishop of Washington, D.C., preached what could be called “the sermon heard ‘round the world.” Actually, I’m not sure how many listened to her whole message (you can watch it here). So perhaps it would be better to say it was heard about around the world. Budde was preaching at the traditional prayer service held at Washington National Cathedral the day after the presidential inauguration, with President Trump and many other officials and political figures in attendance.

In the immediate aftermath, Christians lined up along the usual progressive/conservative fault lines to support or denounce Budde’s message. On the facts, her mainline Protestant and liberal Catholic supporters were mostly right. Budde had preached a simple and biblical message appealing for unity in the country. In conclusion, she also made an appeal to President Trump, who was sitting in the church’s front row, to show compassion toward people feeling threatened by the consequences of some of his announced policy changes.

While to knowledgeable Christians nothing Budde said was especially remarkable, the vehemence of those Christians criticizing her was sending a message. Christianity in the US and in many places around the world is changing. Americans are narrowly divided on many social and political issues, resulting in close elections that tilt one way and then another from one year to the next. Surveys and church growth and decline trends are showing, however, that Christians as a whole are not so narrowly divided. Rather, they are trending ever more conservative, even as their numbers dwindle.

This month the online journal The Conversation published a story on the morphing politics of American Christians. In the article, titled “My beautiful ‘practicing’ Christians: As churchgoers’ numbers shrink, their social views grow more similar,” the author, Michael Emerson, and his colleagues look at the most recent opinion and voting data of Christians who are active participants in a church of some kind.

The most remarkable change, Emerson says, is that denominational identity is no longer a helpful predicator of political beliefs or behavior. Christians, regardless of what type of Christianity they might identify with, are increasingly politically alike.

Among white voters, shifts toward the GOP are occurring across the largest Christian traditions. In 2004, for example, 67% of white Protestants voted for the Republican candidate for president. That same year, 56% of white Catholics also voted for the Republican candidate. By 2024, 72% of white Protestants and 63% of white Catholics supported the Republican candidate.

Some non-white Christians are exhibiting similar voting trends. For example:

[Hispanic Catholics] have always voted majority Democrat. The gap is narrowing, however. In 2016, Clinton won 78% of Hispanic Catholics’ votes. Four years later, Biden won 66%, and in 2024, Harris won only 55%.

The tendency of African American Christians to vote Democratic remains largely unchanged.

Compare the above percentages with actual 2024 popular vote results, where Trump received 49.8% and Harris 48.3%. A tight race overall, but not among Christians. Emerson cites various opinion and attitude surveys which also show narrowing differences among Christians as a whole.

There is no single American Christian culture. Yet, the vast diversity is shrinking. And it is shrinking in a decided direction: toward conservative Protestantism.

As the article’s title indicates, the one significant factor in predicting Christian political behavior is not denomination but whether or not they are “practicing”, i.e. whether they belong to a church and regularly attend worship. Churches of all kinds are in a dramatic membership decline. What these surveys show is that those leaving (or least likely to join) are those with more progressive social and political views.

In other words, however faithful Bishop Budde was in her sermon to the gospel and the Bible, she was likely not reflecting the views of a majority of church members, including members of her own Episcopal denomination. Roman Catholics seem more honest in recognizing this trend in their midst, given the open hostility between the (relatively) progressive Pope Francis and the church’s many conservative bishops and priests. In my experience, however, mainline Protestants have been much more reluctant to acknowledge the changing mindset of people in the pews.

During the first Trump administration and the Covid lockdown, many churches were split over suspending worship, vaccine mandates, etc. In a conversation at the time, I said to my bishop that he probably had to watch what he said on these topics. He agreed: “Oh yes, I have to be very careful.” That approach seems more common than the boldness of Bishop Budde.

A large portion of the population continues to share Jesus’ emphasis on compassion and care for the poor and powerless. The irony of our time is that fewer and fewer such people are found in churches. While church membership decline is occurring across the Christian spectrum, it has hit mainline Protestants and Roman Catholics the hardest, the very churches which have traditionally put the most emphasis on the “social gospel.”

Why have the people who tend to share these churches moral and ethical vision been leaving them? Because they are increasingly alienated from or disinterested in their religion. For Catholics, the problem is primarily institutional. It wasn’t just the clergy sex scandals themselves that chased people away but also the inept and uncaring way they were handled by church authorities. People are done with Catholicism’s domineering male clergy but the church just can’t let go of that tradition.

Scandals are not unknown among mainline Protestants but its biggest problem is different: increasingly, people just don’t believe what these churches say they believe. With a few exceptions, while mainline Protestants have adopted progressive moral and ethical viewpoints, they have nonetheless hung onto the conservative belief system of ancient orthodox Christianity.

At least, that’s the case on paper. Progressive theology has been rattling around in these churches for over two hundred years. It’s taught in various forms in mainline seminaries and, at least upon graduation, most of their clergy hold Christianity’s ancient beliefs pretty loosely. But in the day-to-day life of these churches, the old theology and doctrines maintain their grip.

In so-called progressive churches, as in fundamentalist ones, Jesus remains the savior of the world, dying so God will forgive people’s sins (if they have faith) and then rise with Jesus from the dead to a new life in heaven. Now if you confront a fundamentalist preacher and say that none of this makes sense in the modern world, he will push back and say that the modern world is wrong. Say the same thing to a mainline protestant pastor and they will cough and squirm a bit, and then likely talk about symbol and metaphor and how each believer needs to interpret such ideas for their own benefit.

Progressive churches are not failing because of their liberal politics but because their religion has become an incomprehensible mishmash. The old language and symbols continue to be used (especially in worship) but no one really knows what they mean anymore. What is the gospel, the “good news” the church supposedly proclaims? Who is/was Jesus? What is eternal life? What/where is heaven? Who/what/where is God? And ask these questions in the context of 21^st century cosmology, physics, chemistry, geology, medicine, psychology, etc.

Now to progressive church leaders, if you ask such questions from the pulpit, you might just as well roll a hand grenade down a church’s center aisle. You’ll blow the place up. But what does it tell us that asking such questions could have that effect? And maybe, that’s what needs to happen. For then these churches may finally acknowledge the elephant in the room, that with all our fancy religious language, we really don’t know what we’re talking about.

Such demolition, however, could be the start of genuine renewal. For we would find that when all the ancient clutter is removed, real faith remains. This is what the “spiritual but not religious” are telling us. This is the message of the people who are committed to Jesus’ teaching of compassion and justice but are uninterested in the ancient church erected in his name. This is what we learn from mystics around the world, who know Jesus as an embodiment of the Spirit shared by all people and which transcends all reality. The crumbling church doesn’t need to be propped up but given a helpful shove. Then when the rubble is cleared away, its “true treasure” (to use Luther’s phrase) can be found again.

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