INTERFAITH ALLIANCE STATE OF BELIEF

RADIO NOVEMBER 7, 2015

RUSH TRANSCRIPT: GREG SMITH
Click here for audio
[REV. DR. C. WELTON GADDY, HOST]: This
past spring, the comprehensive 2014 American Religious Landscape
Study from the Pew Research Center made widespread headlines
with findings suggesting a continuing erosion in religiosity in the
country. Since then, the experts at Pew have continued to analyze the
data from this enormous project, which gathered information from
35,000 adults nationwide. And they have just issued a second report,
which offers a wealth of insights into how we experience faith today.
Dr. Greg Smith, principal researcher for the project, was with us back
in May when the first report was released, and Im delighted to be
able to welcome him back to talk about these new findings.
Dr. Smith, welcome back to State of Belief Radio!
[DR. GREGORY SMITH, GUEST]: Thank you for having me.
[WG]: I want to make sure that we're clear. You did a massive survey
in 2014, and this new report delves deeper into the responses that led
to the widespread headlines about the drop off in American religious
affiliation back in May of this year. Am I right about all of that? And if
not, tell me.
[GS]: Well, all of the data come from the same study: the same big,
massive study we did in 2014 - we call it the Religious Landscape
1

Study. In May, we published our first report on the results of that

study. That first report focused mainly on religious identity: what share
of the country identifies as Christian or Protestant or Catholic or with
having no religion; and it also looked at demographic characteristics
of religious groups.
This new study that we put out just this week - first week of November
- looks at the same data but it looks at different questions. It looks at
questions about religious beliefs and practices, and about people's
social and political attitudes. So it all comes from the same study from the same data - but we've got two reports focusing on different
topics.
[WG]: There's been a lot of attention to the findings about Americans
who do remain religiously affiliated: that for them there has not been
any decrease in commitment and practice. Is that accurate to say?
[GS]: That is absolutely accurate. What you have happening, if you
look at the public as a whole, is you are seeing modest but significant
declines in different indicators of religious observance. So if we look
at all Americans, we've seen a slight downturn in the share who say
they believe in God. We see a slight downturn in the share who say
they pray every day; a slight downturn in the number who say religion
is very important in their lives or that they attend religious services
regularly.
All these trends are kind of moving in the same directions by modest
but noticeable amounts. Those trends among the public as a whole
are being driven by the growth of those people who say they have no
religious identity, and by the fact that that group - those who say
they're religiously unaffiliated - are becoming less religious over time.

At the same time, most American adults continue to identify with a

religion; continue to describe themselves as part of an organized faith
- primarily Christianity. And among that group, there's been no
discernible decline at all in their rates of religious observance. In fact,
by some indicators, those people who identify with a religion are
perhaps more observant today than was the case when we did a
similar massive study back in 2007.
I am not sure I will even ask this question correctly, because I don't
want to imply - at all - that I don't trust your methods of getting
information. But I am curious: when you're dealing with religion, how
can you measure the depth of it or the reality of it? How do you make
decisions when you look at your data as to whether or not a person
really is religious, or is just not describing religion in the way that
others would describe? I know I may not be asking that right, but how
how do you get some feeling of security about the data gathered, and
then how you interpret it?
[GS]: Yes, you're right. I think when you ask people about any
sensitive topic - including religion, but also including some sensitive
political topics or things about their personal lives - you have to be
sensitive. You have to be aware that people might want to portray
themselves in a particular way when they're talking with an
interviewer; you have to be aware of that kind of thing.
What we try to do in our surveys is ask a variety of questions about
different kinds of things. And that allows you, I think, to get as full a
picture as we can get the totality of someone's approach to religion.
It's not enough to just ask them about their religious identity, or to just
ask them things like how often they go to religious services; because
if people think that they're supposed to attend religious services
regularly, or that it is somehow admirable to be associated with one
3

religious group or another - then perhaps their answers might reflect

how they'd like to appear, as opposed to the way they actually live
their daily lives.
But I think if you asked them other questions, like: How important is
religion in your life? How often do you do other things, like pray, like
read scripture, like participate in small religious groups at your church
or congregation - I think if you look at all of these things, you can get
a pretty complete picture of how people approach religion in their
lives.
[WG]: I also noticed the increase in spiritual well-being that you
identified, compared to Pews 2007 survey. Would you talk a little bit
about that?
[GS]: Yes, one of the questions people have asked us over the years
is, if identification with organized religion is declining and there's more
and more people saying that they have no religious identity, could part
of what we're seeing be just sort of a transferring of traditional modes
of religious observance and practice into less traditional forms? In
other words, are people becoming more spiritual even if they're
becoming less religious? And we asked a few questions to try to get
at that: we asked people how often they feel a deep sense of spiritual
peace and wellbeing; we asked people how often they feel a deep
sense of wonder about the universe. And both of those indicators are
up significantly since we first did this kind of study.
One thing that's really interesting, though, is that those indicators of
increased spirituality do not appear to be a substitute for more
traditional forms of religious observance. In fact, we see these
increases among the population as a whole: among those who are
observant religiously in traditional ways, as well as among those who
4

are not. In fact, in some ways, people who are the most observant in
traditional ways are also the most likely to say they have experience
with, or have experienced, some of these spiritual questions that we
asked about.
[WG]: I noticed that you also looked at positions on social issues of
Americans affiliated with various religious groups. There's been
remarkable change there, it seems.
[GS]: Well, there certainly has been remarkable change in people's
views about homosexuality. We see growing acceptance of
homosexuality across the board - including among religious groups
that have traditionally been fairly accepting of homosexuality, as well
as among groups that have traditionally been less accepting of
homosexuality. For example, the share of Evangelical Protestants
who say homosexuality should be accepted by society has increased
ten points in just seven years. The share of Mormons who say
homosexuality should be accepted by society is up twelve points in
seven years. Now, Evangelicals and Mormons are still more
conservative in their attitudes about homosexuality than are many
other religious groups, but they've become more accepting over time.
One interesting thing that emerges from the data, though, is that that
trend with respect to views about homosexuality is not seen in
another important issue: abortion. Attitudes about abortion are
remarkably stable even as attitudes about homosexuality have
become more accepting. So views on these twin key social issues of
our time seem to be diverging in terms of the direction they're
headed.
[WG]: There's also analysis of the political impact of the growing
percentage of religious unaffiliated nones - particularly on the
5

Democratic Party. In fact, I found it humorous last night, Dr. Smith, I

watched several of the shows on different networks, and many of
them covered the results of these new findings, but they didn't know
how to talk about it. And so as they talked a little bit about their own
religions and what it used to be and what it is now; but the major
concern seemed to be, what are the political implications of this. I
suppose that's a part of the fascination, or maybe the exclusive
concern, about the elections that are underway. But how do you see
the impact of the nones beyond just the political realm, but including
it?
[GS]: Well, I think some of the political questions are very interesting.
And you're right: we are headed into election season, and we know
that there's often a strong connection between religion and politics;
and so many people are interested in this. And I think that the
question as to what the political consequences of the growth in the
religious nones the N O N E S - I think that's a very interesting
question.
The nones are growing in the population as a whole, including in
both political parties. But their growth is particularly pronounced
within the Democratic Party. In fact, fully 28% of Democrats and those
who say they lean toward the Democratic Party now say they are
religiously unaffiliated - that they have no religion. That makes them
more numerous than Catholics, than mainline Protestants, than
members of the historically Black Protestant tradition, and than any
other single group within the Democratic coalition. We also know that
the religiously unaffiliated tend to vote overwhelmingly Democratic,
and they tend to be quite liberal in their political and social attitudes.
So the potential for the growth of this group to have real
consequences for American politics is there.

However, it's also important to keep in mind that when it comes to

politics the religiously unaffiliated seem to typically punch a little bit
below their weight, so to speak. They are less engaged in the political
process as compared to those who associate with the religion; they
are less likely to be registered to vote, for example; and recent exit
polls show that the growth of the nones - the N O N E S - among
voters has been far less dramatic as compared with their growth in
the population as a whole.
So what will the political impact be? I think that remains to be seen but I'll be keeping a close eye on it.
[WG]: Ill bet. What are some of the other key findings in this latest
report that I havent asked about?
[GS]: Well you know one thing I would point to is maybe a little
technical - I hope it's not too hard or too detailed to get into - but I
think it's really interesting: We're seeing that the share of Americans
who are highly religiously observant is declining. Not by a whole lot,
but it is declining. Why is that happening?
Well, it's not happening because there are fewer highly observant
people in the United States. In fact, the number of people in the
United States who are highly religiously observant is about the same
today as it was when we first did this study. What's changing is that
there are far more people, and very rapid growth, at the other end of
the spectrum. There are more and more people in the United States
who say, You know what, I don't associate with any religious group and furthermore, religion really isn't important to me. That group is
growing very rapidly in terms of their raw numbers. And so as their
numbers grow, the share of the population that's highly observant
dips a little bit, even though the number of people who are highly
7

observant stays about the same. I think that's an important thing to

remember.
[WG]: Hmm. Well listen, that opens the door for me to ask a question
that I've been curious about: does Pew have a working definition of
religion itself?
[GS]: What we try to do is look at multiple indicators. So one key
question we ask in all of our surveys is about religious identity. We
ask people a pretty straightforward question: what is your present
religion, if any? Any are you Protestant, Catholic, Mormon, Orthodox
such as Greek or Russian Orthodox, Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist,
Hindu, Atheist, Agnostic, something else or nothing in particular? We
use that as our indicator of religious identity or religious affiliation.
And that can tell us an awful lot about the state of American society
and about American politics and so on.
It doesn't tell us everything, however. Religious identity is different
than religious beliefs. So in surveys like this one we try to ask a
number of questions about beliefs in God; in heaven; in hell; about
the authority of scripture; and so on. We also ask other questions
about religious practices: how often do you attend religious services?
How often do you pray? How often do you read Scripture? And by
asking a lot of questions on all these different topics, you can begin to
get a feel for the full picture. And these things are all correlated with
each other.
People who identify themselves as Catholics, for example, tend to
have certain beliefs and certain behaviors. But there's not a perfect
correlation. There are some Catholics who don't fit the traditional
mold, so to speak, and the same thing is true of every religious group.
So what we try to do is look at lots of different indicators of lots of
8

different elements of what it means to be religious, and hopefully use

that to get as full a picture as we can get.
[WG]: Do you have any idea of whether or not the percentages of the
35,000 that you report on - are they anywhere near the same
percentages of minority religions in the United States?
[GS]: We do find that that group is growing; that the that the share of
people who identify with non-Christian faiths like Islam and Hinduism
and Buddhism is growing. In the current survey we find about 6% of
adults identifying as part of non-Christian faiths. The largest of those
is Judaism; but it also includes Muslims and Hindus and Buddhists.
We do have to keep in mind that this survey is conducted in English
and Spanish. So if there are groups - if there are immigrant groups who consist of a disproportionately large number of people who
would not be comfortable completing an interview in English or
Spanish, then we might not cover those groups quite as well as
surveys that had more languages. But we think that this is the best
approach we can get for getting as broad a picture as possible in the
United States.
[WG]: Now here's the impossible question but Ive got to ask it, and
you be as succinct as you can be: put these two reports together, and
then tell us where religion in America is today, and whether or not you
think it's going to stay like this or where it's headed in the future.
[GS]: Yes. Well I think that as far as the state of religion in America
today, I think what we can say is that the US religious landscape is
going through some important changes. The number of people who
say they don't identify with any religious group is going up very
rapidly, and the share of American adults who are highly religiously
9

observant is dropping modestly but significantly. So these are

important changes that are underway.
As for the future, I don't have a crystal ball. Things can change.
People can change. But one really interesting finding from these
surveys is that there's a very important generational component to
these trends. That is to say a big part of what's happening is that you
have older generations of Americans - baby boomers, people from
the silent generation - who are, by and large, quite religious; quite
religiously observant. And as those older generational cohorts begin
to pass away and as their numbers begin to dwindle, they are being
replaced by a new generation of young people, especially millennials,
who are simply far less religious than their parents and grandparents.
Now what does that mean going forward? It's hard to say for sure. It
certainly is possible that young people who are not particularly
religious today may become more religious as they get older previous research suggests that that's not unusual as people get
older. However, we haven't seen much evidence of that in these two
big studies. In fact, if anything, older millennials - those who were in
their late teens and early 20s a few years ago and who are now in
their late 20s and early 30s - if anything that group may have
become less religious since we last did this big study.
[WG]: Dr. Greg Smith is the principal researcher for the 2014
American Religious Landscape Study from the Pew Research Center.
This week Pew has issued its second report based on the responses
received from 35,000 survey participants nationwide. The report is
available online at PewForum.org, and we'll link to it from
stateofbelief.com.

10

Dr. Smith, I have to tell you I actually had said to our producer I hope
that we get you again. You're so good at this, and you were last time
and even more this time. This is invaluable information, and I thank
you so much for being with us again to help us understand the
insights available in this research.
[GS]: Well, that's very kind of you. It's my pleasure, and I'm happy to
join you any time.

Gregory A. Smith, Ph.D.

Gregory A. Smith is associate director of research at the Pew
Research Center. He helps to coordinate the centers domestic
polling on religion. Smith also writes reports and provides information
to news media and others about religion and public opinion, religion
and American politics, and the political views of Catholics. Smith
holds a doctorate in government from the University of Virginia, where
he was a fellow at the Center on Religion and Democracy. He is an
author of the 2007 U.S. Religious Landscape Survey, the 2010 U.S.
Religious Knowledge Survey, the 2007 and 2011 Pew Research
Center surveys of Muslim Americans, the 2012 Mormons in America
report, and the 2012 report Nones on the Rise. He also wrote
Politics in the Parish: The Political Influence of Catholic Priests
(Georgetown University Press, 2008). Smith has been interviewed as
an analyst by a variety of broadcast media, including ABC, CBS,
CNN, C-SPAN, MSNBC and National Public Radio, and by the New
York Times, Washington Post and USA Today, among other print
media.

11

Rev. Dr. C. Welton Gaddy

Author of more than 20 books, including First Freedom First: A
Citizens Guide to Protecting Religious Liberty and the Separation of
Church and State, the Rev. Dr. C. Welton Gaddy led the national nonpartisan grassroots and educational organization Interfaith Alliance
for 16 years, retiring in 2014. Dr. Gaddy continues his work with the
Alliance as President Emeritus and Senior Advisor. He serves as
Pastor for Preaching and Worship at Northminster (Baptist) Church in
Monroe, Louisiana.
In addition to being a prolific writer, Dr. Gaddy hosts the weekly State
of Belief radio program, where he explores the role of religion in the
life of the nation by illustrating the vast diversity of beliefs in America,
while exposing and critiquing both the political manipulation of religion
for partisan purposes and the religious manipulation of government
for sectarian purposes.
Dr. Gaddy provides regular commentary to the national media on
issues relating to religion and politics. He has appeared on MSNBCs
The Rachel Maddow Show and Hardball, NBCs Nightly News and
Dateline, PBSs Religion and Ethics Newsweekly and The Newshour
with Jim Lehrer, C-SPANs Washington Journal, ABCs World News,
and CNNs American Morning. Former host of Morally Speaking on
NBC affiliate KTVE in Monroe, Louisiana, Dr. Gaddy is a regular
contributor to mainstream and religious news outlets.
While ministering to churches with a message of inclusion, Dr. Gaddy
emerged as a leader among progressive and moderate Baptists.

12

Among his many leadership roles, he is a past president of the

Alliance of Baptists and has been a 20-year member of the
Commission of Christian Ethics of the Baptist World Alliance. His past
leadership roles include serving as a member of the General Council
of the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship, President of Americans United
for Separation of Church and State, Chair of the Pastoral Leadership
Commission of the Baptist World Alliance and member of the World
Economic Forums Council of 100. Rev. Gaddy currently serves on
the White House task force on the reform of the Office of Faith Based
and Neighborhood Partnerships.
Prior to the fundamentalist takeover of the Southern Baptist
Convention (SBC), Dr. Gaddy served in many SBC leadership roles
including as a member of the conventions Executive Committee from
1980-84 and Director of Christian Citizenship Development of the
Christian Life Commission from 1973-77.
Dr. Gaddy received his undergraduate degree from Union University
in Jackson, Tennessee and his doctoral degree and divinity training
from the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville,
Kentucky.

State of Belief Radio

State of Belief is based on the proposition that religion has a positive
and healing role to play in the life of the nation. The show explains
and explores that role by illustrating the vast diversity of beliefs in
America the most religiously diverse country in the world while
exposing and critiquing both the political manipulation of religion for

13

partisan purposes and the religious manipulation of government for

sectarian purposes.
Each week, the Rev. Dr. C. Welton Gaddy offers listeners critical
analysis of the news of religion and politics, and seeks to provide
listeners with an understanding and appreciation of religious liberty.
Rev. Gaddy tackles politics with the firm belief that the best way to
secure freedom for religion in America is to secure freedom from
religion. State of Belief illustrates how the Religious Right is wrong
wrong for America and bad for religion.
Through interviews with celebrities and newsmakers and field reports
from around the country, State of Belief explores the intersection of
religion with politics, culture, media, and activism, and promotes
diverse religious voices in a religiously pluralistic world.
State of Belief Radio is a production of the Interfaith Alliance
Foundation, a 501c(3) charitable organization, and relies on listener
donations to amplify important voices in our national discussion on
religion, government and politics. Please visit www.stateofbelief.com
for information on making a tax-deductible contribution.
Since 2005, State of Belief has been broadcasting weekly across the
country. If the show is not available where you live, please let your
local stations know the program is available to them free of charge.
Complete information is available at http://stateofbelief.com/affiliatestation-page/

14