Many analysts described the November 2010 midterm elections as a sea change, with Republicans taking control of the U.S. House of Representatives and narrowing the Democratic majority in the Senate. But this political overhaul appears to have had little effect on the religious composition of Congress, which is similar to the religious makeup of the previous Congress and of the nation, according to an analysis by the Pew Research Center’s Forum on Religion & Public Life.
The 112th Congress, like the U.S. public, is majority Protestant and about a quarter Catholic. Baptists and Methodists are the largest Protestant denominations in the new Congress, just as they are in the country as a whole.
Interesting… a bit over 86% are Protestant, RC, or Orthodox. So why don’t they act even more favorably toward Christianity, or at least religion in general?
NO. 1: Has Congress acted unfavorably toward Christianity or religion in general? I haven’t observed that, but perhaps I’m missing something. It bestows great favor on religion when a national government is organized in a way that means that it has nothing to do with religions other than to protect their free exercise.
Interesting to see that Episcopalians and Jews are “over-represented”
to about the same degree.
Hey A Senior Priest — you’d have to parse it out a bit finer, though, to explain.
My guess is that those who see the Constitution as “a living breathing and infinitely redefinable document” would be the ones who are in the mainline denominations and see Holy Scripture as the same.
Which would explain the answer to your question.
It’d be nice to see some stats on that — which denominations make up those members of the House and Senate who hate the Constitution?
I think we all already know the answer to that. But it’d be nice to have the Thoroughly Divisive facts to back up the strong suspicion.