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Why Is Congress So Religious · Abide Meditation App

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  Speaker 1: Thanks to Brilliant for sponsoring this video. The United States
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  Speaker 1: is becoming less and less religious. As of twenty twenty three,
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  Speaker 1: approximately three out of ten Americans claim no religious affiliation,
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  Speaker 1: and this has been rising year after year. But there's
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  Speaker 1: one place in the US that remains very much religiously affiliated,
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  Speaker 1: the halls of the US Capital. According to data from
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  Speaker 1: the Pere Research Center, at the start of its one
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  Speaker 1: hundred and eighteen session sworn in January twenty twenty three,
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  Speaker 1: the United States Congress is over ninety six percent affiliated
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  Speaker 1: with a religious tradition, with only a single member describing
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  Speaker 1: themselves as religiously unaffiliated, and additional twenty members don't specify
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  Speaker 1: their affiliation at all. So is Congress immune to these
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  Speaker 1: larger trends in the US population. As the religious landscape
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  Speaker 1: of the US continues to shift, How much, if at all,
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  Speaker 1: has Congress shifted with it? And why are rates of
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  Speaker 1: religious affiliations so much higher in Congress anyway? The US
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  Speaker 1: Congress consists of five hundred and thirty five members, divided
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  Speaker 1: between two legislative bodies, four hundred and thirty five members
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  Speaker 1: in the House of Representatives and one hundred in the Senate.
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  Speaker 1: Now Technically, members of Congress are not required to practice
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  Speaker 1: a religion in order to serve, and they also are
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  Speaker 1: not required to reflect the religious affiliation of their constituents.
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  Speaker 1: In fact, according to the no Religious test clause of
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  Speaker 1: the US Constitution, no religious tests shall ever be required
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  Speaker 1: as a qualification to any office or public trust under
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  Speaker 1: the United States. But hypothetically, what if we did come
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  Speaker 1: up with some sort of religious test, a religious quota
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  Speaker 1: system of some sort that ensured that Congress more or
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  Speaker 1: less was a representative sample of the US religious landscape.
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  Speaker 1: If we did that, in the US Congress would look
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  Speaker 1: something like this, based on data from the Public Religion
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  Speaker 1: Research Institute, a Congress that roughly mirrored the US religious
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  Speaker 1: landscape would be about thirty nine percent Protestant, twenty five
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  Speaker 1: percent religiously unaffiliated, twenty two percent Catholic, about two percent Jewish,
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  Speaker 1: and with everyone else at one and a half percent
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  Speaker 1: and lower include Mormon, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, Unitarian, Universalist, Jehovah's Witness,
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  Speaker 1: and Orthodox Christian. But, as I said in the intro,
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  Speaker 1: what we find is that Congress does not reflect these
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  Speaker 1: numbers now quick aside as I said in other videos,
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  Speaker 1: measuring religiosity is extremely difficult. I like to use the
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  Speaker 1: Dimensions of Religiosity published by the Modeling Religious Change Project,
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  Speaker 1: which says, in order to measure religiosity accurately, you need
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  Speaker 1: to measure several factors at the same time, the intensity
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  Speaker 1: of religiosity, rates of belief in the supernatural, how often
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  Speaker 1: someone engages in private and public religious practice, and finally,
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  Speaker 1: religious self identification. I don't know how often members of
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  Speaker 1: Congress engage in private or public religious ritual, or how
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  Speaker 1: many of them believe in supernatural beings or supernatural events.
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  Speaker 1: A much more in depth and thorough going study of
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  Speaker 1: Congress could probably find that information, but we're going to
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  Speaker 1: focus on that final dimension of religiosity, self identified religious affiliation,
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  Speaker 1: measured by the Peers Research Center. So with that caveat
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  Speaker 1: in mind, breaking down the Pew Research data, this is
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  Speaker 1: what we find. Congress is eighty seven point eight percent
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  Speaker 1: Christian compared to sixty three percent of US adults. This
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  Speaker 1: works out to be four hundred and sixty nine members
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  Speaker 1: who identify as some sort of Christian, mostly Protestant, with
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  Speaker 1: two hundred and forty seven Protestant members in the House
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  Speaker 1: and fifty six in the Senate. The next largest Christian
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  Speaker 1: affiliation is Catholic, with one hundred and twenty two Catholic
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  Speaker 1: members in the House and twenty six in the Senate.
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  Speaker 1: In the single digits, we have nine Mormon members of
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  Speaker 1: Congress and eight Orthodox Christians. So at the start of
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  Speaker 1: this video, I said that Congress is more religious than
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  Speaker 1: the US population, but it's much more precise to say
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  Speaker 1: that it's more Christian. This holds true when we break
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  Speaker 1: this data down to party affiliation. Two ninety nine percent
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  Speaker 1: of Republican Congress members identify as Christian, compared to eighty
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  Speaker 1: five percent of Republican voters, while seventy six percent of
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  Speaker 1: Democratic members of Congress identify as Christian compared to sixty
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  Speaker 1: two percent of Democratic voters. So what about the non
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  Speaker 1: Christian identifying members of Congress. The largest is Judaism, with
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  Speaker 1: thirty three Jewish members of Congress, twenty four in the House,
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  Speaker 1: and nine in the Senate. That's about six percent of
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  Speaker 1: Congress compared to two percent of US adults. The rest
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  Speaker 1: are less than one percent, including Buddhist, Muslim, Hindu, Unitarian, Universalist,
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  Speaker 1: and Humanist. This works out to be one, two or
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  Speaker 1: three members of Congress per affiliation. However, by far the
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  Speaker 1: most massive discrepancy is the religiously unaffiliated category. The US
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  Speaker 1: Congress is zero point two percent unaffiliated compared to twenty
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  Speaker 1: nine percent of US adults. So it's fair to ask
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  Speaker 1: why why the discrepancy? Now, As with any complex political
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  Speaker 1: and sociological phenomenon, there's no easy answer, and I don't
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  Speaker 1: want to pretend there is a single answer to this question,
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  Speaker 1: but we'll focus on one possible factor, which probably won't
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  Speaker 1: come as a surprise. People tend to vote for candidates
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  Speaker 1: from their own religious community, and people harbor voter bias
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  Speaker 1: against candidates from specific religious communities labeled as outgroup. This
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  Speaker 1: is because of what sociologists call social identity theory. Social
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  Speaker 1: identity theory puts a fancy name to something that you
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  Speaker 1: probably have already experienced yourself just by being human. It
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  Speaker 1: argues that one of the ways that we as humans
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  Speaker 1: process information about other humans is through the lens of
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  Speaker 1: our own social identities. We tend to create boundaries between
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  Speaker 1: those belonging to religious in groups and outgroups, and we
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  Speaker 1: tend to have positive feelings to those in our in
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  Speaker 1: groups and negative feelings to those in our outgroups like
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  Speaker 1: I said, it's probably not all that surprising to hear
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  Speaker 1: that because it's intuitive, but now it's been empirically proven
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  Speaker 1: and measured in political candidacy. In a twenty twenty two study,
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  Speaker 1: a nationally representative sample of Americans were asked a series
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  Speaker 1: of questions questions designed to evaluate if and to what
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  Speaker 1: extent voter bias exists toward political candidates from specific religious backgrounds.
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  Speaker 1: The study asked participants to imagine a hypothetical political candidate
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  Speaker 1: of a given religious affiliation, focusing specifically on Muslim, Jewish, Mormon,
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  Speaker 1: mainline Protestant, Evangelical, Catholic, or atheist. Participants were then asked
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  Speaker 1: to rate their hypothetical candidate for a series of traits,
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  Speaker 1: to what extent is your candidate friendly, patriotic, compassionate, moral, assertive, ethical,
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  Speaker 1: and ambitious? Participants consistently evaluated Muslim, Atheist, and Mormon candidates
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  Speaker 1: more negatively across the character traits as a whole. The
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  Speaker 1: study also found that Muslim, atheist, and Mormon candidates were
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  Speaker 1: considered less competent compared to other religious identities at handling
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  Speaker 1: a range of political issues such as foreign affairs, education,
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  Speaker 1: or health care. The researchers labeled these three identities religious
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  Speaker 1: out groups in American politics. Now, of these three outgroups,
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  Speaker 1: Mormon affiliation was evaluated slightly higher than Muslim or atheist affiliation,
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  Speaker 1: but still less favorably than other religious affiliations. The study
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  Speaker 1: also explored whether the religiosity of voters could affect their
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  Speaker 1: opinion of candidates. They found that while of voter's religiosity
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  Speaker 1: had very little of effect on how they ranked in
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  Speaker 1: group candidates, it had a significant effect on how they
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  Speaker 1: ranked out group candidates. The stronger the religiosity, the more
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  Speaker 1: negatively voters viewed Muslim and atheist candidates. So, to return
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  Speaker 1: to our earlier question, if Congress members are not required
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  Speaker 1: to have a religious affiliation, why is it so much
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  Speaker 1: more Christian than the general population. It's all about the
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  Speaker 1: in groups and the outgroups. If you want religiously affiliated
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  Speaker 1: folks to vote for you, you're likely going to face
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  Speaker 1: better odds as a member of a religious in group.
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  Speaker 1: This may in part explain the higher rates of Christian
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  Speaker 1: members of Congress. The US remains majority Christian, so you
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  Speaker 1: have more in group voters. This also goes some way
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  Speaker 1: to explain the lack of religiously unaffiliated members, what sociologist
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  Speaker 1: Phil Zuckermann calls a branding problem for politicians, especially in
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  Speaker 1: the Democratic Party. He says, Democratic politicians often speak to
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  Speaker 1: the politics of secular people, but don't want to take
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  Speaker 1: on the identity itself. Scholars of non religion have found
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  Speaker 1: that rates of eight theism in the US appear surprisingly
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  Speaker 1: low considering the growing rates of religiously unaffiliated people. In
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  Speaker 1: other words, there are tons of Americans who are atheistic,
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  Speaker 1: but very few of them claim the label atheist for themselves.
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  Speaker 1: This is partly because of what sociologists call social desirability bias.
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  Speaker 1: Claiming the identity atheism is considered socially undesirable, so even
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  Speaker 1: if someone is atheistic in their worldview, they may not
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  Speaker 1: publicly claim that identity. And if voters view outgroup candidates
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  Speaker 1: as lacking positive traits and lacking the competency to address
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  Speaker 1: key political issues, then we can see why candidates might
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  Speaker 1: be reluctant to publicly identify themselves with these religious outgroups,
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  Speaker 1: particularly embracing a non religious identity, the identity might be
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  Speaker 1: a liability to a political candidate. However, this does seem
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  Speaker 1: to change over time. Outgroups can eventually morph into in groups.
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  Speaker 1: For example, Catholics used to face significant voter bias in
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  Speaker 1: the US. Opponents attack JFK's Catholic identity when he was
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  Speaker 1: running for pres for.
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  Speaker 2: Contrary to common newspaper usage, I am not the Catholic
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  Speaker 2: candidate for president. I am the Democratic Parties candidate for president.
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  Speaker 2: What happens also to be a Catholic?
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  Speaker 1: But now Catholicism is one of the political in groups
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  Speaker 1: of Congress, and the number of Catholic members of Congress
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  Speaker 1: have been steadily rising since the nineteen sixties. However, all
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  Speaker 1: this to say, even though Congress is more Christian than
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  Speaker 1: the broader US population, the number of Christians in the
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  Speaker 1: one hundred eighteenth Congress is the lowest number since Pew
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  Speaker 1: Research has started measuring religious affiliation, which may suggest that
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  Speaker 1: Congress perhaps is not immune to these broader secularizing trends
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  Speaker 1: in the US. Instead, Congress may just be a few
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  Speaker 1: decades behind. Thanks to Brilliant for sponsoring this video. In
• 9:45
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• 9:48
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• 9:51
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• 9:54
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• 9:59
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• 10:00
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