August 15, 2024 • 51 mins
This episode of ReligionWise features Chris Borick the Director of the Muhlenberg College Institute of Public Opinion. In this conversation, we consider how pollsters try to understand religious identity and sentiment, the limitations of those methods for considering religious minorities, and how the rise of a religiously unaffiliated public has shown up in recent polls.
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Chip Gruen (00:03):
Welcome to ReligionWise, I'm your host,
Chip Gruen For today's episode,we're actually going to rerun a
conversation that we hadoriginally in January of 2023
with Professor of PoliticalScience Chris Borick from
Muhlenberg College. He's alsothe director of the Muhlenberg
College Institute of PublicOpinion. The reason that we're
(00:23):
re running this episode isbecause I think it seems newly
relevant now, as we stare downthe barrel of the United States
presidential election in 2024.
There has obviously been a lotof conversation about different
parts of the electorate and howissues around race, ethnicity,
(00:43):
religion might affect apresidential election in which
the margins are going to berazor thin, or at least that's
what it looks like sitting herein August. So we are all called
on, if you're politicallyinterested or politically active
(01:03):
at all, to look at polls, readpolls, understand what they
mean. And I think it's alsointeresting to notice what they
can and can't tell us. So inthis conversation, pay
particular attention to the waythat sample size affects what
details are imagined isimportant and which details are
(01:25):
not. So for example, when youget polling that seeks to
capture religious diversity, youcan have large portions of the
electorate that that will bestatistically significant, like
Catholic or Protestant Christianor even Jewish. But when you go
down the line and you get toreligious traditions that are
(01:49):
not as well represented withinthat sample, they end up being
blocked into "other" so that youget very strange things, so that
atheists or Sikhs or humanistsor pagans get lumped in to
religiously other when,obviously it would be the case
that their voting patterns andelection priorities would not be
(02:12):
exactly the same, and in somecases, might be diametrically
opposed to one another. So Ithink just as a primer for
thinking about polling, what itcan tell us and what it can't
tell us as we head into thisnext election cycle, will be,
will be super interesting, willbe super useful. And if, after
you finish this episode, youwant to go back and hit the
(02:36):
archives for a few more thatmight be relevant in the same
vein, you might consider theepisode that released in
December of 2023 Religion,Politics and Vocation, with
Sarah Trone Garriott, whichfeatures a state senator from
Iowa who is a progressiveleft-leading state senator who
(02:57):
talks about the religious andcultural diversity within her
own district. And finally, youmight want to go back and re
listen to December of 2022Religion, Interfaith and Public
Policy with Frederick Davie, whois very interested in the
intersections of politics,policy and religion and
(03:20):
religious difference, and sothat gives another perspective
on how these three discursiveelements might come together
within, you know, within theelection cycle, within the the
ways that we think about publiclife and religion. So so check
those two episodes out as well,and we'll be back in September
(03:42):
with a new episode. So withoutfurther ado, here's my
conversation with Chris Borick.
I hope you enjoy it. ChrisBorick, Professor of Political
Science and director ofMuhlenberg College Institute of
Public Opinion, welcome toReligionWise.
Chris Borick (04:00):
Hey, thank you so much Chip. It's a absolute
pleasure.
Chip Gruen (04:03):
So it seems to me that we can divide polling into
a couple of differentcategories. First, the polling
that gets the most attention,approval, disapproval of
political figures, polling ofregistered or likely voters
ahead of primary and generalelections. The second category
is less driven by electioncycles, concentrating instead on
(04:24):
the popularity of ideas andpolicies, which offers us some
insight maybe into individualsand community identities,
affiliations, demographics,those sorts of things. Does that
seem about right to you? Is thatdivision real in the field?
Chris Borick (04:36):
Yeah, it's very real Chip. You know, when we
think about polling the pollsyou mentioned first, the
electoral politics polls, thehorse race polls, the approval
ratings, those types of pollsare often the most cited. You
know, people love to keep scoreof elections, they like to have
an idea of where races are. Sothey really have a high appetite
(04:58):
for those kinds, including thepress right, so those are some
of the polls that that do getthe most attention. But but a
majority of polls, if you lookat kind of the universe, of
public opinion research are notelectoral polls, they might look
at policy issues, beliefs,attitudes, perceptions of
society. And those to be honestwith you are my favorite polls,
(05:23):
those are the ones I like to dothe most. In some ways they're
easier. For example, electoralpolls often look at trying to
hit a likely voter audience thatchanges and is moving and
evolving, and so it's reallycomplex and really a little
challenging, sometimes morechallenging than you'd even
want. General population polls,because we know the population
(05:43):
parameters because of the censusand others, and that they're not
as time sensitive as a quickelection poll, are more fun to
do and often more rewarding.
Chip Gruen (05:53):
So I don't want to get into methodologies too much.
That's not exactly what we'reinterested in here, but since
you mentioned it and thinkingabout knowing, you know, the
population not having to thinkabout likely voters. There's
something that's been on my mindaround polling, and I think that
this would be true of both ofthe kinds of polls we mentioned,
I just want to get yourtemperature on the sampling bias
(06:15):
problem. Because even if we'rethinking about, you know, polls
of religious identity or Gallupdoes belief in God or things
like that, the people who arelikely to pick up the phone or
answer a poll or talk to astranger, it seems like that
really, I mean, would shift agewise, for example, but might
(06:36):
also shift, you know, aroundone's ideology or one's
perception of the world or one'sperception of threat from the
outside. I mean, how do youthink this could skew our
perceptions of even the generalpopulation? Even if we're not
having to think about people whomay or may not vote?
Chris Borick (06:55):
Yeah, no, it's a great point. And one of the
methodological challenges forpublic opinion, researchers,
Chip. And first of all, it's noteasy, it's not easy to get
around some of those nonrespondent issues that have
challenged the field for yearsand years, and I've only gotten
more challenging with changes incommunication, everything you
described is, is accurate. Sofirst of all, it takes a lot of
(07:20):
attention to those things,recognizing that those are
potentials, and you could see itsometimes, especially if you
have population parameters,right. So for example, if I'm
doing a general poll inPennsylvania, and I know a
certain segment of thepopulation, you know, by age or
racial or ethnic identity is ata level and were
(07:41):
underrepresenting that orover-representing that, we could
do a couple of things we could,we could try a lot harder to go
back and reach thosepopulations. And sometimes we do
- takes a lot of money takes alot of time. Other times we'll
we'll try to account for thatwith statistical weighting,
where we weight thosepercentages of the population to
(08:01):
their, or the sample to theirpopulation parameters, that has
risks involved with it, right,you're making assumptions based
off the group and maybe thatgroup of young people that
responded isn't representativeof the broader young group. So
there's lots of challenges withthat. One of the things we get
to do is sometimes validate. Andthis is where election polls
(08:21):
come in handy, because there isan actual result that we can
compare to, to see what wefound. And if we are, in
essence, kind of replicatingwhat happens in reality or close
to it, it gives us a sense thatthe measures we took to address
some of those limitations arepaying off. Doesn't mean it's
perfect, and lots of pollingbreakdowns, if you will, over
(08:43):
time, but it's a challengingarea, so we have to really adapt
methodologically as asresearchers to account for those
things, sometimes we do it well.
But the one constant is thatthose pressures are going to
continue for quite some time.
Chip Gruen (08:58):
Yeah, it's interesting, you know, I think
about something like race orethnicity or age, you know, you
know your number of respondents,and you know, the number of
people in the population more orless, and you can account for
that. I always wonder aboutthings like, you know, is there
some correlation between whatpeople think about climate
change, and whether they'relikely to respond to a poll or
(09:20):
not, which would be impossibleto get your hands on, if there's
a correlation in something likethat.
Chris Borick (09:25):
It's very true, it's very true, but you don't
have a population parameter.
You're kind of makingassumptions, right, based on
some other things, that you havea pretty good representative
sample, but again, you don'thave complete, you know,
confidence that that's the case.
Chip Gruen (09:41):
So obviously, on ReligionWise, we're interested
in the ways that religion andreligious identity interact with
other aspects of public andcommunal life. Can you give us a
basic lay of the land for howpollsters think about religious
identity? And the electorate orthe general population? And what
that's looked like over time?
Chris Borick (10:00):
Yeah, it's a great question, obviously, you know,
pertinent to our, our talk todayand your work on ReligionWise,
Chip. So first of all, pollstersregularly ask questions about
individual's religious identity,you know, how they affiliate,
you know, what they believe, howthey practice their religion,
(10:21):
you know, and, and so thosequestions are pretty common as
someone that's polled now for,you know, a quarter of a
century, I'd say over 90% of thepolls that I've conducted, have
some, at least one religiousquestion item in it, and
probably the most common is justhow do you identify, you know,
in a classic breakdown ofoptions from Catholic to
(10:44):
Protestant to Jewish, you know,to Muslim, or none which we'll
talk about moving forward. Andso we tried to do that because
it is predictive of lots of ofthings that we're studying you
know, what you believe, how youaffiliate politically, what you
are concerned about and someasuring those things are
(11:06):
pretty common and most pollstersin general population surveys
will have some type of religiousquestion that the question often
for us is how many questions youknow, depending on the content
and what we're trying tomeasure, which is fascinating,
right? So a generalidentification is important, but
probably as important is thelevel of practice, or engagement
(11:30):
with your religion, do you go tomass or synagogue or services,
right? How often do you do that?
Tells us a whole bunch,especially when paired with your
affiliation and how youidentify, and so we, you know,
trying to get it at that. Andthen kind of, for example, you
mentioned climate change, and wedo a national survey on climate
change every year. And we haveto ask some, we want to ask some
(11:51):
religious questions, becauseit's, it really is fascinating
relationship between religiousfactors, and beliefs and
opinions on climate change. Sowe ask a question, generally,
you know, do you identify aswhatever, whatever religion? And
then we ask kind of a follow upquestion that asks about your
perception on the Bible, Or, youknow, and we say, "Hey, is it is
(12:17):
it the, you know actual word ofGod? Is it the informed word of
God that is interpreted? Or isit a book of fables?" Right?
That breakdown tells us a lotabout kind of where individuals
might be, it's very predictiveof a bunch of things that we, we
look at. So, you know, measuringreligiosity, if you will, is is
(12:39):
a challenge. And it's, it'sinteresting to think about the
types of items that we mightemploy to do that, and it
differs across polls and differsacross researchers and of
course, content area, you know,if our focus was very deeply on
religious issues, we'll havemany more measures.
Chip Gruen (13:00):
Yeah, it's interesting, I'm interested and
happy to hear about, you know,thinking about the differences
between belief, affiliation,practice, frequency, and, and it
also occurs to me, like therelationship between all of
those things might be different,depending on the religious
tradition you're dealing with aswell. Like what kinds of
(13:20):
religions or religiousidentities can be practiced
individually versus communally,for example? Like, there's a lot
of interesting stuff going onthere, I think.
Chris Borick (13:31):
Yeah, there is, Chip. And it's also one of
those, those challenges, right?
You know, every survey I'vedone, it's always a matter of
space, right? What questionscould you fit in? And which ones
and they're inevitably questionsI'd love to get in, right that
you have to leave on the cuttingfloor at the end, because you
have to prioritize, you know,the breadth of types of
(13:53):
demographics rather than the,the depth or the intensity. But
I would love to have many morekind of items that are
religiously affiliated, becauseoften you'll find things that
that are just really telling,based on that nuanced version
that might get washed away withmore aggregate or kind of, you
(14:13):
know, broad measures that weemploy.
Chip Gruen (14:19):
So one of the things at the Institute for Religious
and Cultural Understanding thatwe're really interested in is
the breadth of religiousexpression. So our WorldViews
program is not only dealingwith, you know, major Christian
organizations that have lots ofpeople, but also thinking about
smaller, you know, we justinterviewed, you know, someone
from a Pagan community or theSikh community is not very large
(14:42):
in the Lehigh Valley, forexample, but we want to think
about those, but it seems to mefor your work, you know,
thinking about the larger groupsgives us a better handle on
public opinion in general,right. So going into this, the
the sort of less populous typesof religious identity would be,
(15:03):
I mean, not counterproductive,but wouldn't you're not allowed
to have that sort of nuance forthe metrics that you're
interested in? Does that soundabout right?
Chris Borick (15:12):
It does and it's a little sad, right? Often, for
example, when we do a nationalpoll, or a Pennsylvania poll, or
even a regional poll, you know,we our religious distribution,
and our sample usually lookslike the population, right? So
if it's predominantly Christianarea, we're going to get
(15:32):
predominantly Christianindividuals in our sample,
right. And that could be anoverwhelming majority, in some
cases, leaving us with verysmall sample sizes, for
religious affiliations that arefairly small within the
population right often as youjust mentioned, individuals that
(15:53):
might have, you know, a Paganidentity or often cases, you
know, even more traditionalreligious groups that we might
think like, individualsidentifying as Jewish, right in
places we might just have, youknow, 20 people in our survey of
500 that identify in that groupand that really makes it hard to
(16:15):
make any type of generalizationsabout those identities, per se.
And it really is often you know,what's, what's sad is sometimes
we'll get around that we'llsimply aggregate non-Christian
groups into "other religions,"right. And as someone that
studies religion, I'm surethat's just horrifying to think
(16:37):
that you're, you know, you know,putting a group so disparate in
their views into just acategory. But we do that
mathematically, just just justto compare right Christians
versus non-Christians. And, youknow, I'm sure we'll talk about
it. One group that we often haveare people that might describe
themselves as not practicingreligion, atheist, agnostic,
(16:57):
right? Sometimes we lump thoseinto a group. And it does wash
away so much of it, which leavesthe kind of the big point, I
think Chip is those groups, youhave to kind of target as a
separate project, right. So ifyou want, I've done studies, for
example, on Jewish Americans,you know that we find
(17:21):
methodologies not always easy toreally target a group,
specifically, get a big enoughsample of that group to make
better inferences than we couldever do with these broad
population surveys where thesample sizes are just too small
to make meaningful inferences.
Chip Gruen (17:40):
So let's stick to a place then where I think you
have more luck with getting asample size big enough. And I'll
tell you the narrative, at leastwhen I teach my Christian
Traditions class, what thatnarrative looks like, the
narrative that goes in my head,around the last 50 years goes
something like this, thatEvangelical and otherwise
(18:00):
socially conservative Christianvoters were not particularly
active until the 1980 electioncycle. Since that time, that
voting block has become verypowerful first coming out for
Ronald Reagan, and then otherRepublican candidates
predominantly after that. Thereare a number of groups or a
number of issues that that groupis particularly attentive to
(18:22):
around reproductive health,definitions of marriage roles,
public education, etc. This hasresulted also in realignment of
the parties, even if we'rethinking about realignment of
the way that the country isimagined, you know, the
Democratic southern South is nomore largely because of this
trend. Does that sort ofnarrative about the way that
(18:44):
this kind of sociallyconservative group of Christian
voters has shifted? Does thatseem about right to you? Is it
overly general? What do youthink?
Chris Borick (18:52):
No, no, I think it's right, Chip, it was one of
the defining features ofAmerican politics, or certainly,
when we layer religiosity intoit, you know, the emergence of
Evangelical voters, as a definedand and impactful voting block
in the United States has been,you know, a cornerstone of
(19:16):
politics since the, since the80s. And as you said,
accurately, it really rose inthe, in the 80s. And in some
ways was intensified movingforward, you know, into the,
into this this century. And, youknow, often strategically, by
the way, I'm sure, you know, youknow, that, you know, is how
that how that happened, didn'tjust happen, right? It just, it
(19:39):
was very much orchestrated, andpolitically, you know, thought
about, and has had impactsthrough many cycles, including
the most recent cycle. We could,we could we could talk about
that. But yeah, it's, you know,Evangelical voters have since
(19:59):
the, since the 80s, become aincreasingly core part of the
Republican coalition in theUnited States. It's changed, as
you said, as you tighten intoregional politics in the south,
you know, the South, which washistorically the most democratic
place in the country and datingback to the Civil War and its
(20:20):
roots there. You know, largelywhite voters in the South were
overwhelmingly Democrat, andalso that overlaid with a area
that was overwhelminglyProtestant, and often the
Evangelical, and that made apart, right, that made it part
of the politics that were inplace in the South, and that's
changed dramatically over thelast 40 years.
Chip Gruen (20:42):
So here's a bit of my my frustration, because I
think that story that we've laidout, I mean, totally makes
sense, we can plot it, we canlook at results in presidential
elections and legislatures, wecan see that. But I think the
the part where I get frustratedis when you look at sort of
(21:03):
pundants thinking aboutpolitics, thinking about
religious identity, that itstops there, right? And so you
get a narrative of theascendancy of a and I will
nuance it by saying a kind ofChristianity or a kind of social
conservatism, but on the otherhand, there are lots of left
leaning progressive religiousidentities as well within
(21:24):
Christianity and out, somainline Protestantism has in
recent years become a lot moreprogressive. If you think about
the Evangelical Lutheran Churchin America or the Episcopal
Church, for example, both haveopened up to different kinds of
identities been more welcoming,particularly around LGBTQ, etc.
(21:48):
And then we also have groupslike African Methodist Episcopal
Church, the AME Church, thatthat maybe has been less
progressive on on sex and genderissues, but certainly is very
progressive on pluralism aroundrace and ethnicity, for reasons
that make all kinds of sense. Socan you think a little bit or
(22:10):
help me think a little bit aboutthat coalition on the left? Does
it operate in the same way asthe coalition on the right, is
it intentional in the same wayas the coalition on the right?
Because it seems to me likethese, I mean, maybe they don't
balance one another out, butthey're both parts of the story
of the confluence of politicsand religious identity in the
(22:31):
country. But yet I don't feellike they get the same airtime.
Chris Borick (22:35):
Yeah, it's a great observation, Chip, and really
important, yeah, there is somuch focus on the Evangelical
presences within the GOP baseand in strategy and coalition's
in terms of elections. Butyou're very accurate. When you
look, for example, at mainlineProtestant Americans, people
(22:56):
that identify with LutheranChurch, Methodist Church,
Presbyterians. You know, at onetime, it was the bedrock of the
Republican Party. In many ways,lots of you know, Northern
suburban Americans that voted inAmerican elections, voted
overwhelmingly Republican withthose identities, right with
(23:17):
those religious identities. Andthat's very much changed over
time. And we see in recentelections, when we look at exit
polls and studies of this, thatmainline Protestant votes are
pretty evenly distributed. Andif if leaning anyway, lean
Democrat, in most, especially insome high profile elections. And
so you've seen that reallychange in terms of the
(23:38):
coalition. Now, of course, oneof the comparisons that you know
well as in the size of thosegroups, as mainline Protestant
groups have tended to decline insize versus Evangelicals that
have risen generally, over that,that period, you know, the
impact is different, right, interms of, of electoral politics,
but nonetheless, still stillsalient. And then, as you
(24:00):
mentioned, you know, as we talkabout Black voters, and their
religious identity, you know,the presence of the Black
Church, right, if largely justdefined, broadly defined, has
been incredibly pivotal in, indemocratic politics, American
(24:21):
politics, but in contemporarytimes, there is no group that is
a more loyal supporter of theDemocratic Party, than Black
voters. And among Black voters,most loyal Democrats are often
highly religious, affiliatedwith groups, like you said, the
AME groups and Southern Baptistgroups that have long had a
(24:47):
place in, in democraticpolitics, and even more so now.
So the coalitions have changed,they've evolved, but certainly
beyond Evangelical Christians,the place of religion in
American politics is much richerand deeper partisan - just
partisan politics too is allwe're talking about this point.
Chip Gruen (25:07):
Yeah, you think about the confluence of race
and, and political activity inthe South - I'm thinking about
the, like, the Souls to thePolls, initiatives, right, where
you, you know, you make surethat you're you have a movement
that wants to get polling placesopen on Sundays, so that you can
compound church attendance, youknow, in some of these, you
(25:30):
know, particularly in the BlackChurch with getting out and
going straight to the pollingplace.
Chris Borick (25:35):
Yeah, indeed, you know, those those overlays are
fascinating, right. And itbrings in all kinds of
interesting questions that wemight entertain in an elections
or politics class, right? Whereare those divides? Where are
they, you know, legally, allowedto, to go, which is a whole
other variety, I'm sure a greatgreat a show in itself, for you,
(25:59):
Chip. But yeah, there'sconnection points all over the
place, that we that could beexamined.
Chip Gruen (26:07):
So harder, as we've mentioned before, harder to get
our hands on, but I thinkimportant for us to recognize
here is that religious identityin the American population is
more than just thinking aboutChristianity. We could think
about, you know, Judaism, forexample, Jewish identities, with
similar things right about someJewish communities will lean
(26:28):
very far left some Jewishcommunities will lean very far
right. So we could think youknow about whether we're talking
about Orthodox reform orconservative or reconstruction,
right, we could we could do thatwhole thing as well. But then
also, the other big questionthat I think is maybe a puzzle
that needs answering a littlebit is for thinking about the
(26:49):
future, is about other religiousidentities in the country
growing, can think about Muslimsand Hindus, for example, or even
I mean, to get back to anotherChristian identity, Latino
Catholic voters as well. Whatcan we say about increasing
diversity of religious identityin the country as it relates to
(27:10):
both public opinion and morespecifically to the electorate?
Chris Borick (27:15):
I mean, all those elements are key, even, even in
the most recent cycle, Chip, asyou kind of piece it take, take
it apart, and we're still doingthat, you know, looking at all
the evidence and validation andexit polling, and things, but
you see, you know, withingroups, and again, the
confluence, right, so if we lookat the growing Hispanic Latino
(27:35):
population in the United States,and we think about that as a
voting block, if you will, andone of the most contested now
and coveted voting blocks, wheredoes religiosity overlay with
that group? And it'sfascinating, right, the group
largely leans democratic, as youlook at, although in this
election, we saw and especiallyin places like Florida, that
(27:58):
lean go away. And there's, youknow, the diversity within the
Latino and Hispanic community isvery important Cuban Americans
versus Mexican, or Puerto Rican,you know, individuals really
different - so we're washingaway differences there, but also
religious differences, as youtalk about, you know, Catholic
versus Evangelical Latinos, verydifferent perspective, right?
(28:23):
Religiously practicing Latinoand Hispanics, very different
than those that might be lessengaged in their politics, and
that's really where some of thestrategy of contemporary
elections have come in.
Republicans have increasinglytargeted Hispanic voters, who
are religious in their naturessay, is finding an opening that
they think along culturalconservatism and, and those and
(28:47):
beliefs that align more withperhaps traditional Republican
views, might be an ability tocrack into a growing demographic
through a religious and alsocultural lens. And so you see
these kinds of, of places, asyou mentioned, other groups that
that are growing, you know, thebroadly defined Asian American
(29:09):
population, right, that oftenhas a high level of people
identifying as Muslim or Hindu,right, and how that might be
channeled. And then there's somethere's a little bit of overlay
on the conservatism issue, andthose types of things that make
those groups that also vote,generally Democratic, not
(29:30):
monolithic in their nature. Andas their size grows, and that is
a growing population within theUnited States, I think attention
will increasingly be paid to, tohow both parties might lay
strategic kind of claim to thosethose those populations right
(29:51):
through at least partiallyreligiously identified markers.
Chip Gruen (30:01):
Yeah, it's not hard to imagine an individual who be
you know, because it's a part ofthe tradition of their religious
community, for example, issocially, pretty conservative,
right around family issues, sexand gender issues, etc. But then
also has a really expansive viewof what civil rights should look
(30:24):
like, or what immigrationpolicies should be, or something
like that. And so they they endup, you know, one could imagine
somebody like that being caughtbetween the the two parties or
between the two platforms.
Chris Borick (30:36):
Oh totally and that's, you know, all the groups
we just discussed, but evenamong Black voters, you've seen
that, right, you've seenattempts to, among Republicans,
to really leverage thoseconnection points, to try to
persuade Black voters to voteRepublican and with with a
(31:00):
marginal degree of success, youknow, as we look at and again,
politics is probably my most,you know, overused cliche is
about about margins. It's won inthe margins in places like
Pennsylvania and others. And soif you can, you know, even move
a group two or three points,it's impactful, right? It's
impactful. So we often, youknow, we look at these big
(31:20):
pictures and say, Oh, Blackvoters overwhelmingly Democrat,
and they are, but if it'soverwhelmingly at 93% versus
90%, and it's a close election,okay, it's impactful.
Chip Gruen (31:31):
Yeah. Yeah. Good.
Very good point. Absolutely. Soone of the major trends, and
you've alluded to this already.
So I know it's something that Ithink probably impacts both of
our work a little bit, but oneof the major trends of the last
20 years or so, and we couldsort of quibble over how long
this has been happening, wemight also say the last 50
(31:52):
years, has been the decline ofself-identification with
membership in a religiouscommunity or in religious
denomination, the number ofthose associated with this
group, which we sometimesreferred to as the nones, N O N
E S not N U N S. Depending onthe poll, depending on who you
(32:12):
ask, I'd be interested to hearyour number on this, somewhere
between 30 and 50%? Teaching ina college, I think we both are
acutely aware of the trend andhow it affects 18 to 22 year
olds, we can look at ourmatriculation data and find this
bearing out in the same way.
What do you make of this trend?
How does it affect electoralpolitics, views on social
(32:33):
policy, party affiliation, etc?
Has this trend, you know,provided the headaches for you?
Chris Borick (32:39):
No, it uh, I wouldn't, I wouldn't call it a
headache. But it's somethingthat absolutely is significant
in so many ways, both, you know,from a measurement perspective,
and it's impactful, in a lot ofways, and you're dead on, Chip,
this is not only you know, ourresearch, but pollsters and
(33:01):
public opinion researchersacross the country have picked
up on this, you know, trend,this as you said that that they
bet they probably does, and it'sreally good observation probably
dates back farther than we'vereally started to identify it, a
lot of it's kind of identifiedas a 21st century artifact, and
at least the intensity of it hasexpanded. But there's inklings
(33:24):
of this much farther back,right. And scholars that have
looked at it in public opinionresearchers, but it's it's
ballooned. So I've been pulling,you know, for over a quarter of
a century, mostly inPennsylvania, and before that
out in Wisconsin, and we alwaysask these religious marker
questions, right, even theidentity questions. And so over
hundreds and hundreds of surveysthat I've done, you know, every
(33:47):
year you kind of look at it,well, what percentage are
identifying, at least you know,saying that they identify with
religious religious groups. Andas you said, the trend is has
absolutely moved to a greaterportion of the population say, I
don't have a religious identitythan nones as you, as you said,
or that they are agnostic. Intheir kind of views, those two
(34:11):
are growing, that it'sinteresting that atheism, you
know, as an option that we lookat, has grown modestly over that
time, but not at the same rateas the nones/agnostic. And I
know, I'm blending stufftogether, here, but at least
from a polling perspective,those those are the are the
growth sectors, if you will, andit's dramatic, it's dramatic,
(34:36):
your number, you know, about 30to 50, in that range is where
most polls put it so if you lookat our polls, and it changes,
right, if we're looking at a anelectoral poll versus a general
population poll, we might have asmaller percentage of ones and
an electoral poll than we woulda general population poll
because of voting patterns. Buton average, over the last, you
(34:58):
know, handful of years, we'reprobably seeing 35 to 40% fall
in those categories that arethere. And then you could you
know, it's actually interesting,as I said, it's hard to get
inferences about small religiousgroups, percentage wise of the
population, maybe Muslims,Hindus, Jews, that's not the
(35:20):
case anymore. For nones, we havea big sample size. So we start
to be able to really look at howthey think what they believe, or
how they they act. And there'soverlays with age, all the
things you you said, especially,you know, with cohorts like
college students, where this isthe majority group, by the way,
and it's the majority, so justput that into kind of context.
And that groups, you know,ascending, while other groups
(35:42):
are not, and that doesn'tguarantee anything, you know, we
could have a change culturally,that might shift that. So again,
I'm not a predictor of suchthings, but but
probabilistically, at least forthe short term, they're going to
be more impactful electorally,and they do they do lean
Democratic. They alsooverwhelmingly lean at least in
(36:05):
their brand identification asIndependent. They might vote
more democratically in general,but they don't like to be called
Democrats. They often want to becalled Independent. And that
might be you know, they don'twant to affiliate with religion.
They don't want to affiliatewith a party, either. So that
kind of synergy I think isfascinating to look at.
Chip Gruen (36:25):
Yeah, I would really want to drive that home. Because
one of the things I'm thinkingabout here is that just because
to say somebody does notaffiliate with a religious group
doesn't necessarily mean forexample, I know Gallup has for
years and years asked thisquestion about belief in God,
(36:45):
right. And the belief in Godnumber doesn't drop nearly so
quickly as the affiliationmembership question. So the
correlation I always point to isthat if you go back a couple
generations in my family, peoplewere really involved in like the
Lions Club and social lodges andthings like that, which are
almost, I mean, I don't want tooffend anybody to say that
(37:08):
they're irrelevant, or they'regone. But they're certainly the
membership in in even ourgeneration, or certainly younger
than us is, is much, much less.
And it seems to me, like thosearen't religious organizations,
but they're tracking somethingsimilar about membership and
affiliation versus largerquestions of values and meaning,
you know, meaning making,etcetera.
Chris Borick (37:28):
Yeah, yeah that's a great observation, and, you
know, borne out by lots ofstatistics, right, about, you
know, how we join and where wejoin, and how we align with
organizations in general, right.
And, and the none, as you said,that does certainly, and this is
why you need multiple measures,right? Someone that says
they're, they're not affiliatedmight be on beliefs, very, you
(37:49):
know, more aligned with somebodythat might be practicing, it
just, it gets complex. That'swhy multiple measures are very
important to have. But thatoverlay that I think is
fascinating, right, is that thatI don't consider myself, you
know, this group that they mightnot consider themselves part of
(38:11):
an organized religion, theymight not consider themselves
part of a organized party, andthey might not consider
themselves engaged withorganized community groups,
right? That doesn't - and by theway, that doesn't mean that
they're not engaged incommunities, right. They might
volunteer, they might do things,but that's kind of on their
(38:31):
time, under their, you know,agency.
Chip Gruen (38:37):
Right, with no membership card, necessarily.
Chris Borick (38:39):
Right, not any of these.
Chip Gruen (38:43):
You know, actually, and I'll take a host prerogative
here just to share somethingthat I think really again,
drives this point home. But youknow, in some of my classes, we
take field trips to localcommunities. And one of the
things that I've started tolearn to ask is membership
numbers versus attendance. Andif you go and you look at, say,
(39:06):
mainline Protestant communities,their membership might be 500,
and their attendance might be100, right. So like 20% of
people who are members willattend on a weekly basis. If you
go to a Evangelical community,their membership might be and
the community I'm thinking of ismuch larger but say their
membership might be 500, andtheir weekly attendance might be
(39:28):
2000, right. So it runs in theopposite direction, that the
membership is a subset ofattendance. Whereas in mainline
Protestantism, attendance is asubset of membership. Which I
think just speaks volumes aboutsort of the structure and
organization about the way thatthese groups, see those two, you
know, those those twoconstituencies.
Chris Borick (39:49):
That's fascinating, really cool. You
know, and that's, that'sinsightful. And I think it does
kind of overlay with thosebroader trends that we saw, and
also, again, speaks to the ideaof how you measure things,
right. So if I asked ofsomebody, are you formally
affiliated with a religiousinstitution? And somehow, I
(40:09):
don't know if that's wellworded, versus you know, do you
engage in religious practices,right, or service, it might be
very different, right. And bythe way, there, then you start
getting into the, the joy ofdata analysis, right, getting
into those groups, like yousaid, finding someone that that
doesn't affiliate but goesregularly versus someone that is
affiliated, but never goes andseeing how they align. So that's
(40:33):
as a geeky academic, I seenothing but cool research
questions there.
Chip Gruen (40:41):
Okay, so to get away a little bit from the elections
and those sorts of issues, andto think more about public
opinion more broadly, we'vetouched on a number of these
issues already. But we mightadd, you know, climate change,
pandemic response, genderidentity, those sorts of things,
as you know, issues that arecurrently being polled that
(41:03):
people are currently interestedin. As someone who conducts
polls, how do you think aboutthose sorts of issues as related
to religious identity orreligious community and you
know, or religious practice likewe've problematized that enough
already, but so we talk a lotabout polarization around party,
but it seems to me there's anolder kind of polarization
(41:25):
around these sorts of socialissues. How much are we seeing
of this sort of being a selfsorting around social issues?
And and, and rather thansomething new, right? We're just
sort of seeing it in a differentlens.
Chris Borick (41:37):
Yeah, that's a really cool question framed
nicely. Chip, it's, you know,you think about these pathways,
you know, between party,religious identity, you know a
whole series of demographics,and how it might shapes one's
support for policies, and thenvice versa, how the policies and
(41:59):
positions might shape youridentity, right, that it's
always a great question that weasked kind of causality within
political science is like, okay,are the are your beliefs leading
you to the policy to the party?
Is the party leaving you to thebeliefs, your affiliation? And
it's over time, it's a littledynamic, right. And there, I
think there are some evidenceright now, actually really
(42:19):
interesting studies that I'veread, that your party
identification in this age ofkind of negative partisanship
that we live in, is actuallyleading you to some of your
religious viewpoints andaffiliations. We're seeing this,
I think this is like in themoment, like one of the cool
research questions is that youhave individuals that that based
(42:40):
on, you know, where they standpolitically, right now, are
making decisions about how theymight practice or if they're
shopping for a, you know, achurch or a religious
organization that aligns withthem, that seems to be more
common, at least by some metricsthat I'm seeing than it has been
(43:00):
in the past, right. And ratherthan, you know, you're kind of
shaped you start with yourreligion, you start with your
other things, and that shapesyour partisanship. So that by
itself is fascinating. But thenyou get into the particulars of
policy, and issues that youlooked at. So we've probably
talked over the years, most ofmy kind of academic research is
on climate change, and I'vefollowed that now for decades,
(43:23):
given lots and lots and lots ofnational and regional polls, and
the religious overlays, they'realways I find incredibly
fascinating, right? You mightnot think on the surface, like,
why would you know, religion andclimate change? Not the, not the
first, like, Well, that's aneasy comparison, right? Compared
to religion and abortion, maybeor something like that. But
(43:43):
nonetheless, it's, it's, it'simpactful, right? It's so
impactful. I'll give you just aquick side story,
methodologically. So for years,we asked people open ended
questions. So if we asked them,Do you think climate change is
happening? And they said yes orno. Is there evidence of it?
We'd ask them a follow upquestion. Well, what's the
biggest factor that lead you toconclude that there's evidence
(44:04):
of climate change, and peoplewould point to science or their
own experiences for it. And wekind of coded those into
categories, we had never thoughtwhen we created it, that
religious factors would, wouldappear regularly in those open
ended comments, both why youthink it's happening and why you
don't think it's happening. Sopeople would tell us, you know,
what's the major reason theysay, Well, the Bible, or that
(44:26):
it's God's will or somethinglike that. And so we had to kind
of adjust our wholemethodologies to, to account for
its presence in a place wedidn't think it necessarily
would be. And those are thethings like when we look at
religion, across a variety ofsubjects, that we might locate
it, and its impact in a array offactors that might not
(44:50):
necessarily seem on first blushto be, you know, a clear
connection point.
Chip Gruen (44:57):
So I love that story, because it confirms one
bias of mine. And I want to askyou about sort of polling, you
know, if you can speak for thefield generally, but the bias of
mine is that very often,religion is or religious
identity, religious belief,religious affiliation, is very
far down the list of the kindsof factors that that people
(45:23):
thinking about, about publicopinion or, or just generally,
you know, studying humanbehavior. That it always seemed
to me, and again, occupationalhazard for me, is that, hey, we
all have whether we arereligiously affiliated or not,
we all have a worldview, right?
We all have a way in which weimagine the world working, that
is based on assumptions aboutwho we are and how we grew up
(45:47):
and the communities we'rearound, etc. And this story, you
tell is super interesting,because you offer them that
corrective of how you thenincorporate that. Do you think
that in the field generally, Imean, obviously things like race
and ethnicity and wealth, youknow, social placement, all get
a lot of attention. Do you doyou see religion getting, I
(46:09):
don't know, I don't know how toask this getting the really
getting the attention I think itdeserves, right in contemporary
polling, or is this still likethe eighth factor in other
things that people imagine aremotivating public opinion?
Chris Borick (46:27):
That says it's a really good question. And I
think your your position thatthat it's probably pushed aside,
sometimes or overlooked maybe isa better word is true, just from
my own experience. And I speak,you know, from writing lots and
lots of surveys. And so imaginethis, you're writing a survey,
and you have limited number ofquestions, and you have so many
(46:50):
substantive questions, so manydemographic questions. And I've
been in this place, and I haveto admit it, you know, sometimes
where I have to cutdemographics. And so, you know,
so if it's age, race, you know,income, educational attainment,
gender, you know, that's avariety of ones, and religion,
religious affiliation, whateverone we're using, which one gets
(47:12):
cut? And I have to say that moreoften than not compared to those
other ones, it would be thereligion question. It would be
like, well, I don't see any, asI said, maybe erroneously. Well,
I don't see any logicalconnection, why this should
affect, you know, someone'sposition on this. And it's
probably captured with some ofthe other partisan things that
we have. So, on the cuttingfloor, maybe that religion
(47:35):
question gets dropped, and we'remissing things, right. The
climate example is perfectexample, I just didn't see it.
And my Co-op there, you know,who, which was fascinating, his,
his wife is a Lutheran minister.
And she she kind of said, well,why didn't you see that? I
remember, like talking, youknow, like, oh, because we
didn't. And it was, it's like wefound and then we corrected it,
(47:59):
as she said, we did. And now, weasked more questions, more
religion questions in ourdemographic one, because we
found it so fascinating, and soimpactful. So, so I think your
assumption is probably borneout, at least from my, you know,
my case of many, many years ofdoing this.
Chip Gruen (48:18):
So, and again, I know that I my perspective is
very limited on the work thatyou do, right, I see it from as
a consumer of polls and pollingdata. And, you know, from
talking to you and other peoplein the field, but but I don't
have a obviously the insider'sview on all this. So, with that
being said, what am I missing?
Like, what is the reallyimportant thing that I might not
(48:40):
be able to see from myperspective about, about what
public opinion research lookslike? How it it thinks about
some of these issues? Like,where's my blind spot here?
Chris Borick (48:56):
Yeah, I don't know if you have a big blind spot,
Chip, you know, from at leastour last, you know, 45 minutes
of discussion, you seem to havea pretty good, good, good feel
for it, you know, maybe where westarted, it takes us back to the
challenges, right, it is, it isa really challenging time, I've
been doing this for over aquarter of a century. And I look
(49:19):
back at when I started, and boy,that was at least relatively
easy to do. It's harder now.
There's, it's just, it takes alot more time takes a lot more
money to do it right. So there'smore challenges. There's also
some more opportunities to, tobe able to field studies and
reach people through you know,online platforms and other
(49:41):
things that are opening up andwe're exploring all of those at
the at the Institute for ournext stage for however long, you
know, we we roll, and I thinkit's just you know, being
attentive the thing I say toconsumers of public opinion
research is be attentive to themethods and the track record of
(50:01):
the organization's you look at.
There's a kind of proliferationof people that say they're doing
polling or public opinionresearch. And that, you know,
sometimes new folks are doing itgreat, and other times I, you
know, I have some questionsabout their transparency, and
what they're doing and howthey're arriving at their
(50:22):
conclusions. And so be good, begood consumers, like you are of
anything else of the type of ofdata that you receive, that
measures what the public thinksand believes.
Chip Gruen (50:34):
All right. Well, I think that that is a great place
to wrap it up. Thank you verymuch for appearing on
ReligionWise. We reallyappreciate your perspective on
this.
Chris Borick (50:41):
It was such a pleasure. Chip thanks for having
me aboard, it's a great, greathonor.
Chip Gruen (50:48):
This has been ReligionWise a podcast produced
by the Institute for Religiousand Cultural Understanding of
Muhlenberg College. ReligionWiseis produced and directed by
Christine Flicker. For moreinformation about additional
programming, or to make aninquiry about a speaking
engagement, please visit ourwebsite at
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(51:08):
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subscribe to ReligionWisewherever you get your podcasts.
We look forward to seeing younext time.
Welcome to ReligionWise, I'm your host,
Chip Gruen For today's episode,we're actually going to rerun a
conversation that we hadoriginally in January of 2023
with Professor of PoliticalScience Chris Borick from
Muhlenberg College. He's alsothe director of the Muhlenberg
College Institute of PublicOpinion. The reason that we're
(00:23):
re running this episode isbecause I think it seems newly
relevant now, as we stare downthe barrel of the United States
presidential election in 2024.
There has obviously been a lotof conversation about different
parts of the electorate and howissues around race, ethnicity,
(00:43):
religion might affect apresidential election in which
the margins are going to berazor thin, or at least that's
what it looks like sitting herein August. So we are all called
on, if you're politicallyinterested or politically active
(01:03):
at all, to look at polls, readpolls, understand what they
mean. And I think it's alsointeresting to notice what they
can and can't tell us. So inthis conversation, pay
particular attention to the waythat sample size affects what
details are imagined isimportant and which details are
(01:25):
not. So for example, when youget polling that seeks to
capture religious diversity, youcan have large portions of the
electorate that that will bestatistically significant, like
Catholic or Protestant Christianor even Jewish. But when you go
down the line and you get toreligious traditions that are
(01:49):
not as well represented withinthat sample, they end up being
blocked into "other" so that youget very strange things, so that
atheists or Sikhs or humanistsor pagans get lumped in to
religiously other when,obviously it would be the case
that their voting patterns andelection priorities would not be
(02:12):
exactly the same, and in somecases, might be diametrically
opposed to one another. So Ithink just as a primer for
thinking about polling, what itcan tell us and what it can't
tell us as we head into thisnext election cycle, will be,
will be super interesting, willbe super useful. And if, after
you finish this episode, youwant to go back and hit the
(02:36):
archives for a few more thatmight be relevant in the same
vein, you might consider theepisode that released in
December of 2023 Religion,Politics and Vocation, with
Sarah Trone Garriott, whichfeatures a state senator from
Iowa who is a progressiveleft-leading state senator who
(02:57):
talks about the religious andcultural diversity within her
own district. And finally, youmight want to go back and re
listen to December of 2022Religion, Interfaith and Public
Policy with Frederick Davie, whois very interested in the
intersections of politics,policy and religion and
(03:20):
religious difference, and sothat gives another perspective
on how these three discursiveelements might come together
within, you know, within theelection cycle, within the the
ways that we think about publiclife and religion. So so check
those two episodes out as well,and we'll be back in September
(03:42):
with a new episode. So withoutfurther ado, here's my
conversation with Chris Borick.
I hope you enjoy it. ChrisBorick, Professor of Political
Science and director ofMuhlenberg College Institute of
Public Opinion, welcome toReligionWise.
Chris Borick (04:00):
Hey, thank you so much Chip. It's a absolute
pleasure.
Chip Gruen (04:03):
So it seems to me that we can divide polling into
a couple of differentcategories. First, the polling
that gets the most attention,approval, disapproval of
political figures, polling ofregistered or likely voters
ahead of primary and generalelections. The second category
is less driven by electioncycles, concentrating instead on
(04:24):
the popularity of ideas andpolicies, which offers us some
insight maybe into individualsand community identities,
affiliations, demographics,those sorts of things. Does that
seem about right to you? Is thatdivision real in the field?
Chris Borick (04:36):
Yeah, it's very real Chip. You know, when we
think about polling the pollsyou mentioned first, the
electoral politics polls, thehorse race polls, the approval
ratings, those types of pollsare often the most cited. You
know, people love to keep scoreof elections, they like to have
an idea of where races are. Sothey really have a high appetite
(04:58):
for those kinds, including thepress right, so those are some
of the polls that that do getthe most attention. But but a
majority of polls, if you lookat kind of the universe, of
public opinion research are notelectoral polls, they might look
at policy issues, beliefs,attitudes, perceptions of
society. And those to be honestwith you are my favorite polls,
(05:23):
those are the ones I like to dothe most. In some ways they're
easier. For example, electoralpolls often look at trying to
hit a likely voter audience thatchanges and is moving and
evolving, and so it's reallycomplex and really a little
challenging, sometimes morechallenging than you'd even
want. General population polls,because we know the population
(05:43):
parameters because of the censusand others, and that they're not
as time sensitive as a quickelection poll, are more fun to
do and often more rewarding.
Chip Gruen (05:53):
So I don't want to get into methodologies too much.
That's not exactly what we'reinterested in here, but since
you mentioned it and thinkingabout knowing, you know, the
population not having to thinkabout likely voters. There's
something that's been on my mindaround polling, and I think that
this would be true of both ofthe kinds of polls we mentioned,
I just want to get yourtemperature on the sampling bias
(06:15):
problem. Because even if we'rethinking about, you know, polls
of religious identity or Gallupdoes belief in God or things
like that, the people who arelikely to pick up the phone or
answer a poll or talk to astranger, it seems like that
really, I mean, would shift agewise, for example, but might
(06:36):
also shift, you know, aroundone's ideology or one's
perception of the world or one'sperception of threat from the
outside. I mean, how do youthink this could skew our
perceptions of even the generalpopulation? Even if we're not
having to think about people whomay or may not vote?
Chris Borick (06:55):
Yeah, no, it's a great point. And one of the
methodological challenges forpublic opinion, researchers,
Chip. And first of all, it's noteasy, it's not easy to get
around some of those nonrespondent issues that have
challenged the field for yearsand years, and I've only gotten
more challenging with changes incommunication, everything you
described is, is accurate. Sofirst of all, it takes a lot of
(07:20):
attention to those things,recognizing that those are
potentials, and you could see itsometimes, especially if you
have population parameters,right. So for example, if I'm
doing a general poll inPennsylvania, and I know a
certain segment of thepopulation, you know, by age or
racial or ethnic identity is ata level and were
(07:41):
underrepresenting that orover-representing that, we could
do a couple of things we could,we could try a lot harder to go
back and reach thosepopulations. And sometimes we do
- takes a lot of money takes alot of time. Other times we'll
we'll try to account for thatwith statistical weighting,
where we weight thosepercentages of the population to
(08:01):
their, or the sample to theirpopulation parameters, that has
risks involved with it, right,you're making assumptions based
off the group and maybe thatgroup of young people that
responded isn't representativeof the broader young group. So
there's lots of challenges withthat. One of the things we get
to do is sometimes validate. Andthis is where election polls
(08:21):
come in handy, because there isan actual result that we can
compare to, to see what wefound. And if we are, in
essence, kind of replicatingwhat happens in reality or close
to it, it gives us a sense thatthe measures we took to address
some of those limitations arepaying off. Doesn't mean it's
perfect, and lots of pollingbreakdowns, if you will, over
(08:43):
time, but it's a challengingarea, so we have to really adapt
methodologically as asresearchers to account for those
things, sometimes we do it well.
But the one constant is thatthose pressures are going to
continue for quite some time.
Chip Gruen (08:58):
Yeah, it's interesting, you know, I think
about something like race orethnicity or age, you know, you
know your number of respondents,and you know, the number of
people in the population more orless, and you can account for
that. I always wonder aboutthings like, you know, is there
some correlation between whatpeople think about climate
change, and whether they'relikely to respond to a poll or
(09:20):
not, which would be impossibleto get your hands on, if there's
a correlation in something likethat.
Chris Borick (09:25):
It's very true, it's very true, but you don't
have a population parameter.
You're kind of makingassumptions, right, based on
some other things, that you havea pretty good representative
sample, but again, you don'thave complete, you know,
confidence that that's the case.
Chip Gruen (09:41):
So obviously, on ReligionWise, we're interested
in the ways that religion andreligious identity interact with
other aspects of public andcommunal life. Can you give us a
basic lay of the land for howpollsters think about religious
identity? And the electorate orthe general population? And what
that's looked like over time?
Chris Borick (10:00):
Yeah, it's a great question, obviously, you know,
pertinent to our, our talk todayand your work on ReligionWise,
Chip. So first of all, pollstersregularly ask questions about
individual's religious identity,you know, how they affiliate,
you know, what they believe, howthey practice their religion,
(10:21):
you know, and, and so thosequestions are pretty common as
someone that's polled now for,you know, a quarter of a
century, I'd say over 90% of thepolls that I've conducted, have
some, at least one religiousquestion item in it, and
probably the most common is justhow do you identify, you know,
in a classic breakdown ofoptions from Catholic to
(10:44):
Protestant to Jewish, you know,to Muslim, or none which we'll
talk about moving forward. Andso we tried to do that because
it is predictive of lots of ofthings that we're studying you
know, what you believe, how youaffiliate politically, what you
are concerned about and someasuring those things are
(11:06):
pretty common and most pollstersin general population surveys
will have some type of religiousquestion that the question often
for us is how many questions youknow, depending on the content
and what we're trying tomeasure, which is fascinating,
right? So a generalidentification is important, but
probably as important is thelevel of practice, or engagement
(11:30):
with your religion, do you go tomass or synagogue or services,
right? How often do you do that?
Tells us a whole bunch,especially when paired with your
affiliation and how youidentify, and so we, you know,
trying to get it at that. Andthen kind of, for example, you
mentioned climate change, and wedo a national survey on climate
change every year. And we haveto ask some, we want to ask some
(11:51):
religious questions, becauseit's, it really is fascinating
relationship between religiousfactors, and beliefs and
opinions on climate change. Sowe ask a question, generally,
you know, do you identify aswhatever, whatever religion? And
then we ask kind of a follow upquestion that asks about your
perception on the Bible, Or, youknow, and we say, "Hey, is it is
(12:17):
it the, you know actual word ofGod? Is it the informed word of
God that is interpreted? Or isit a book of fables?" Right?
That breakdown tells us a lotabout kind of where individuals
might be, it's very predictiveof a bunch of things that we, we
look at. So, you know, measuringreligiosity, if you will, is is
(12:39):
a challenge. And it's, it'sinteresting to think about the
types of items that we mightemploy to do that, and it
differs across polls and differsacross researchers and of
course, content area, you know,if our focus was very deeply on
religious issues, we'll havemany more measures.
Chip Gruen (13:00):
Yeah, it's interesting, I'm interested and
happy to hear about, you know,thinking about the differences
between belief, affiliation,practice, frequency, and, and it
also occurs to me, like therelationship between all of
those things might be different,depending on the religious
tradition you're dealing with aswell. Like what kinds of
(13:20):
religions or religiousidentities can be practiced
individually versus communally,for example? Like, there's a lot
of interesting stuff going onthere, I think.
Chris Borick (13:31):
Yeah, there is, Chip. And it's also one of
those, those challenges, right?
You know, every survey I'vedone, it's always a matter of
space, right? What questionscould you fit in? And which ones
and they're inevitably questionsI'd love to get in, right that
you have to leave on the cuttingfloor at the end, because you
have to prioritize, you know,the breadth of types of
(13:53):
demographics rather than the,the depth or the intensity. But
I would love to have many morekind of items that are
religiously affiliated, becauseoften you'll find things that
that are just really telling,based on that nuanced version
that might get washed away withmore aggregate or kind of, you
(14:13):
know, broad measures that weemploy.
Chip Gruen (14:19):
So one of the things at the Institute for Religious
and Cultural Understanding thatwe're really interested in is
the breadth of religiousexpression. So our WorldViews
program is not only dealingwith, you know, major Christian
organizations that have lots ofpeople, but also thinking about
smaller, you know, we justinterviewed, you know, someone
from a Pagan community or theSikh community is not very large
(14:42):
in the Lehigh Valley, forexample, but we want to think
about those, but it seems to mefor your work, you know,
thinking about the larger groupsgives us a better handle on
public opinion in general,right. So going into this, the
the sort of less populous typesof religious identity would be,
(15:03):
I mean, not counterproductive,but wouldn't you're not allowed
to have that sort of nuance forthe metrics that you're
interested in? Does that soundabout right?
Chris Borick (15:12):
It does and it's a little sad, right? Often, for
example, when we do a nationalpoll, or a Pennsylvania poll, or
even a regional poll, you know,we our religious distribution,
and our sample usually lookslike the population, right? So
if it's predominantly Christianarea, we're going to get
(15:32):
predominantly Christianindividuals in our sample,
right. And that could be anoverwhelming majority, in some
cases, leaving us with verysmall sample sizes, for
religious affiliations that arefairly small within the
population right often as youjust mentioned, individuals that
(15:53):
might have, you know, a Paganidentity or often cases, you
know, even more traditionalreligious groups that we might
think like, individualsidentifying as Jewish, right in
places we might just have, youknow, 20 people in our survey of
500 that identify in that groupand that really makes it hard to
(16:15):
make any type of generalizationsabout those identities, per se.
And it really is often you know,what's, what's sad is sometimes
we'll get around that we'llsimply aggregate non-Christian
groups into "other religions,"right. And as someone that
studies religion, I'm surethat's just horrifying to think
(16:37):
that you're, you know, you know,putting a group so disparate in
their views into just acategory. But we do that
mathematically, just just justto compare right Christians
versus non-Christians. And, youknow, I'm sure we'll talk about
it. One group that we often haveare people that might describe
themselves as not practicingreligion, atheist, agnostic,
(16:57):
right? Sometimes we lump thoseinto a group. And it does wash
away so much of it, which leavesthe kind of the big point, I
think Chip is those groups, youhave to kind of target as a
separate project, right. So ifyou want, I've done studies, for
example, on Jewish Americans,you know that we find
(17:21):
methodologies not always easy toreally target a group,
specifically, get a big enoughsample of that group to make
better inferences than we couldever do with these broad
population surveys where thesample sizes are just too small
to make meaningful inferences.
Chip Gruen (17:40):
So let's stick to a place then where I think you
have more luck with getting asample size big enough. And I'll
tell you the narrative, at leastwhen I teach my Christian
Traditions class, what thatnarrative looks like, the
narrative that goes in my head,around the last 50 years goes
something like this, thatEvangelical and otherwise
(18:00):
socially conservative Christianvoters were not particularly
active until the 1980 electioncycle. Since that time, that
voting block has become verypowerful first coming out for
Ronald Reagan, and then otherRepublican candidates
predominantly after that. Thereare a number of groups or a
number of issues that that groupis particularly attentive to
(18:22):
around reproductive health,definitions of marriage roles,
public education, etc. This hasresulted also in realignment of
the parties, even if we'rethinking about realignment of
the way that the country isimagined, you know, the
Democratic southern South is nomore largely because of this
trend. Does that sort ofnarrative about the way that
(18:44):
this kind of sociallyconservative group of Christian
voters has shifted? Does thatseem about right to you? Is it
overly general? What do youthink?
Chris Borick (18:52):
No, no, I think it's right, Chip, it was one of
the defining features ofAmerican politics, or certainly,
when we layer religiosity intoit, you know, the emergence of
Evangelical voters, as a definedand and impactful voting block
in the United States has been,you know, a cornerstone of
(19:16):
politics since the, since the80s. And as you said,
accurately, it really rose inthe, in the 80s. And in some
ways was intensified movingforward, you know, into the,
into this this century. And, youknow, often strategically, by
the way, I'm sure, you know, youknow, that, you know, is how
that how that happened, didn'tjust happen, right? It just, it
(19:39):
was very much orchestrated, andpolitically, you know, thought
about, and has had impactsthrough many cycles, including
the most recent cycle. We could,we could we could talk about
that. But yeah, it's, you know,Evangelical voters have since
(19:59):
the, since the 80s, become aincreasingly core part of the
Republican coalition in theUnited States. It's changed, as
you said, as you tighten intoregional politics in the south,
you know, the South, which washistorically the most democratic
place in the country and datingback to the Civil War and its
(20:20):
roots there. You know, largelywhite voters in the South were
overwhelmingly Democrat, andalso that overlaid with a area
that was overwhelminglyProtestant, and often the
Evangelical, and that made apart, right, that made it part
of the politics that were inplace in the South, and that's
changed dramatically over thelast 40 years.
Chip Gruen (20:42):
So here's a bit of my my frustration, because I
think that story that we've laidout, I mean, totally makes
sense, we can plot it, we canlook at results in presidential
elections and legislatures, wecan see that. But I think the
the part where I get frustratedis when you look at sort of
(21:03):
pundants thinking aboutpolitics, thinking about
religious identity, that itstops there, right? And so you
get a narrative of theascendancy of a and I will
nuance it by saying a kind ofChristianity or a kind of social
conservatism, but on the otherhand, there are lots of left
leaning progressive religiousidentities as well within
(21:24):
Christianity and out, somainline Protestantism has in
recent years become a lot moreprogressive. If you think about
the Evangelical Lutheran Churchin America or the Episcopal
Church, for example, both haveopened up to different kinds of
identities been more welcoming,particularly around LGBTQ, etc.
(21:48):
And then we also have groupslike African Methodist Episcopal
Church, the AME Church, thatthat maybe has been less
progressive on on sex and genderissues, but certainly is very
progressive on pluralism aroundrace and ethnicity, for reasons
that make all kinds of sense. Socan you think a little bit or
(22:10):
help me think a little bit aboutthat coalition on the left? Does
it operate in the same way asthe coalition on the right, is
it intentional in the same wayas the coalition on the right?
Because it seems to me likethese, I mean, maybe they don't
balance one another out, butthey're both parts of the story
of the confluence of politicsand religious identity in the
(22:31):
country. But yet I don't feellike they get the same airtime.
Chris Borick (22:35):
Yeah, it's a great observation, Chip, and really
important, yeah, there is somuch focus on the Evangelical
presences within the GOP baseand in strategy and coalition's
in terms of elections. Butyou're very accurate. When you
look, for example, at mainlineProtestant Americans, people
(22:56):
that identify with LutheranChurch, Methodist Church,
Presbyterians. You know, at onetime, it was the bedrock of the
Republican Party. In many ways,lots of you know, Northern
suburban Americans that voted inAmerican elections, voted
overwhelmingly Republican withthose identities, right with
(23:17):
those religious identities. Andthat's very much changed over
time. And we see in recentelections, when we look at exit
polls and studies of this, thatmainline Protestant votes are
pretty evenly distributed. Andif if leaning anyway, lean
Democrat, in most, especially insome high profile elections. And
so you've seen that reallychange in terms of the
(23:38):
coalition. Now, of course, oneof the comparisons that you know
well as in the size of thosegroups, as mainline Protestant
groups have tended to decline insize versus Evangelicals that
have risen generally, over that,that period, you know, the
impact is different, right, interms of, of electoral politics,
but nonetheless, still stillsalient. And then, as you
(24:00):
mentioned, you know, as we talkabout Black voters, and their
religious identity, you know,the presence of the Black
Church, right, if largely justdefined, broadly defined, has
been incredibly pivotal in, indemocratic politics, American
(24:21):
politics, but in contemporarytimes, there is no group that is
a more loyal supporter of theDemocratic Party, than Black
voters. And among Black voters,most loyal Democrats are often
highly religious, affiliatedwith groups, like you said, the
AME groups and Southern Baptistgroups that have long had a
(24:47):
place in, in democraticpolitics, and even more so now.
So the coalitions have changed,they've evolved, but certainly
beyond Evangelical Christians,the place of religion in
American politics is much richerand deeper partisan - just
partisan politics too is allwe're talking about this point.
Chip Gruen (25:07):
Yeah, you think about the confluence of race
and, and political activity inthe South - I'm thinking about
the, like, the Souls to thePolls, initiatives, right, where
you, you know, you make surethat you're you have a movement
that wants to get polling placesopen on Sundays, so that you can
compound church attendance, youknow, in some of these, you
(25:30):
know, particularly in the BlackChurch with getting out and
going straight to the pollingplace.
Chris Borick (25:35):
Yeah, indeed, you know, those those overlays are
fascinating, right. And itbrings in all kinds of
interesting questions that wemight entertain in an elections
or politics class, right? Whereare those divides? Where are
they, you know, legally, allowedto, to go, which is a whole
other variety, I'm sure a greatgreat a show in itself, for you,
(25:59):
Chip. But yeah, there'sconnection points all over the
place, that we that could beexamined.
Chip Gruen (26:07):
So harder, as we've mentioned before, harder to get
our hands on, but I thinkimportant for us to recognize
here is that religious identityin the American population is
more than just thinking aboutChristianity. We could think
about, you know, Judaism, forexample, Jewish identities, with
similar things right about someJewish communities will lean
(26:28):
very far left some Jewishcommunities will lean very far
right. So we could think youknow about whether we're talking
about Orthodox reform orconservative or reconstruction,
right, we could we could do thatwhole thing as well. But then
also, the other big questionthat I think is maybe a puzzle
that needs answering a littlebit is for thinking about the
(26:49):
future, is about other religiousidentities in the country
growing, can think about Muslimsand Hindus, for example, or even
I mean, to get back to anotherChristian identity, Latino
Catholic voters as well. Whatcan we say about increasing
diversity of religious identityin the country as it relates to
(27:10):
both public opinion and morespecifically to the electorate?
Chris Borick (27:15):
I mean, all those elements are key, even, even in
the most recent cycle, Chip, asyou kind of piece it take, take
it apart, and we're still doingthat, you know, looking at all
the evidence and validation andexit polling, and things, but
you see, you know, withingroups, and again, the
confluence, right, so if we lookat the growing Hispanic Latino
(27:35):
population in the United States,and we think about that as a
voting block, if you will, andone of the most contested now
and coveted voting blocks, wheredoes religiosity overlay with
that group? And it'sfascinating, right, the group
largely leans democratic, as youlook at, although in this
election, we saw and especiallyin places like Florida, that
(27:58):
lean go away. And there's, youknow, the diversity within the
Latino and Hispanic community isvery important Cuban Americans
versus Mexican, or Puerto Rican,you know, individuals really
different - so we're washingaway differences there, but also
religious differences, as youtalk about, you know, Catholic
versus Evangelical Latinos, verydifferent perspective, right?
(28:23):
Religiously practicing Latinoand Hispanics, very different
than those that might be lessengaged in their politics, and
that's really where some of thestrategy of contemporary
elections have come in.
Republicans have increasinglytargeted Hispanic voters, who
are religious in their naturessay, is finding an opening that
they think along culturalconservatism and, and those and
(28:47):
beliefs that align more withperhaps traditional Republican
views, might be an ability tocrack into a growing demographic
through a religious and alsocultural lens. And so you see
these kinds of, of places, asyou mentioned, other groups that
that are growing, you know, thebroadly defined Asian American
(29:09):
population, right, that oftenhas a high level of people
identifying as Muslim or Hindu,right, and how that might be
channeled. And then there's somethere's a little bit of overlay
on the conservatism issue, andthose types of things that make
those groups that also vote,generally Democratic, not
(29:30):
monolithic in their nature. Andas their size grows, and that is
a growing population within theUnited States, I think attention
will increasingly be paid to, tohow both parties might lay
strategic kind of claim to thosethose those populations right
(29:51):
through at least partiallyreligiously identified markers.
Chip Gruen (30:01):
Yeah, it's not hard to imagine an individual who be
you know, because it's a part ofthe tradition of their religious
community, for example, issocially, pretty conservative,
right around family issues, sexand gender issues, etc. But then
also has a really expansive viewof what civil rights should look
(30:24):
like, or what immigrationpolicies should be, or something
like that. And so they they endup, you know, one could imagine
somebody like that being caughtbetween the the two parties or
between the two platforms.
Chris Borick (30:36):
Oh totally and that's, you know, all the groups
we just discussed, but evenamong Black voters, you've seen
that, right, you've seenattempts to, among Republicans,
to really leverage thoseconnection points, to try to
persuade Black voters to voteRepublican and with with a
(31:00):
marginal degree of success, youknow, as we look at and again,
politics is probably my most,you know, overused cliche is
about about margins. It's won inthe margins in places like
Pennsylvania and others. And soif you can, you know, even move
a group two or three points,it's impactful, right? It's
impactful. So we often, youknow, we look at these big
(31:20):
pictures and say, Oh, Blackvoters overwhelmingly Democrat,
and they are, but if it'soverwhelmingly at 93% versus
90%, and it's a close election,okay, it's impactful.
Chip Gruen (31:31):
Yeah. Yeah. Good.
Very good point. Absolutely. Soone of the major trends, and
you've alluded to this already.
So I know it's something that Ithink probably impacts both of
our work a little bit, but oneof the major trends of the last
20 years or so, and we couldsort of quibble over how long
this has been happening, wemight also say the last 50
(31:52):
years, has been the decline ofself-identification with
membership in a religiouscommunity or in religious
denomination, the number ofthose associated with this
group, which we sometimesreferred to as the nones, N O N
E S not N U N S. Depending onthe poll, depending on who you
(32:12):
ask, I'd be interested to hearyour number on this, somewhere
between 30 and 50%? Teaching ina college, I think we both are
acutely aware of the trend andhow it affects 18 to 22 year
olds, we can look at ourmatriculation data and find this
bearing out in the same way.
What do you make of this trend?
How does it affect electoralpolitics, views on social
(32:33):
policy, party affiliation, etc?
Has this trend, you know,provided the headaches for you?
Chris Borick (32:39):
No, it uh, I wouldn't, I wouldn't call it a
headache. But it's somethingthat absolutely is significant
in so many ways, both, you know,from a measurement perspective,
and it's impactful, in a lot ofways, and you're dead on, Chip,
this is not only you know, ourresearch, but pollsters and
(33:01):
public opinion researchersacross the country have picked
up on this, you know, trend,this as you said that that they
bet they probably does, and it'sreally good observation probably
dates back farther than we'vereally started to identify it, a
lot of it's kind of identifiedas a 21st century artifact, and
at least the intensity of it hasexpanded. But there's inklings
(33:24):
of this much farther back,right. And scholars that have
looked at it in public opinionresearchers, but it's it's
ballooned. So I've been pulling,you know, for over a quarter of
a century, mostly inPennsylvania, and before that
out in Wisconsin, and we alwaysask these religious marker
questions, right, even theidentity questions. And so over
hundreds and hundreds of surveysthat I've done, you know, every
(33:47):
year you kind of look at it,well, what percentage are
identifying, at least you know,saying that they identify with
religious religious groups. Andas you said, the trend is has
absolutely moved to a greaterportion of the population say, I
don't have a religious identitythan nones as you, as you said,
or that they are agnostic. Intheir kind of views, those two
(34:11):
are growing, that it'sinteresting that atheism, you
know, as an option that we lookat, has grown modestly over that
time, but not at the same rateas the nones/agnostic. And I
know, I'm blending stufftogether, here, but at least
from a polling perspective,those those are the are the
growth sectors, if you will, andit's dramatic, it's dramatic,
(34:36):
your number, you know, about 30to 50, in that range is where
most polls put it so if you lookat our polls, and it changes,
right, if we're looking at a anelectoral poll versus a general
population poll, we might have asmaller percentage of ones and
an electoral poll than we woulda general population poll
because of voting patterns. Buton average, over the last, you
(34:58):
know, handful of years, we'reprobably seeing 35 to 40% fall
in those categories that arethere. And then you could you
know, it's actually interesting,as I said, it's hard to get
inferences about small religiousgroups, percentage wise of the
population, maybe Muslims,Hindus, Jews, that's not the
(35:20):
case anymore. For nones, we havea big sample size. So we start
to be able to really look at howthey think what they believe, or
how they they act. And there'soverlays with age, all the
things you you said, especially,you know, with cohorts like
college students, where this isthe majority group, by the way,
and it's the majority, so justput that into kind of context.
And that groups, you know,ascending, while other groups
(35:42):
are not, and that doesn'tguarantee anything, you know, we
could have a change culturally,that might shift that. So again,
I'm not a predictor of suchthings, but but
probabilistically, at least forthe short term, they're going to
be more impactful electorally,and they do they do lean
Democratic. They alsooverwhelmingly lean at least in
(36:05):
their brand identification asIndependent. They might vote
more democratically in general,but they don't like to be called
Democrats. They often want to becalled Independent. And that
might be you know, they don'twant to affiliate with religion.
They don't want to affiliatewith a party, either. So that
kind of synergy I think isfascinating to look at.
Chip Gruen (36:25):
Yeah, I would really want to drive that home. Because
one of the things I'm thinkingabout here is that just because
to say somebody does notaffiliate with a religious group
doesn't necessarily mean forexample, I know Gallup has for
years and years asked thisquestion about belief in God,
(36:45):
right. And the belief in Godnumber doesn't drop nearly so
quickly as the affiliationmembership question. So the
correlation I always point to isthat if you go back a couple
generations in my family, peoplewere really involved in like the
Lions Club and social lodges andthings like that, which are
almost, I mean, I don't want tooffend anybody to say that
(37:08):
they're irrelevant, or they'regone. But they're certainly the
membership in in even ourgeneration, or certainly younger
than us is, is much, much less.
And it seems to me, like thosearen't religious organizations,
but they're tracking somethingsimilar about membership and
affiliation versus largerquestions of values and meaning,
you know, meaning making,etcetera.
Chris Borick (37:28):
Yeah, yeah that's a great observation, and, you
know, borne out by lots ofstatistics, right, about, you
know, how we join and where wejoin, and how we align with
organizations in general, right.
And, and the none, as you said,that does certainly, and this is
why you need multiple measures,right? Someone that says
they're, they're not affiliatedmight be on beliefs, very, you
(37:49):
know, more aligned with somebodythat might be practicing, it
just, it gets complex. That'swhy multiple measures are very
important to have. But thatoverlay that I think is
fascinating, right, is that thatI don't consider myself, you
know, this group that they mightnot consider themselves part of
(38:11):
an organized religion, theymight not consider themselves
part of a organized party, andthey might not consider
themselves engaged withorganized community groups,
right? That doesn't - and by theway, that doesn't mean that
they're not engaged incommunities, right. They might
volunteer, they might do things,but that's kind of on their
(38:31):
time, under their, you know,agency.
Chip Gruen (38:37):
Right, with no membership card, necessarily.
Chris Borick (38:39):
Right, not any of these.
Chip Gruen (38:43):
You know, actually, and I'll take a host prerogative
here just to share somethingthat I think really again,
drives this point home. But youknow, in some of my classes, we
take field trips to localcommunities. And one of the
things that I've started tolearn to ask is membership
numbers versus attendance. Andif you go and you look at, say,
(39:06):
mainline Protestant communities,their membership might be 500,
and their attendance might be100, right. So like 20% of
people who are members willattend on a weekly basis. If you
go to a Evangelical community,their membership might be and
the community I'm thinking of ismuch larger but say their
membership might be 500, andtheir weekly attendance might be
(39:28):
2000, right. So it runs in theopposite direction, that the
membership is a subset ofattendance. Whereas in mainline
Protestantism, attendance is asubset of membership. Which I
think just speaks volumes aboutsort of the structure and
organization about the way thatthese groups, see those two, you
know, those those twoconstituencies.
Chris Borick (39:49):
That's fascinating, really cool. You
know, and that's, that'sinsightful. And I think it does
kind of overlay with thosebroader trends that we saw, and
also, again, speaks to the ideaof how you measure things,
right. So if I asked ofsomebody, are you formally
affiliated with a religiousinstitution? And somehow, I
(40:09):
don't know if that's wellworded, versus you know, do you
engage in religious practices,right, or service, it might be
very different, right. And bythe way, there, then you start
getting into the, the joy ofdata analysis, right, getting
into those groups, like yousaid, finding someone that that
doesn't affiliate but goesregularly versus someone that is
affiliated, but never goes andseeing how they align. So that's
(40:33):
as a geeky academic, I seenothing but cool research
questions there.
Chip Gruen (40:41):
Okay, so to get away a little bit from the elections
and those sorts of issues, andto think more about public
opinion more broadly, we'vetouched on a number of these
issues already. But we mightadd, you know, climate change,
pandemic response, genderidentity, those sorts of things,
as you know, issues that arecurrently being polled that
(41:03):
people are currently interestedin. As someone who conducts
polls, how do you think aboutthose sorts of issues as related
to religious identity orreligious community and you
know, or religious practice likewe've problematized that enough
already, but so we talk a lotabout polarization around party,
but it seems to me there's anolder kind of polarization
(41:25):
around these sorts of socialissues. How much are we seeing
of this sort of being a selfsorting around social issues?
And and, and rather thansomething new, right? We're just
sort of seeing it in a differentlens.
Chris Borick (41:37):
Yeah, that's a really cool question framed
nicely. Chip, it's, you know,you think about these pathways,
you know, between party,religious identity, you know a
whole series of demographics,and how it might shapes one's
support for policies, and thenvice versa, how the policies and
(41:59):
positions might shape youridentity, right, that it's
always a great question that weasked kind of causality within
political science is like, okay,are the are your beliefs leading
you to the policy to the party?
Is the party leaving you to thebeliefs, your affiliation? And
it's over time, it's a littledynamic, right. And there, I
think there are some evidenceright now, actually really
(42:19):
interesting studies that I'veread, that your party
identification in this age ofkind of negative partisanship
that we live in, is actuallyleading you to some of your
religious viewpoints andaffiliations. We're seeing this,
I think this is like in themoment, like one of the cool
research questions is that youhave individuals that that based
(42:40):
on, you know, where they standpolitically, right now, are
making decisions about how theymight practice or if they're
shopping for a, you know, achurch or a religious
organization that aligns withthem, that seems to be more
common, at least by some metricsthat I'm seeing than it has been
(43:00):
in the past, right. And ratherthan, you know, you're kind of
shaped you start with yourreligion, you start with your
other things, and that shapesyour partisanship. So that by
itself is fascinating. But thenyou get into the particulars of
policy, and issues that youlooked at. So we've probably
talked over the years, most ofmy kind of academic research is
on climate change, and I'vefollowed that now for decades,
(43:23):
given lots and lots and lots ofnational and regional polls, and
the religious overlays, they'realways I find incredibly
fascinating, right? You mightnot think on the surface, like,
why would you know, religion andclimate change? Not the, not the
first, like, Well, that's aneasy comparison, right? Compared
to religion and abortion, maybeor something like that. But
(43:43):
nonetheless, it's, it's, it'simpactful, right? It's so
impactful. I'll give you just aquick side story,
methodologically. So for years,we asked people open ended
questions. So if we asked them,Do you think climate change is
happening? And they said yes orno. Is there evidence of it?
We'd ask them a follow upquestion. Well, what's the
biggest factor that lead you toconclude that there's evidence
(44:04):
of climate change, and peoplewould point to science or their
own experiences for it. And wekind of coded those into
categories, we had never thoughtwhen we created it, that
religious factors would, wouldappear regularly in those open
ended comments, both why youthink it's happening and why you
don't think it's happening. Sopeople would tell us, you know,
what's the major reason theysay, Well, the Bible, or that
(44:26):
it's God's will or somethinglike that. And so we had to kind
of adjust our wholemethodologies to, to account for
its presence in a place wedidn't think it necessarily
would be. And those are thethings like when we look at
religion, across a variety ofsubjects, that we might locate
it, and its impact in a array offactors that might not
(44:50):
necessarily seem on first blushto be, you know, a clear
connection point.
Chip Gruen (44:57):
So I love that story, because it confirms one
bias of mine. And I want to askyou about sort of polling, you
know, if you can speak for thefield generally, but the bias of
mine is that very often,religion is or religious
identity, religious belief,religious affiliation, is very
far down the list of the kindsof factors that that people
(45:23):
thinking about, about publicopinion or, or just generally,
you know, studying humanbehavior. That it always seemed
to me, and again, occupationalhazard for me, is that, hey, we
all have whether we arereligiously affiliated or not,
we all have a worldview, right?
We all have a way in which weimagine the world working, that
is based on assumptions aboutwho we are and how we grew up
(45:47):
and the communities we'rearound, etc. And this story, you
tell is super interesting,because you offer them that
corrective of how you thenincorporate that. Do you think
that in the field generally, Imean, obviously things like race
and ethnicity and wealth, youknow, social placement, all get
a lot of attention. Do you doyou see religion getting, I
(46:09):
don't know, I don't know how toask this getting the really
getting the attention I think itdeserves, right in contemporary
polling, or is this still likethe eighth factor in other
things that people imagine aremotivating public opinion?
Chris Borick (46:27):
That says it's a really good question. And I
think your your position thatthat it's probably pushed aside,
sometimes or overlooked maybe isa better word is true, just from
my own experience. And I speak,you know, from writing lots and
lots of surveys. And so imaginethis, you're writing a survey,
and you have limited number ofquestions, and you have so many
(46:50):
substantive questions, so manydemographic questions. And I've
been in this place, and I haveto admit it, you know, sometimes
where I have to cutdemographics. And so, you know,
so if it's age, race, you know,income, educational attainment,
gender, you know, that's avariety of ones, and religion,
religious affiliation, whateverone we're using, which one gets
(47:12):
cut? And I have to say that moreoften than not compared to those
other ones, it would be thereligion question. It would be
like, well, I don't see any, asI said, maybe erroneously. Well,
I don't see any logicalconnection, why this should
affect, you know, someone'sposition on this. And it's
probably captured with some ofthe other partisan things that
we have. So, on the cuttingfloor, maybe that religion
(47:35):
question gets dropped, and we'remissing things, right. The
climate example is perfectexample, I just didn't see it.
And my Co-op there, you know,who, which was fascinating, his,
his wife is a Lutheran minister.
And she she kind of said, well,why didn't you see that? I
remember, like talking, youknow, like, oh, because we
didn't. And it was, it's like wefound and then we corrected it,
(47:59):
as she said, we did. And now, weasked more questions, more
religion questions in ourdemographic one, because we
found it so fascinating, and soimpactful. So, so I think your
assumption is probably borneout, at least from my, you know,
my case of many, many years ofdoing this.
Chip Gruen (48:18):
So, and again, I know that I my perspective is
very limited on the work thatyou do, right, I see it from as
a consumer of polls and pollingdata. And, you know, from
talking to you and other peoplein the field, but but I don't
have a obviously the insider'sview on all this. So, with that
being said, what am I missing?
Like, what is the reallyimportant thing that I might not
(48:40):
be able to see from myperspective about, about what
public opinion research lookslike? How it it thinks about
some of these issues? Like,where's my blind spot here?
Chris Borick (48:56):
Yeah, I don't know if you have a big blind spot,
Chip, you know, from at leastour last, you know, 45 minutes
of discussion, you seem to havea pretty good, good, good feel
for it, you know, maybe where westarted, it takes us back to the
challenges, right, it is, it isa really challenging time, I've
been doing this for over aquarter of a century. And I look
(49:19):
back at when I started, and boy,that was at least relatively
easy to do. It's harder now.
There's, it's just, it takes alot more time takes a lot more
money to do it right. So there'smore challenges. There's also
some more opportunities to, tobe able to field studies and
reach people through you know,online platforms and other
(49:41):
things that are opening up andwe're exploring all of those at
the at the Institute for ournext stage for however long, you
know, we we roll, and I thinkit's just you know, being
attentive the thing I say toconsumers of public opinion
research is be attentive to themethods and the track record of
(50:01):
the organization's you look at.
There's a kind of proliferationof people that say they're doing
polling or public opinionresearch. And that, you know,
sometimes new folks are doing itgreat, and other times I, you
know, I have some questionsabout their transparency, and
what they're doing and howthey're arriving at their
(50:22):
conclusions. And so be good, begood consumers, like you are of
anything else of the type of ofdata that you receive, that
measures what the public thinksand believes.
Chip Gruen (50:34):
All right. Well, I think that that is a great place
to wrap it up. Thank you verymuch for appearing on
ReligionWise. We reallyappreciate your perspective on
this.
Chris Borick (50:41):
It was such a pleasure. Chip thanks for having
me aboard, it's a great, greathonor.
Chip Gruen (50:48):
This has been ReligionWise a podcast produced
by the Institute for Religiousand Cultural Understanding of
Muhlenberg College. ReligionWiseis produced and directed by
Christine Flicker. For moreinformation about additional
programming, or to make aninquiry about a speaking
engagement, please visit ourwebsite at
religionandculture.com. Thereyou'll find our contact
(51:08):
information, links to otherprogramming and have the
opportunity to support the workof the Institute. Please
subscribe to ReligionWisewherever you get your podcasts.
We look forward to seeing younext time.
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