Amerikaner, die ihren christlichen Glauben aufgeben, neigen dazu, liberalere politische Ansichten zu vertreten als diejenigen, die völlig ohne Religion aufgewachsen sind. Dieser ideologische Linksruck scheint eng damit zusammenzuhängen, wie bedrohlich diese Personen konservative christliche Gruppen wahrnehmen.
Former Christians express more progressive political views than lifelong nonbelievers
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Former Christians express more progressive political views than lifelong nonbelievers
Americans who leave their Christian faith behind tend to hold more liberal political views than those who were raised entirely without religion. This leftward ideological shift appears closely linked to how threatening these individuals perceive conservative Christian groups to be. The study was published in The Journal of Race, Ethnicity, and Politics.
The demographic landscape of the United States is changing as the nonreligious population grows rapidly. Demographers project that individuals claiming no religious affiliation will become the largest demographic group in the country within the next two decades. This segment includes atheists, agnostics, and those who simply select a blank option when asked about their faith. Because this group is expanding quickly, studying its internal divisions helps explain broader political trends.
Within this nonreligious umbrella, there are two distinct subcategories. Sociologists and psychologists often refer to people who never identified with a faith as “nones.” Meanwhile, individuals who were raised in a religious household but later abandoned their faith are referred to as “dones.”
The statistical models revealed that former Christians were highly likely to support progressive policies compared to lifelong nonbelievers. This ex-Christian group showed elevated support for abortion access and an overhaul of the criminal justice system. They were also more likely to believe the Voting Rights Act remains necessary to protect minority voters today.
On immigration, former Christians expressed greater opposition to the restrictive asylum and deportation policies enacted during the Trump administration. They also indicated that same-sex marriage should remain an active priority rather than treating it as a settled or unimportant issue. Across these varied topics, abandoning a Christian identity strongly correlated with a left-wing political stance.
The data also revealed a rigid link between these liberal views and the perception of conservative Christians as a threat to society. Former Christians consistently reported elevated levels of threat from conservative religious groups compared to lifelong nonbelievers. As a respondent’s perceived threat increased, their tendency to express liberal political views climbed proportionally.
For those interested, here’s the link to the peer reviewed journal article:
https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-race-ethnicity-and-politics/article/leftward-march-from-church-ideology-among-exchristian-vs-lifelong-nonreligious-americans/17BA362D5A9AC58429B91BE0BB032607
This isn’t surprising. Most liberals have no idea how insane evangelicals are. If you’ve been exposed directly you know how bad they are and that you should take them more seriously than they are taken.
Yes, this certainly checks out in personal experience. Especially for queer folks.
Yep I think the clinical term for this is religious trauma.
In my personal experience as a former youth minister, my liberalism is rooted in my religion. I was taught, explicitly, that we are all neighbors, all brothers and sisters. That we are all worthy of God’s love.
That is how I walk in my life. And I simply look at how Republicans act and know that it is incongruous with Catholicism, as I was taught it, as I learned it, and as I taught it.
Conservative Christian (particularly evangelicals) in the United States is literally a nominal convenience to have a free pass to be a sociopath to others.
My idea of religion is, if god is so all knowing and powerful, he will look past me being a little hesitant on being a Christian and judge me based on if I was a good human or not.
If thats not the case, I guess I’ll burn in hell forever or whatever the alternative is.
Conservatives co-opted religion for political use.
Now that US Christian churches moved away from their foundational values to oppose and kind of government welfare, kids who grow up attending church become adults and realize how far their church strays from the their foundational documents and conclude that religion is mercenary and hypocritical.
Injecting politics with religion has made it really toxic and even more judgemental.
I wonder how many people turn away from Christianity because of the differences between the values lived by the community and those in the new testament. It could be that they leave the faith because of their progressive beliefs.
It’s not a perceived threat. It’s a real threat. I am not a former Christian in America and this is obvious to even me.
Edit: clarifying that I am American, just not a former Christian.
What are the numbers on voting age folks raised entirely without religion at this point?
Out of all the people I know, I’m the closest. I didn’t set foot in a mainstream Christian church until I was in college, and even then, it was for work. But I still don’t count because I did get brought to a Quaker meeting house now and then over a couple years when I was little.
I know plenty of people raised with a very casual connection to a church, but “maybe 10 times and it was Quaker” is closest I’ve seen to none outside of my friends’ children, who presumably don’t count for these purposes.
I know the article says “millions”, but I’m curious about what that cut off is.
Edit: It looks like it’s based on self reported data. And while this is anecdotal, the people I’ve met that claimed they grew up without religion actually went to mainstream Christian churches wayyyyy more often than I got dropped in on Quaker meetings, they just had family that didn’t commit to it in any particular way.
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I’m an atheist that grew up catholic, consider myself a liberal democrat. Even though I’m not religious, some of my values come from what I was taught as a child. Treat others the way you would want to be treated is a big one. I just dropped the „or you’ll burn in hell for eternity“ from the lesson.
It’s almost as if more liberal thinking people who think for themselves have more empathy than conservative Christians.
Yep. Watching friends and pastors fall over themselves praising Trump in 2015-2016 started my deconstruction process.
Are you looking for broad national objectives or personal experiences?
In terms of national politics and culture, Bob Jones University, one of the largest book manufacturers for homeschooling is outright [white](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5cef038d0ad1920001e8c443/1591574552191-9PUGHCRZYN7WPGVM1PQS/Christian+Curriculums+copy.png?format=1000w), [Christian](https://www.theguardian.com/education/2021/aug/12/right-wing-textbooks-teach-slavery-black-immigration) [nationalist](https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/s/A8gwCgxtFw). Abeka is another company. The push towards voucher programs and defunding of the public school system is to drive families to schools who use these books.
On a personal note, I grew up in the south and waited tables. I’m sure other people on here who waited tables in the south would agree that the post-church Sunday crowd was the worst. Terrible to wait staff, treating them like the help. They don’t go to church for moral guidance, they go for salvation after death.
That’s because those of us who grew up inside know exactly how crazy these people are. How bereft of the ability to challenge their own beliefs.
Nearly a fifth of Americans as a conservative estimate, mostly Evangelicals, literally believe that we need to ally and fund Israel because it’ll kickstart the apocalypse.
It’s called [dispensationalism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dispensationalism#:~:text=Dispensationalism%20has%20become%20popular%20within,churches%2C%20tend%20to%20reject%20dispensationalism). Some surveys find some of its beliefs to be held by nearly half the country. Nearly no one I’ve met who hasn’t been raised near or around those groups don’t believe this. And have never even heard of the Left Behind series.
The cultural divide in this country is insane.
It’s no surprise to me that people raised evangelical who leave the faith are more concerned about it than those who have no idea.
That’s me in a nutshell, youth deacon that realized that how terrible organized religion really is
I’d be surprised if this was limited to Christianity, I’d imagine most people leaving an ingrained religious ideology like that would have strong opposing views against it
I grew up in like a moderately religious home, atleast throughout my teen years. Church every week and youth groups, I always thought they were good people but I disagreed with alot of their teachings. Like I didn’t agree that non-christians and gay people just get an auto sentence to hell, they would go on and on about it. As I got older, my opinion on them lowered and lowered, and pretty much hit an all time low during Covid and then following Trumps election loss. It kind of dawned on me that people living with that much hatred in their hearts while preaching the teachings of God weren’t good people even if they didnt exercise any hatred towards me, they did towards millions of others.
I grew up very evangelical and very right-wing. I really can’t imagine ever budging much from the far left position that I landed in after losing my religion. It’s still upsetting thinking about all the ghoulish things I used to vehemently believe in and argue for.
Something that’s always kind of baffling to me is people who abandon christianity but then remain conservative. The grossest parts of both ideologies are so closely linked at this point that from my perspective it felt like it had to be all or nothing.
Calling center-right Dems, „the Left“ is just crazy.
The Actual Left wants peace and healthcare.
I guess it depends on your religious upbringing and how positive it was. I bailed on organized religion long time ago, but I also know it has a lot of positive attributes for many people.
Just keep it to yourself; I’m not up for conversion.
I haven’t turned away from my faith. But I have turned away from the majority of Modern Christianity, especially Conservatism. For reference, both my side of the family and my wife’s side are very Republican and Christian. But it’s become clear that modern Christians for the most part have never read the Bible and a lot of pastors, especially here in TX, are perfectly comfortable with cherry picking and misrepresenting their faith in the name of culture wars and bigotry. For instance, many, many references in the Bible talk about welcoming, protecting, and caring for foreigners, and today’s Christian Conservatives welcomed a campaign on Mass Deportations Now with open arms.
I think about this a lot when people on both sides point out in the US that conservatives (especially Christian fundamentalist ones) are having more kids than liberals. A common conclusion is that this will lead to the US becoming more conservative over the generations. I disagree because IME one of the easiest ways to make a die-hard liberal is to raise them super Christian. At some point, those kids are going to enter the real world, encounter new ideas, and encounter different people. I sort of think it will balance out.
Growing up in a conservative, but not very religious household made me think when I was young that conservative was the way to go, but I knew on some points I thought the liberals were correct.
Moving to the bible belt as an adult was the baptism I needed to show just how insane and dangerous Christian Nationalists are. I am embarrassed at any conservative thought I had in my youth.
That’s me. From dickhead, bootstrap conservative to very liberal.
I’m living, breathing proof of this.
Hardly surprising. This tracks with other social science evidence that cohorts who come to a position via evidence show stronger affiliation with the position than cohorts who passively accept the position as a norm.
Thanks for putting it into words for ME. That’s exactly what happened.
I was raised Christian in a conservative household… after getting out into real life I drifted more and more liberally as I got older.
I still hold Christian beliefs, and I do so privately without any sort of church or organization.
I feel like Christians and conservative groups cloaking themselves as Christian are the most dangerous groups on the planet today. At best they’ll drag us back decades… at worst they’ll drag us back centuries or end human civilization.
And some AIM for that.
Checks out for me…
I left the faith at 22.
I am very far left socially and moderate left economy
If you grew up in an evangelical family, you know how insane they are. I don’t know how you could leave that cult and not be more liberal than those who have no idea how the religious right works.
As an ex-Mormon, I can attest to that fact. At least in my case.
What does liberal/conservative even mean anymore? 20 years ago liberals wanted closed borders and high tariffs. Today conservatives push for tighter borders and protectionism.
Not exactly the most scientific stance here, but as someone who was raised Christian and left the faith, there wasn’t a leftward shift accompanying it. I was already left because the morals I was raised with told me to feed the hungry, help the homeless, be kind to foreigners and so on. The church and the conservatives in it constantly violate those morals.
I didn’t shift left because I lost faith, I lost faith because I was already left. The religious right being a violent threat to all life on the planet though, yeah that had a lot to do with it.
Growing up catholic made me liberal. Grew up in a severely conservative area, and it was being taught to love all people that made me liberal.
I had friends who were in more extreme Christian religions, and it was basically unrecognizable. A different religion using the same cast of characters.
I dont think it was out of a negative experience that I became liberal. On the contrary, I think it was all the positive in my catholic upbringing that made me liberal. Although I also believe those values can be taught without Christianity too, I’m just saying that was my personal path.
I’m a member of that group. I was raised rather fundamentalist and now I’m very far left socialist (and atheist). Although it’s ironic that my views are rather in line with the teachings of the Christ in the Bible.