Lead story

My beautiful ‘practicing’ Christians: As churchgoers’ numbers shrink, their social views grow more similar

Editor's note:

In July 2024, Donald Trump addressed a crowd of supporters, calling them “my beautiful Christians.” His remarks made headlines – mostly because he assured the group that if they voted him back into office, “it’ll be fixed, it’ll be fine, you won’t have to vote anymore.”

Michael Emerson, a scholar of religion and public policy at Rice University, was struck by Trump’s use of the phrase “my beautiful Christians.” “I had an immediate gut reaction,” he writes. “Such a blanket term is out of place,” considering how diverse Christianity is in the United States.

Overall, though, Emerson argues, those words hint at something true. U.S. churchgoers’ views are growing more similar on some topics, such as race-related issues and immigration – and the consequences are clear at the ballot box.

In fact, in his research, Emerson finds it more useful to categorize Christians based on whether they’re "practicing" – that is, Christians who go to services at least monthly and say faith is very important in their lives – than by traditional labels such as denomination.

Christianity in the U.S. remains vastly diverse. However, as regular churchgoers’ numbers shrink, so does some of that diversity. “And it is shrinking in a decided direction,” Emerson writes, “toward conservative Protestantism.”

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Commentary and Analysis

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Photos of the Week: Orthodox Christmas, Jimmy Carter funeral and more

A man walks in front of the burning Altadena Community Church, Jan. 8, 2025, in the downtown Altadena section of Pasadena, Calif. (AP Photo/Chris Pizzello)

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