Business analysis shows the religious right outrage industry is failing fast

Market Share

Here the news takes a turn for the worse for evangelicals. Essentially, every serious demographic study of evangelicals in America shows that their market share is in decline.

The most recent data available shows that this decline has continued, and that now only 13% of Americans consider themselves white evangelicals.

These losses get even steeper when you take demographic age into account. Most of these losses are simply young people dropping out of religion altogether, and becoming part of the “nones”.

While some evangelical leaders such as Russel Moore have suggested that they can reverse the trend with Hispanic converts, the data below shows that even if you assume all Hispanic Protestants are evangelical, their market share would still be in decline.

Given the full-throated support that evangelical churches have given President Trump even as he proposes military run internment camps for undocumented Latino children, calls them rapists and murderers and implies they’re “animals”, it is hard to envision Latinos finding a comfortable home in many white evangelical churches.

This might be survivable if white evangelicals had a bunch of young people coming up through the ranks, but they don’t. The data shows that they are, on average, one of the oldest denominations out there, despite encouraging high fecundity rates through things like the “Quiverfull” movement.

At the same time, one-third of their kids are leaving the faith, and of those, 40% drop out of religion altogether.

They aren’t converting people at a sufficient rate to stem their losses, either. For every person who has left the unaffiliated and now identifies with a religious group (and evangelicals are the most common winner) more than four people have joined the ranks of the religious “nones.”

Thus, when looking at market share, evangelicals are in free fall and there is little to suggest that it will turn around quickly.

Brand Identity

First the good news. Just like when Americans hear the words “soda” and “photocopy” they think of Coca-Cola and Xerox, when they hear the word “Christianity” they think of evangelicals. They are in effect, synonymous.

This would normally be a good thing, but it’s not. Now the bad news.

We know this, because when the Barna group (run by born again evangelical George Barna) did focus group work asking Americans between the ages of 18 and 29 what words best describe Christianity, the most common answer was “antihomosexual”.

This was used by 91 percent of non-Christians to describe Christianity. The same was true for 80 percent of Christians in this age group. The next three most commonly mentioned were “judgmental,” “hypocritical,” and “too involved in politics.”

Yes, it could be argued that maybe these people in the focus groups weren’t specifically thinking about evangelicals, but it would stretch the bounds of credulity to do so.

No religious group has been more actively involved in politics, bet more of its future on being anti-gay, or been more visibly hypocritical in its morals (being gay is unforgivable, but most voted for a man who sexually assaulted teen girls) than evangelicals.

(Note: Roy Moore narrowly lost, and in great part due to Black women turning out in record numbers, not because evangelicals voted for the Democrat).

Brand Image

The best that can be said for evangelicals in the US is that they are not the most disliked religious group in the country.

Yet.

Based on current trends, however, they will be less popular than Muslims and atheists by 2019 or 2020.

This forecast isn’t farfetched; 2017 polling data showed that Canadians would be more likely to vote for a transgender person or an atheist than an evangelical. Additionally, when looking at the Pew data by age group, evangelicals are already on a statistical par (i.e. within the survey margin of error) with atheists and Muslims.

In addition to being seen as “antihomosexual,” “judgmental,” “hypocritical,” and “too involved in politics,” evangelicals are known for taking unpopular religious stances on many issues, including gun control (Jesus wants you to have a gun), climate change, and birth control.

Most proposals to charge women who have abortions with murder have come from evangelicals. They are also seen as particularly hostile to science – and social sciences in particular. 58% of Republicans see colleges and universities as having a negative impact on the country.

These stances have a generational gap, wherein young people are much more likely to support gun control, climate change theory, and government funding for birth control coverage.

Market Competition

As demonstrated above, the primary competition in the market for being a church-going evangelical are other churches, or simply not going to church. There isn’t nearly the life penalty for leaving your church that there used to be, as the US religious landscape has become both more heterogenous and secular.

Finding a community of some sort, even if a secular one, offers an alternative to many. Additionally, other communities can have less expectation of putting money into them, and certainly less than 10% of gross income.

When church is frequently seen by Millennials as boring, irrelevant, shallow, antagonistic to science, simplistic, out of touch with reality, exclusive, and unable to deal with doubt or questions of the faith, is it any wonder that they seek out other activities that better suit them – even if that’s sitting on the couch and watching Netflix on Sunday mornings?

Product

The evangelical product is essentially a safe space to hold views that run contrary to the rest of society. They are the religious outlier when it comes to perceptions of discrimination on the basis of race, religion, gender, and sexual orientation.

They are the only religious group where a majority want to see a religious right to discriminate become a part of US constitutional law. They promise to never change, never yield on these issues.

The “prosperity gospel” idea that God rewards the virtuous with wealth and health, and the poor are being punished for their sins has a home here. It allows those with wealth and status to feel good about being there, and feeling antipathy towards the poor and the sick.

It should come as no surprise then that Trump supporters were better off than other Americans, and that the narrative of the “hurting blue collar worker” was a myth. Southern Baptists were less likely than the public at large to live on less than $30,000 per year, and most live in lower cost of living areas.

In short, they provide a religious experience / support group / social club for people higher up on the socio-economic ladder with extremely conservative views that are very unpopular everywhere else.

However, there are two key group of people who are required to buy the evangelical product: Republican legislators and judicial nominees.

Just like people had to buy Internet Explorer 6 if they wanted to use the internet on a Windows machine, most republicans must buy into the evangelical positions on basically everything to access the reins of power.

Try being a pro-LGBT, pro-choice, pro-gun control, or pro-climate change Republican. Any one of those positions would be lethal to a campaign, but to evangelicals they are all non-negotiable tenets of faith.

Marketing Strategy

The current marketing strategy of evangelical churches is tied up in a “Make America Great Again” mindset. They are unhappy with the direction things have gone, and yearn for an age before feminism, gays, transgender people, birth control, the New Deal, abortion, and a host of things they see as particularly modern failures.

The beliefs and positions of evangelical churches will appeal to an increasingly niche market. Few people of color will be interested in churches that fail to recognize discrimination in our country, much less encourages practices like police shootings of unarmed civilians.

Similarly, how will Latinos feel comfortable among a demographic that overwhelmingly supports mass deportations, abuses by ICE, and military run internment camps for minors?

How will millennials who are struggling financially feel at home in a place where poverty is seen as a sign of a moral failing? Evangelical churches effectively exclude gay people from full inclusion in the church, completely exclude transgender people, and anyone who would use a transgender person’s preferred name and pronoun.

The Southern Baptist Convention is being asked to vote this summer on denouncing “social justice” as “evil”. Black Lives Matter, LGBT rights, feminism, and efforts to stop the erosion of the middle class all would fall under this umbrella.

At the same time, leading evangelical pundits loudly proclaim that “real” Christians shouldn’t, or can’t, be Democrats and vice versa.

There is also a hostility towards people who have higher educational backgrounds. Antagonism toward social and environmental sciences are a “must” in order to fit in with American evangelicals.

It is hard to see how targeting well-off, white, high-school educated, fiscally and socially conservative men will lead to growth in membership in the long run, when each and every one of those demographics is shrinking among Millennials and Generation Z.