Where Are We Going – Trends from 1994 to 2007, Religious and Social Issues

The Pew Research survey, Trends in Political Values and Core Attitudes: 1987-2007, states, “About eight-in-ten Americans say they have no doubt that God exists, that prayer is an important part of their lives, and that ‘we will all be called before God at the Judgment Day to answer for our sins.’ … But the intensity of agreement with these indicators of religiosity has shown a modest decline in recent years, after increasing through much of the 1990s. … The survey also finds that the number of Americans who say they are atheist or agnostic, or choose not to identify with a religious tradition has increased modestly over the past two decades. … There also is a growing partisan gap in religious belief.”

The survey also showed that, “surveys taken over the past 20 years show that the size of the secular group has remained constant over time within each age cohort. In other words, the number of seculars within each generational group is about the same in 2007 as it was 10 or 20 years before.” Note that the difference between Republicans and Democrats is not that different in spite of what we hear from the media.

Social conservatism is on the decline and is being accelerated by the generational change. There has been a steady decline, even among Republicans, for 6 different measures of attitudes on social values. In addition, the younger score lower on those same attitudes.

The survey provided these examples, “… in 1987, 73% of white evangelical Protestants agreed that school boards should have the right to fire homosexual teachers. Today, just 42% do so. And in 1987, 60% of white evangelicals believed that AIDS might be a punishment for immoral sexual behavior; today just 38% believe this.”