Getting to Know You: Ryan Burge
The political scientist on the future of faith in the United States, the "right" size for churches, and some book recommendations.
Every once and a while I’ll be interviewing interesting people at the intersection of faith, politics, and public life. These interviews will take place via email, edited for clarity and length, and then shared with you.
Next up in this series is Ryan Burge. Ryan is an associate professor of political science at Eastern Illinois University, and an expert on the intersection of religion and American politics. He is the author of several books, including The Nones, 20 Myths about Religion and Politics in America, and, most recently, The Great Dechurching. His Substack is essential for understanding the latest trends in American religion. Ryan is also a pastor in the American Baptist Church.
In our exchange Ryan talks about how he got interested in studying religion and politics, what the future might hold for Christianity (and other faith traditions) in the U.S. in the decades to come, and why members of Congress still overwhelmingly identify as people of faith. He also explains why many evangelical churches may soon be feeling the financial pinch, and why we may not be seeing an openly atheist president any time soon.
With that, here’s my conversation with Ryan Burge.
Daniel Bennett: How did you find yourself writing about the intersection of religion and politics? I imagine your experience in the church (and as a pastor) played some kind of role, right?
Ryan Burge: I think a lot of it was just trying to understand the way that I grew up. I was raised in a Southern Baptist Church in rural Illinois during the 1990s. Surrounded by the absolute peak of evangelical culture. The music, the festivals, the t-shirts, the books, and the politics. I think a lot of what I am doing is just a journey of self-discovery.
Being a pastor over the last twenty years has only made me more interested in understanding religion and politics in the United States. I'm lucky in that I’m just bi-vocational, so I have less to lose if my church decided to choose a different pastor. But I know that other pastors aren't so lucky. To help them try and understand the world around them and how they can navigate all those landmines is so important to me.
DB: You’ve written a few books now, including on the “nones” and various misconceptions people have about religion and politics. What are two of the most important things you’ve found in your research, in terms of their effect on the future of Christianity in the United States?
RB: The biggest point I stress about the nones is that the most of them are not atheist/agnostic. In fact, three out of five nones are nothing in particular. They have thrown off a religious label but haven’t really replaced it with anything else. There are tons of organizations that are advocating for the interests of atheists and agnostics. There is no organization for the nothing in particulars and I think that goes hand in hand with their feeling of being overlooked and left out of American society.
There’s a good chance that [the nones] will be a majority of the Democratic coalition in five to ten years.
I don’t think that people fully realize just how important the nones are in terms of politics now. About 45% of all Joe Biden voters in 2020 were atheist/agnostic/nothing in particular. There’s a good chance that they will be a majority of the Democratic coalition in 5-10 years. Yet, there are only a handful of non-religious members of Congress. Descriptive representation matters. It’s good when Congress looks like the electorate in terms of gender, race, education, but also religion. We seem to forget that last part.
DB: That’s a great point, about descriptive representation. Why is it that the nones remain so underrepresented in Congress? Is what we’re seeing simply a lag effect from current demographics, or is something else going on?
RB: I think that there’s still a tremendous amount of dislike in the general public about atheism, specifically. I wrote about that here. Civic religion certainly still exists in the United States and the whole “God and Country” narrative is etched incredibly deep into American bedrock. I do think it will continue to erode as time passes and older generations die off, but I’m not sure that we will see an openly atheist president in the White House in my lifetime.
DB: I’ve heard your thoughts on the dismal financial future for a lot of small to mid-sized evangelical churches in the decades to come. Will changes in religious composition mean more bi-vocational pastors like you, or simply fewer churches for the remaining faithful?
RB: That’s something that I've been thinking about a lot lately. From a purely organizational standpoint, a church of 300 people is ideal. Big enough that you can put on some good programming, you can have a nice assortment of all age groups, and there are adequate volunteers to staff ministries that help the community. It’s also small enough that you know most of the people in the pews every Sunday. There’s a strong sense of community and togetherness there.
But, I think that those churches are being hollowed out because, financially, they aren’t that efficient. You probably need two full-time pastors and a part-time administrator to keep everything working with 300 in the pews. That’s out of reach for most churches who are full of middle-class folks. Given the rise in health insurance premiums especially, payroll is going to be tough.
The other issue that they have to confront is that the mega church down the street has eight ministers, including one for just children and another for just youth. They also have a dedicated space for the kids with a gym. The 300-person church usually doesn’t have that. It’s almost easier to be really big (1000+) or really small (<75), because you don’t have to pay a full-time pastor. I think that the vast majority of pastors in the future are going to be bivocational, just because it’s the only way to support a smaller church.
DB: How will declining church attendance and increasing religious disaffiliation affect social capital in the years to come? Are there other institutions that seem poised to fill that void for the nones seeking a sense of community?
RB: Social atomization is having deleterious effects on all parts of American culture. When [Robert] Putnam wrote Bowling Alone, he noted with a great deal of data the collapse of most social organizations like the Elks, the American Legion, and bowling leagues. But religion was still holding pretty strong — attendance hadn’t taken a huge dive yet. Now, it’s gone the same way as the VFW and the Boy Scouts; no one wants to join.
People often forget that religion has lots of value to a functional society. It provides opportunities for people to interact and build relationships. Religious organizations have spent decades building up social capital between their own members, but also by partnering with other organizations in the community. It’s easy to not want a good school when you don't know anyone with kids in the local school system. It’s easy to not care about the park being clean when you don’t know anyone that uses the park. If you are a part of a religious organization, it’s almost impossible to not know someone who is affected by things happening in the community. That feeling of concern for things happening in your local area is driven by social connection, something that religious organizations are good at fostering.
People often forget that religion has lots of value to a functional society. It provides opportunities for people to interact and build relationships.
The data says that non-religious people have the same desire for volunteering as religious folks. The reason that they don’t volunteer as much is because they don't have the structures in place to actually help other people. I say all the time that I would love for atheists to create those kinds of organizations. They’ve tried. Sunday Assembly was an attempt to create a church service for non-religious people. It grew very quickly but declined nearly as fast because they had a hard time with raising the money for renting a space and paying musicians and speakers. I hope they learn from their mistakes and try to make a real attempt at a social space for non-religious people.
DB: What are two or three books you would recommend to people seeking a better understanding of the relationship between religion and politics in the United States?
RB: This task is fraught with danger at every turn! No matter what books I pick, I know that some of my friends will feel left out. There is just so much good work being produced in this area right now. So, I am going to try and suggest some classics in our field.
The Churching of America, 1776-2005 is easily the most comprehensive look at religion in the United States through the lens of statistical analysis. Roger Finke and Rodney Stark managed to collect data on the religiosity of Americans during the Colonial Period, which is just a herculean task. Stark is a polarizing figure in our field for good reason. But this book will make you think very carefully about religion and politics in the United States.
Inventing American Religion: Polls, Surveys, and the Tenuous Quest for a Nation's Faith. Bob Wuthnow is a giant in the study of American religion. He has written dozens of books about the topic, and this one is a bit different than the rest. In it, he questions everything that we know about American religion that we have gleaned through polling data. It’s always a good idea to remind ourselves that we could be wrong about everything. I disagree with Wuthnow on certain sections of this book, but it certainly has made me reconsider the roll of polling data in understanding American religion.
A Godly Hero: The Life of William Jennings Bryan. I must admit my own bias here: William Jennings Bryan was born in my hometown of Salem, Illinois. But he may be the most important figure in American religion and politics around 1900, which I think is one of the most interesting moments in American history. Bryan was a dyed in the wool Democrat who railed against the wealthy and preached a populist political message that led him to be revered by millions of lower-class Americans. But he was also a biblical literalist who may be best remembered for prosecuting John Scopes during the famous “Monkey Trial” in Dayton, Tennessee. Michael Kazin does a tremendous job of not lionizing Bryan, but not villainizing him either. It’s always helpful to remind myself that religion and politics hasn’t always been like this, and Bryan would fit into no political party in the modern landscape. What we are trying to study is just a snapshot of American religion and politics. It won’t exist in the same way in twenty years.