Since 2007, the share of Christians in the general population has dropped from 78% to its present level of 63%. Nearly three-in-ten U.S. adults now say they are religiously unaffiliated, describing themselves as atheist, agnostic or “nothing in particular,” up from 16% who did not identify with a religion 16 years ago. But Christians make up 88% of the voting members of the new 118th Congress being sworn in on Jan. 3 – only a few percentage points lower than the Christian share of Congress in the late 1970s. In the 96th Congress, which was in session in 1979-1980, 91% of members of Congress identified as Christian.
Just like in recent sessions, only one member of the new Congress – Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, independent of Arizona – identifies as religiously unaffiliated. Another (Democratic Rep. Jared Huffman of California) describes himself as humanist, and 20 are categorized as having unknown religious affiliations. Most of these members declined to state a religious affiliation when they were asked by CQ Roll Call, which serves as the primary data source for this analysis.
That said, the 469 Christians (out of 534 total members) at the start of the 2023-2024 session comprise – by a smidgen – the lowest number since Pew Research Center began analyzing the religious affiliation of the House and Senate for the 2009-2010 session.1 During the eight most recent sessions, the number of Christians in Congress was above 470, and it exceeded 500 as of 1970.
(via TaxProfBlog)
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