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New Study of Religious Affiliation of Members of 111th Congress

By Howard M. Friedman

a href="http://pewforum.org/docs/?DocID=379"Pew Forum /aon Friday released a study of the religious affiliation of members of the new 111th Congress. Looking at the House and Senate together, 54.7% are Protestant (most from the mainline denominations), 30.1% are Catholic, 8.4% are Jewish, 2.6% are Mormon and 1.3% are Orthodox. The new Congress also includes 2 Buddhists and 2 Muslims. While 16.1% of American adults say they are unaffiliated, no one in Congress specifically claimed a lack of religious affiliation, though 5 members did not specify a religious affiliation. Included on the Pew Forum's website is a a href="http://pewforum.org/newassets/images/reports/congress/appendix.pdf"list/a of each member and his or her religious affiliation, a a href="http://pewforum.org/docs/index.php?DocID=377"graphic/a summarizing the findings, and extensive additional data on affiliations in each house of Congress and of Congressional leaders. Reacting to the survey yesterday, a href="http://blog.au.org/2008/12/22/religion-and-congress-scholars-say-congress-is-becoming-more-pluralistic/"Americans United/a says that denominational affiliation does not tell much about members' positions on particular issues.

Full post as published by Religion Clause on December 23, 2008 (boomark / email).