A growing share of Americans believe religion is becoming more influential in public life, but most still oppose churches endorsing political candidates or taking sides in day-to-day political debates, according to a new survey by the Pew Research Center.
The survey, conducted April 6–12 among 3,592 U.S. adults, found that 37% now say religion is gaining influence in American life — the highest proportion recorded in Pew surveys going back to 2002. That figure has climbed 19 percentage points in just two years.
Despite the uptick in perceived influence, 79% of respondents said churches and other houses of worship should not endorse candidates during elections. Two-thirds said religious institutions should stay out of day-to-day social and political matters. Those figures have changed little in recent years.
Overall, 55% of respondents expressed what Pew described as a positive view of religion's role in American life — meaning they either welcomed religion's growing influence or regretted its decline. Twenty-two percent held a negative view.
Sharp partisan divide
The survey revealed deep disagreement between Republicans and Democrats on the value of religion's role in public life. Three-quarters of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents expressed a positive view of religion's influence, compared with 38% of Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents. Democrats were nearly as likely to hold a negative view of religion's role (37%) as a positive one.
Republicans were also considerably more likely to support government engagement with Christianity. Among Republicans and Republican-leaning independents, 27% said the federal government should declare Christianity the nation's official religion — up 6 percentage points from roughly two years ago. By contrast, only 8% of Democrats said the same.
Among all U.S. adults, 17% now favor declaring Christianity the official state religion, up from 13% in 2024. Forty-three percent said the government should not make Christianity official but should promote Christian moral values, while 38% said the government should do neither.
Bible, church-state separation
The Pew survey found no meaningful change in the share of Americans who want the Bible to guide U.S. law. About half (51%) said the Bible should have at least some influence on legislation, consistent with results going back to 2020. Among White evangelical Protestants, 85% held that view, and 62% said the Bible should take precedence over the will of the people when the two conflict.
The share of Americans who want the government to stop enforcing the separation of church and state has actually declined, falling from 19% in 2021 to 13% in 2026. The share supporting enforcement has remained essentially flat at 54%.
On one question that sometimes appears in discussions of Christian nationalism, just 5% of respondents said they believe God favors the United States over all other countries — unchanged since 2021, and a view rejected by majorities in both parties.
Christian nationalism more familiar, more polarizing
Familiarity with the term "Christian nationalism" has grown considerably. According to the Pew report, 59% of U.S. adults said they have heard or read at least a little about it, up 14 percentage points from two years ago. As awareness has spread, so have both favorable and unfavorable opinions.
Ten percent of respondents said they view Christian nationalism favorably, up from 5% in 2022. Unfavorable views rose more sharply, from 24% in 2022 to 31% in 2026. Forty percent said they have never heard of the term, and a further 19% said they lacked a clear opinion.
White evangelical Protestants were the most likely religious group to view Christian nationalism favorably (20%) and to support positions associated with it, such as declaring Christianity the national religion or giving the Bible precedence over popular will. Majorities of Catholics, White nonevangelical Protestants and Black Protestants said they hold a positive view of religion's role in society, though those groups were far less likely than White evangelicals to support formal ties between government and Christianity.
Competing frustrations
The survey also asked about perceived overreach from opposite directions. Fifty-two percent of respondents said conservative Christians have gone too far in pushing religious values into government and public schools. Forty-eight percent said secular liberals have gone too far in working to exclude religious values from those spaces. Roughly one in five (18%) agreed with both statements simultaneously.
Despite the disagreements on policy, there was one area of broad consensus across party lines: majorities of both Republicans and Democrats said churches and houses of worship should not endorse political candidates.
The survey was conducted as part of Pew Research Center's long-running series on religion, politics and society.
