Lots of them, in fact, are leaving precisely because they cannot reconcile one of the foundational principles of the Christian gospel, the "second greatest commandment" to love others as one loves themselves, with the behavior of people in the church, particularly those actively engaged in politics.
A Significant Exodus
The twenty-first century has seen a dramatic drop in the percentage and number of Americans who claim affiliation with a church. The decline experienced by mainline Protestants in the latter part of the 20th century was blamed on "creeping liberalism" by Evangelicals. But the decline among conservative Evangelicals in this century has been much more significant, and rapid. And it's based on a combination of reasons with the failure to follow gospel principles, in spite of claims by conservative Christians that they believe the Bible to be "inerrant and infallible." "Love your neighbor as you love yourself," and "love your enemies" doesn't match with the pseudo-Christian, right-wing political philosophy that has intruded deeply into the churches and denominations of conservative Christianity.
People notice when behavior doesn't align with principle.
"You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the law and the prophets." Jesus Christ, recorded in Matthew's gospel, chapter 22, verses 37b through 40, ESV.
In Flannery's research, he discovered that the inconsistency between what Jesus defined as "loving your neighbor" and how most churches treat people who are different, including LGBTQ persons, immigrants, women and women's rights activists, and civil rights advocates (those criticized by the conservative religious right as "liberal, woke") as the primary reasons why people are leaving churches and leaving the Christian faith altogether. The term "politics" shows up in his research as one of those reasons, specifically the use of the Confederate flag as a racist symbol, and all of the baggage, including the racism and anti-Semitism, immoral worldliness and the manipulation of Christian faith and the scripture by Trumpism as a tool to get people to conform to ideals that have nothing to do with the gospel.
I find it specifically aggravating to see Christians insist that marrying their faith experience to Trumpism, based on the abortion issue alone, while ignoring the fact that Trump is not a Christian at all, but an adulterous, womanizing, sexist, racist, greedy opportunist who denies the conservative definition of "salvation by grace through faith in Christ" because he claims he has no need for repentance and has done nothing for which he must ask forgiveness. That's a faith of convenience and cultural acquiescence, not one defined by Biblical principle based on the gospel of Jesus Christ. No wonder people are leaving that, there's no substance there at all. I left one of those churches myself. Finding one that still sticks to the Christian gospel isn't easy these days, and I understand why people just give up trying.
"Christianity is a religion that boasts about its love," says Flannery, "but people are not seeing it and they're walking out the door."
The decline has been quite significant, from 90% of the US population in the 70's who claimed Christian affiliation, to just 64% in 2020. That's a lost of almost 80 million people, not counting the fact that two-thirds of the 64% who identify as Christians rarely attend the church to which they claim to belong. But among Evangelicals, the most serious losses have been in the last decade. And that's a direct result of the intrusion of extremist right wing politics, blending with the doctrine and theology preached and taught by the churches.
Flannery's research shows that departures from Evangelical churches are almost all related, one way or another, to inconsistency between the practice of a Biblical, orthodox Christian faith, and what has intruded into the church in the form of the alliance between more extreme branches of right wing politics whose ideologies are subverting the Christian gospel, manipulating it into something that can be used to get votes.
For certain people have crept in unnoticed who long ago were designated for this condemnation, ungodly people who pervert the grace of our God into sensuality and deny our only master and Lord, Jesus Christ.--Jude 4
Those Who Fail to Learn From History...
The Christian church was never intended to use the power of the state to advance its mission and purpose, nor does political influence ever benefit the church when it does. James Madison observed the hundreds of years of bloodshed, caused by religious violence, as European monarchs clashed with each other and with the papacy over the extend of control and influence. His determination to keep that bloodshed and violence from happening in America resulted in the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment, which created a free church in a free state.
The literal approach to interpreting the Bible leads conservative Evangelicals and fundamentalist Christians to focus on historical events recorded in the Old Testament as foundational to their doctrine and practice and they miss the point of the Christian gospel. Jesus provides an interpretation of the "law and the prophets" and lays the cornerstone of the foundation of the Christian church on the two greatest commandments, loving God and loving others like self. John, who had a reputation for forceful expression, goes so far as to call those who "hate their brother" liars when they claim to love God.
And while church leaders look at research like that found in Flannery's report, and blame it on the increasing influence of the "liberal, woke" world, I find this encouraging. Most of those who are leaving churches for all of the reasons the survey found aren't leaving the Christian faith, they're just getting out of places where politics has been allowed to creep in, or in some cases, welcomed with open arms, and they're going elsewhere to worship. It also shows that the grip of extremist right wing politics on conservative, right wing American Christianity is not as strong as the media portrays. The bond between individual Christians and the churches where they worship is strong, so if people are willing to leave, because of the reasons they've cited, in the numbers by which they are leaving, they must feel pretty strongly about it. They must be liberal and woke.
I don't expect the influence of politics among conservative Evangelicals to wane much. Too many leaders within the churches have counted on it to build their own personal empires, and are now dependent on it. This is not something that is easy to undo, even as membership continues to decline. But the impact will change. White, conservative, Evangelicals and those who are on the political right represent a shrinking constituency, an 8% drop in total participation since 2016, and a similar drop among self-identified white, conservative Evangelicals in support for Trumpism.
My Christian beliefs and convictions, along with my personal practice of the faith, haven't changed at all. However, I no longer identify as "Evangelical," and I make it pretty clear that the way I vote and my political convictions do not define my Christian doctrine and theology as "liberal and woke," or any other judgmental terminology the far right likes to use in its self-righteous efforts to feel good. "Anyone who does not love does not know God," says the Apostle John. "As he is, so are we in this world."
I don't see this exodus ending any time soon.
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