Religion: Faith & Followers

Amateur students of U.S. manners have long made broad assumptions about the kinds of followers various faiths attract. Sample assumptions: Protestantism appeals mainly to the middle class, Episcopalians are the most conservative of religious groups, Jews the best educated. Just how correct are these generalizations? The Federal Council of Churches got together with Princeton University psychologists to find out. The results of their poll samplings, published as the Council’s current study in its series on Christianity and the Economic Order, contain a few surprises.

Wealth. The membership of U.S. Protestant churches has about the same percentage of rich & poor as the country as a whole. But within the individual denominations there are wide variations. The Roman Catholic and Baptist churches are strikingly alike, with about 67% of their memberships in the “lower class” and only about 8% in the upper financial brackets. Christian Scientists, Episcopalians and Congregationalists lead all other denominations in percentage of members with high incomes.

Education. Proportionately more Congregationalists (71.1%) have gone through high school than members of any other denomination. Runners-up are the Christian Scientists (66.7%), Episcopalians (64.7%) and the Jews (63.1%). Lowest: the Baptists (35.4%). Both Lutherans and Roman Catholics are about 5% below the national average (48.1%).

Politics. Protestants were more Republican than the U.S. in 1944. Strongest for F.D.R. were the Jews (74.5%) and the Roman Catholics (53.8%).

Pollsters asked Catholics, Protestants and Jews whether they believed that the Government should guarantee everyone a decent job, or merely see that there are “good opportunities for each person to get ahead on his own.” A majority of Catholics (57.7%) and Jews (55.8%) were for Government-guaranteed jobs. But most of the Protestants were for keeping the individual on his own—Christian Scientists by a whopping 76.9%, Congregationalists 71.6%, Presbyterians 65.3%, Episcopalians 64.9%.