The “Cultural Christians” Are Taking Over the Conservative Movement

In 2008 , a mere 3 percent of self-identified evangelicals reported never attending religious services.

By 2023 , that number had grown to 10 percent , with an additional 17 percent saying that they seldom attended.

Frida Ghitis : It's a startling idea when we consider the outsize role that evangelicals have played in America ’s postwar political life.

She says it points to a wider trend that we’re seeing in elite (though they would reject that term) influencers who have lurched dramatically to the political right in recent years , under the guise of “cultural Christianity .

Julian Zelizer : Some prominent cultural Christians appear to be motivated more by Western cultural chauvinism than their personal circumstances.

He says they reject liberal values, as they see them, and promotion of Western civilization—as they see it.

But there’s a quietly growing number of Americans who describe themselves as non-Christian evangelicals, Zelizer says.

The great American marketplace of faith is welcoming new customers, with their souls as an added extra.

Cultural Christians are joining spiritual Christians in feeling besieged by liberal culture around them.

Suffering and sin become less important than finding a sense of order in a changing world and ideas of a real and imagined past that underpin them.