New Congress reflects overall U.S. religious landscape

Posted by Kendall Harmon

The religious makeup of the incoming 111th Congress roughly matches the overall American religious landscape, with overrepresentation among Jews and Mormons, according to new analysis by the nonpartisan Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life.

Just over half (55 percent) of House and Senate members who will take office on Jan. 6 are Protestants, compared to 51 percent of the U.S. population. The second-largest group, Catholics, make up 30 percent of lawmakers, compared to 24 percent of all Americans.

Among Protestants, Baptists lead in the House and Senate, at 12 percent, followed by Methodists (11 percent), Presbyterians (8 percent), Episcopalians (7 percent) and Lutherans (4.5 percent).

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Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Religion & Culture • * Economics, Politics • Politics in General

4 Comments
Posted December 27, 2008 at 10:09 am [Printer Friendly] [Print w/ comments]



1. perpetuaofcarthage wrote:

Episcopalians are still doing better than Jews.

Jews make up 8.3 percent of the new Congress, compared to just 1.7 percent of the general population.

So Jews have 5 times their demographic share of congressional seats.
But Episcopalians make up 7 percent of the new Congress and are less than 1 percent of the population. 
So Episcopalians have 7 times their demographic share of congressional seats.

December 27, 9:31 pm | [comment link]
2. physician without health wrote:

It would be interesting, among Presbyterians and Lutherans, to see how many of them belong to the “main line” denominations (PCUSA and ELCA) vs other (PCA, LCMS, WELS) and if any of the Episcopalians are rather AMiA or other continuing Anglican church members.

December 28, 12:31 am | [comment link]
3. Iohannes wrote:

I believe Sen. DeMint of South Carolina is an elder in the PCA.

December 28, 12:58 am | [comment link]
4. TridentineVirginian wrote:

These statistics are silly. How many of those many “Catholic” politicians actually believe and submit to the faith? Very few, just consider the VP and Speaker of the House for examples. The Church is not well represented in Washington by such politicians.

December 28, 3:09 am | [comment link]
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