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Poll: Most Churches Avoid Discussing Social Issues

  • Veronica Neffinger

    Veronica Neffinger wrote her first poem at age seven and went on to study English in college, focusing on 18th century literature. When she is not listening to baseball games, enjoying the…

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  • Updated Aug 12, 2016

A new Pew Research Center poll has revealed that most Christians do not hear about relevant social issues from the pulpits of their churches.

Firstthings.com reports that the poll surveyed over 4,000 churchgoers. All survey participants had attended at least one religious service within the past few months.

The poll asked respondents how often they heard about various social issues in a sermon. Only forty percent of respondents said that the pastor had spoken about religious liberty. Thirty-nine percent said that the pastor had spoken about homosexuality. And only 29 percent said they heard about abortion from the pulpit.

Because of how vocal many in the Christian community appear to be on social and political issues, these results were surprising to many.

The findings of the survey held true across denominations, including for White Evangelicals, Black Protestants, and Roman Catholics.

Possible reasons for why clergy are reluctant to discuss such sensitive social issues from the pulpit are that they are afraid of the controversy such a discussion may ignite, or they may be afraid of losing their tax-exempt status.
 

Publication date: August 12, 2016