But there are pockets of support for increased church-state integration, more Christianity in public life

The First Amendment to the United States Constitution states that the country shall have no official religion. At the same time, Christians continue to make up a large majority of U.S. adults – despite some rapid decline in recent years – and historians, politicians and religious leaders continue to debate the role of religion in the founders’ vision and of Christianity in the nation’s identity.

Some Americans clearly long for a more avowedly religious and explicitly Christian country, according to a March 2021 Pew Research Center survey. For instance, three-in-ten say public school teachers should be allowed to lead students in Christian prayers, a practice that the Supreme Court has ruled unconstitutional. Roughly one-in-five say that the federal government should stop enforcing the separation of church and state (19%) and that the U.S. Constitution was inspired by God (18%). And % go as far as to say the federal government should declare the U.S. a Christian nation.

On the other hand, however, the clear majority of Americans do not accept these views. For example, two-thirds of U.S. adults (67%) say the Constitution was written by humans and reflects their vision, not necessarily God’s vision. And a similar share (69%) says the government should never declare any official religion. (Respondents were offered the opportunity to reply “neither/no opinion” in response to each question, and substantial shares chose this option or declined to answer in response to all of these questions, suggesting some ambivalence among a segment of the population.)

Perhaps not surprisingly, the survey finds that Christians are much more likely than Jewish or religiously unaffiliated Americans to express support for the integration of church and state, with White evangelical Protestants foremost among Christian subgroups in this area. In addition, Christians who are highly religious are especially likely to say, for example, that the Constitution was inspired by God. But even among White evangelical Protestants and highly religious Christians, fewer than half say the U.S. should abandon its adherence to the separation of church and state (34% and 31%, respectively) or declare the country a Christian nation (35% and 29%).

Politics also is a major factor. Republicans and those who lean toward the Republican Party are far more likely than Democrats and Democratic leaners to want to secure an official place for Christianity in the national identity. However, for the most part, Republicans do not directly voice a preference for the integration of church and state. For instance, 58% of Republicans and Republican leaners say the federal government should never declare any religion as the official religion of the United States, while a quarter of Republicans (26%) say that the government should declare the U.S. a Christian nation. By comparison, among Democrats and those who lean toward the Democratic Party, 80% say the government should never declare any official religion, and just 6% want the government to declare the U.S. a Christian nation.

While the above-average level of support for an overtly Christian government among Republicans and White evangelical Protestants may come as no surprise to close observers of American politics, some of the other patterns in the survey are perhaps more unexpected. For example, many Black and Hispanic Americans – groups that are heavily Democratic – are highly religious Christians, and on several of the questions in the survey, they are just as likely as White Americans, if not more likely, to say they see a special link between Christianity and America.

Nearly four-in-ten Black Americans (38%) say public school teachers should be allowed to lead students in Christian prayers, somewhat higher than the 31% of White Americans who say this. And about one-in-five U.S. Hispanics (22%) say the federal government should stop enforcing the separation of church and state, roughly on par with the 19% of White Americans who say this.

These are among the key findings of a Pew Research Center survey conducted March 1-7, 2021, among ,055 U.S. adults on the Center’s online, nationally representative American Trends Panel (ATP). These questions about the relationship between church and state can be combined into a scale that sorts respondents into one of four categories – “Church-state integrationists” (who say they would favor the intermingling of religion with government and public life); “church-state separationists” (who favor a wall of separation between religion and state); those who express “mixed” views about these matters; and those who largely express no opinion. When the questions are scaled together this way, they show there is far more support for church-state separation than for church-state integration in the U.S. public at large.

How categories on church-state separation scale were defined
First, all respondents who said “neither/no opinion” or refused to answer in response to four or more of the six items are placed in the “no opinion” category.

Next, all remaining respondents are sorted into one of three categories – “church-state integrationists,” “church-state separationists,” and “mixed.” Those who offered four or more church-state integrationist answers (e.g., “Cities and towns in the U.S. should be allowed to place religious symbols on public property” or “The federal government should stop enforcing separation of church and state&rdquo are placed in the “church-state integrationists” category. Those who offered three church-state integrationist answers also are placed in this category if they offered only one or zero church-state separationist answers.

Those who offered four or more church-state separationist answers (e.g., “Cities and towns in the U.S. should keep religious symbols off public property” or “The federal government should enforce separation of church and state&rdquo are placed in the “church-state separationist” category. Those who offered three church-state separationist answers also are placed in this category if they offered only one or zero church-state integrationist answers.

Respondents who offered three of one kind of answer and at least two of the other kind are placed in the “mixed” category, as are those who offered two of one kind of answer and two or one of the other kind of answer.

Finally, because it is so large, the “church-state separationist” category is sometimes divided into two groups in this report. “Strong” church-state separationists are those who give five or six church-state separationist responses and zero church-state integrationist responses. All other respondents in the larger “church-state separationist” category are classified as “moderate” separationists.

See Methodology for additional details.

Most Americans express support for separation of church and stateOverall, more than half of U.S. adults (55%) express clear support for the principle of separation of church and state when measured this way. This includes 28% who express a strong church-state separationist perspective (they prefer the church-state separationist view in five or six of the scale’s questions and the church-state integrationist position in none) and an additional 27% who express more moderate support for the church-state separationist perspective. By contrast, roughly one-in-seven U.S. adults express support for a “church-state integrationist” perspective as measured by the survey.

Slightly fewer than one-in-five U.S. adults (18%) have mixed views – expressing support for church-state separation on some of the survey’s questions and support for increased church-state integration on about as many. And one-in-eight offer no opinion on a majority of these questions.

The survey shows, furthermore, that even in the groups that tend to express the most support for the intermingling of church and state, the “church-state integrationist” perspective is the exception, not the norm. Among White evangelical Protestants, for example, fewer than half (36%) express consistent support for a church-state integrationist perspective, although this is larger than the share of White evangelicals who favor the separation of church and state (26%). An additional 28% have mixed views.

Hispanic Protestants (26%) are among the other groups whose sympathy for church-state integration is higher than average. By contrast, a desire for church-state integration is almost nonexistent among U.S. Jews (1%) and the religiously unaffiliated (2%), who consist of those describing their religious identity as atheist, agnostic or “nothing in particular.” Among self-identified atheists and agnostics, fully 96% fall into the church-state separationist category.

Most Democrats and those who lean toward the Democratic Party (72%) prefer church-state separation, compared with 38% of Republicans – although even Republicans are more likely to express this view than to consistently favor the integration of church and state (25%).