During Roman times, Jews and Christians condemned abortion and homosexual acts. Subsequently, Christianity strongly influenced Britain’s 1917 Balfour offer of a part of Palestine to create a Jewish state. Historically, Jews and Christians have shared many views, but are these two faiths similarly aligned today? The Pew Religious Landscape poll asked what US adults claiming to be followers of various faiths said about abortion and homosexuality.
Pew’s faith categories are broad and include the devout as well as the nominal. ‘Christian’ subsumes Mormons, and Jehovah’s Witnesses; ‘irreligious’ includes agnostics and atheists. Table 1 summarizes the abortion question’s results in percentages and, in parentheses, the (%) of US adults reporting each faith (irreligious is a faith). In 2007, 46% of Christians [includes the 33% of Evangelicals] v 84% of Jews said abortion should be legal, but by 2023-4 52% of Christians [including the 33% of Evangelicals] v 83% of Jews said it should be legal. Evangelicals and Jews maintained their positions, but other Christians moved toward the Jewish position.
The faiths Americans claimed have changed over the iterations of Pew’s poll: in 2007, 78% of US adults said they were Christian (51% were Protestant [26% Evangelical], 24% Catholic); 2% Jewish; and 16% irreligious. In 2023-4 those claiming no religion increased to 29% of adults, Protestants declined from 51% to 40%; Catholics and those attending Black churches declined a fifth; Evangelicals, over half of Protestants in 2024, shrank 12%.
Table 1: “Should abortion be legal?” After Pew Religious Landscape Studies
2007 yes 2014 yes 2023-4 yes 2023-24 no All US adults 51% 53% 64% 35% faith (% US population) Christian 46 (78%) 45 (71%) 52 (62%) 47 Protestant 45 (51%) 44 (46%) 49 (40%) 50 Evangelical 33 (26%) 33 (25%) 33 (23%) 65 Catholic 48 (24%) 48 (21%) 59 (19%) 39 Black churches 47 ( 7%) 52 ( 6%) 72 ( 5%) 27 Mormon 27 (2%) 27 (2%) 31 (2%) 69 Irreligious 70 (16%) 73 (23%) 85 (29%) 14 Jewish 84 ( 2%) 83 ( 2%) 83 ( 2%) 17 Muslim 48 ( 55 (1%) 57 (1%) 41 Hindu 69 ( 68 (1%) 82 (1%) 17
Two highest bolded; two lowest underlined. (%) of faith in the US adult population.
Considering only the central tendency of each faith’s ‘votes:’ for the first quarter of this century, Jews and the irreligious offered the most support for abortion while it was most opposed by Evangelicals and Mormons. Since 2007, all faiths have moved toward the Jewish/irreligious stance. Currently, as with most faiths, Muslims and Hindus are trending toward agreeing with the Jewish/irreligious rather than with the Evangelicals/Mormons.
Table 2 summarizes responses about homosexuality. Mirroring the abortion question, most Jews and Christians hold opposing views. In Pews’ 2023-24 survey, Evangelicals, Mormons, and Muslims were closest to Christianity’s historic opposition. Catholicism has been wracked by hundreds of priests having been caught molesting thousands of boys in dozens of countries. These priests’ lust has led to scores of legal suits with crippling fines, many state (e.g., PA, MD) or federal investigations (e.g., Ireland, France, Germany), and mountains of adverse publicity. Yet — out of all Christians – Catholics were most apt to say homosexuality should be accepted. Was this a result of Pope Francis’ semi-support of homosexuals?
Table 2: “Should homosexuality be accepted?”
2007 yes 2014 yes 2023-24 yes 2023-24 discouraged All US adults 50% 62% 67% 30% faith Christian 44 54 57 40 Protestant 45 44 49 50 Evangelical 26 36 36 61 Catholic 58 70 74 23 Black churches 37 51 61 36 Mormon 24 36 46 50 Irreligious 71 83 87 12 Jewish 79 81 82 17 Muslim 38 45 41 55 Hindu 48 71 78 18
Two highest bolded; two lowest underlined. After Pew Religious Landscape Studies
Catholicism’s problems involving homosexuals may have registered in other ways: The Catholic church lost 8.4 people via religious switching (including to ‘irreligious’) for every convert. Protestants’ ratio was 1.8 lost for each one gained. Overall, the irreligious gained six for each one they lost (e.g., about six times as many who said they were raised in a religion and no longer believed in it than there were who said they were raised with no religion but now identified with one). In FRI’s 1983-4 national sexuality survey, switches between those raised with ‘no religion’ to some religion v vice versa were about equal.
Everyone lives by faith: The world is so large, the possibilities so vast, and human understanding so small, that everyone must choose some way to live without knowing what will eventuate (e.g., are we immortal or simply smarter animals)? Most people believe in a creator — there are too many complexities that seem designed for them to believe nature is the product of chance. Others find nature so chaotic with so many apparent cruelties that determining which religion the designer fits into best is difficult. At times people pray (or go to the doctor) and recover, sometimes not. Sometimes people get away with what most agree is abhorrent behavior, other times they pay. Individuals, society, and the world are affected by dozens of known phenomena and exponentially more that are unknown. On almost every major issue — from the existence of an afterlife to the best economic or political system – choices must be made. There is no way to prove what happens to us after death; whether a particular theory of economics (e.g., capitalism, socialism); the interpretation of the scriptures of the faith people follow; or a particular political system (e.g., democracy, political representatives) is better. No one can prove which policies will work to sustain society or humanity (we hope careful attention to outcomes when a variant of the policy or interpretation was applied offers clues, but we can only attend to a finite number of them while a swarm of other phenomena is always in play – many unknown or not considered).
However, since Christendom has been the most economically and politically successful, and Christianity’s social policies have undergirded a substantial portion of its activities, it seems reasonable to assume ‘Christianity worked, in substantial part, to help sustain Western Civilization,’ and the proportion of those disagreeing with the historic Judeo-Christian holdings about abortion and homosexuality (the average of responses in Tables 1 and 2) are summed in Table 3. Almost all faiths are moving toward the Jewish/irreligious – including most of those Pew categorized as Christian!
We currently inhabit a nation and a civilization that is producing too few children (is it related to abandoning Christianity’s stance on abortion and homosexuality?). No matter what other problems exist, soon the demographic decline could prove existential. Can a society be considered successful that is not bearing enough children for a future? Supporters of abortion and homosexuality as instances of necessary freedoms would seem to be adding to the demographic decline. Yet Israel, a tribal state of about 9 million, has a healthy demographic of 2.9 children per woman. The government essentially pays for abortion on demand, homosexuals have the support (if not the official statuses) of normals [e.g., partnered gays can adopt, get IVF, inherit, foster children, etc.], and trans operations at public expense are a right. Pakistan, another tribal state but much larger at 252 million, officially criminalizes almost all abortions and homosexual relations. But ~40% of its men engage in homosexuality and their widespread belief that ‘boys are for pleasure, women are for children’ has an enormous impact on society (e.g., wealthy men often reserve part of their residence to house a boy; tens of thousands of boys are ‘spoiled’ and consigned to an inferior subculture). Yet Pakistan has a fertility rate of 3.3. Does tribalism mitigate the negative effects of abortion and homosexuality on the birthrate?
Table 3: % of each category disagreeing with historic Christian abortion and homosexuality positions
2007 2014 2023-4 All US adults 51 58 66 Christian 45 50 55 Protestant 45 44 49 Evangelical 30 35 35 Catholic 53 59 67 Black churches 42 52 67 Mormon 26 32 39 Jewish 82 82 83 Irreligious 71 78 86 Muslim 42 50 49 Hindu 59 70 80
Two highest bolded; two lowest underlined.
Jews and Christians used to share the same beliefs about abortion and homosexuality. But over time, they have diverged. Pew noted that religion “is not central to the lives of most U.S. Jews. Even religious Jews [instead of cultural Jews] are much less likely than Christians to consider religion to be very important in their lives (28% vs. 57%). … Twice as many Jewish Americans say they derive a great deal of meaning and fulfillment from spending time with pets as say the same about their religion.”
Pew also said that the highly religious “are far more likely than the least religious to say that abortion should be illegal, that homosexuality should be discouraged, and that children are better off if their mother doesn’t work and stays home to raise them instead.”
Jewish opinions are widely and frequently disseminated. Jews occupy significant proportions of institutions inculcating values. They constitute about a third of the media, about a quarter of college professors and mental health practitioners, and 8% of those living in Washington DC.
Protestantism opened the possibility that the interpretation that the Church was now “Israel,” was wrong. Puritan theologians often held that Israel would be restored and converted. In 1818, US President John Adams wrote, “I really wish the Jews again in Judea an independent nation” [after which he believed they would be converted to Unitarian Christianity]. In 1864, Charles Spurgeon, an influential Baptist minister in London wrote: “We look forward, then, for these two things. I am not going to theorize upon which of them will come first — whether they shall be restored first, and converted afterwards — or converted first and then restored. They are to be restored and they are to be converted, too.” Currently, more than half of US Evangelical churches hold a theory of the end times called Christian Zionism which holds that Jews must establish a state before Jesus returns.
Pew’s study has Jews leading the parade to legitimize abortion and homosexuality, while Evangelicals uphold the ancient Christian opposition to both. Another instance of political allies not agreeing on everything.
