The First Amendment to the US Constitution states that the country shall have no official religion, and Americans have debated where to draw the line between religion and government since the country’s inception. The debate has recently reignited with three new Supreme Court rulings on religious symbols on public property, prayer in public schools and government subsidies to religious schools.
Pew Research Center polls in recent years have shown that far more Americans support separation of church and state than oppose it, even though there are sometimes differences of opinion on these issues based on political identity and religious affiliation.
Here are 10 facts about some of the links between religion and government in the US — and the public’s current views on the subject — based on previously published analysis from the center.
The Pew Research Center conducted this analysis to examine American attitudes towards the relationship between church and state in the United States. It is based on a large number of studies that the center has published in recent years. These studies are based on a range of sources, including an original analysis of state constitutions and congressional data collected by CQ Roll Call. Statements about presidents’ religious affiliations are based on an analysis of information from sources such as the Miller Center, the University of Virginia, PBS’s “God in the White House,” and the Harry S. Truman Library and Museum.
The methodology for each Pew Research Center survey can be found using the links in the analysis. Everyone who participated in the surveys is a member of the Center’s American Trends Panel (ATP), an online survey panel recruited through national random sampling of residential addresses. In this way, almost all adult Americans have a choice. The survey is weighted to be representative of the US adult population by gender, race, ethnicity, political party affiliation, education and other categories. Read more about the methodology of the ATP.
According to a poll conducted in Spring 2022, nearly three-quarters of US adults (73%) say religion should be separated from government policy. Only 25% say government policy should support religious values and beliefs. While majorities of both Democrats and Democratic-leaning Independents (84%), and Republicans and Republican-leaning voters (61%) say religion should be separated from government policy, Republicans are far more likely to say that the government should support religious values (38% vs. 16%).
About four in ten Protestants (39%) say government policy should support religious values and beliefs, compared with 24% of Catholics and 9% of non-denominational adults – those who describe their religious identity as atheist, agnostic or nothing in particular. White evangelical Protestants are divided, with 49% saying government policy should support religious values and an identical proportion saying they should be kept separate from religion.
According to a 2021 analysis, the Johnson Amendment restricts political activity by religious organizations, and most Americans (70%) want churches and other places of worship to stay out of politics. Still, a poll conducted during the July 2020 presidential campaign found that some US adults who had attended church services or viewed church services online in the previous month said they had heard sermons expressing their support for the then-president Donald Trump (9%) or then-candidate Joe Biden (6%), while others had heard sermons speaking out against Trump (7%) or Biden (4%). By now, four out of ten had heard sermons discussing the importance of elections, protests or other forms of political engagement.
The Supreme Court ruled in 1962 that it was unconstitutional for a teacher to lead a prayer class in a public school, but three in 10 US adults said in a March 2021 poll that public school educators should be allowed to do so. A significantly larger proportion of Americans (46%) said public school teachers should not be allowed to lead students in any type of prayer, with Democrats saying this twice as often as Republicans (60% vs. 30%). Another 24% preferred neither option.
Among US public school students ages 13 to 17, in a 2019 survey, 41% said it was appropriate for a teacher to lead a prayer class, including 29% of teens who knew the practice was forbidden but said it was acceptable nonetheless.
This year, the Supreme Court ruled in another case involving prayer in public schools. In that case, the Supreme Court ruled that a high school football coach in Bremerton, Wash. had a constitutional right to pray after midfield games.
According to the same March 2021 poll, Americans are divided on whether local governments can place religious symbols on public property. Nearly four in 10 US adults (39%) say cities and towns should be allowed to do so, while 35% say religious symbols should be kept off public property. About a quarter (26%) do not favor either option. While some Supreme Court cases have found that religious depictions on government property are constitutional in certain contexts, other cases have found that such depictions may be an affirmation of religion and violate the First Amendment.
While the US Constitution makes no mention of God, almost all state constitutions refer to either God or the divine, according to a 2017 analysis. God also appears on the Declaration of Independence, the Pledge of Allegiance, and on US currency.
Christmas Day is the only federal holiday that is also a religious holiday, although many Americans also consider Christmas a cultural holiday. Congress made Christmas—along with July 4, Thanksgiving, and New Year’s—an unpaid holiday for D.C. federal employees in 1870; a later bill expanded these as paid vacation days for all government employees. Courts have upheld the constitutionality of Christmas Day, arguing that closing federal offices does not compel citizens to engage in religious activities. Efforts to recognize other religious holidays such as the Muslim Eid al-Fitr have so far been unsuccessful.
Almost all US Presidents, including Joe Biden, have been Christians. Biden is only the second Catholic president (after John F. Kennedy), while the vast majority of the rest were Protestant – mostly Episcopalian or Presbyterian. Two of the most famous presidents, Thomas Jefferson and Abraham Lincoln, had no formal religious affiliation. Most presidents were sworn in with a Bible and traditionally seal their oath of office with the phrase “so help me God”. According to a poll conducted in February 2020, about half of Americans think it is very (20%) or somewhat (32%) important for a president to have strong religious beliefs (even if they differ from their own).
Congress has always been predominantly Christian, and according to a January 2021 analysis, about nine out of ten members (88%) in the current Congress — including 99% Republicans and 78% Democrats — identify as Christian. Congress is both more Protestant than the US population as a whole (55% vs. 40%) and more Catholic (30% vs. 21%).
The Constitution guarantees that religion can never be a requirement for holding public office, but most Americans don’t know that, according to a 2019 Pew Research Center poll. When asked a multiple-choice question about what the Constitution says about religion, only 27% of adults correctly identify that “no religious test” is necessary to hold public office. Many U.S. adults incorrectly select that the Constitution requires federal officials to certify that all men are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights (15%), that the Constitution requires federal officials to be sworn to the Bible ( 12%), or that the constitution says nothing about religion in relation to federal officials (13%). Another 31% say they are not sure what the Constitution says about it.
Americans are divided on the extent to which the country’s laws should reflect Bible teachings. About half of adults say the Bible should either heavily (23%) or slightly (26%) influence US law, and more than a quarter (28%) say the Bible should take precedence over people’s will should, if so, be contradictory, according to a February 2020 poll. In contrast, half of Americans say the Bible should not influence US law much (19%) or at all (31%).
Note: This is an update of a post originally published on July 16, 2020.
Dalia Fahmy is a senior religion writer/editor at Pew Research Center.
