Sarah Lawrence College, the famously progressive institution in New York, typically attracts liberal students interested in political activism and tends to be rampantly secular. While many of these students are deeply curious about the social world, I have long noticed an ignorance about the faith of others and a general distrust of those who tend to be religious. Like many in the nation, these avowedly secular students rarely see and interact with religious diversity, creating insular bubbles and mistrust of others. In my seminars, unsurprisingly then, I regularly encounter the belief that religious students are politically different from non-religious students and the sense that there are really two very different groups of Gen Z emerging: a religious and conservative group and a humanistic, secular and liberal group. This is a real mischaracterization; the reality is that there is far more overlap and agreement than students immediately perceive.

Data from a nationally representative survey of nearly 2,000 young adults aged 18 to 25 coordinated by Neighborly Faith powerfully demonstrates that both religious and secular Gen Z Americans today are more politically aligned than my students and social media suggest.

For instance, when asked about the direction political parties are taking at the moment, no clear partisan divide between secular and non-secular students emerges. When asked about the GOP, just 32 percent of religious Gen Zers are either very or extremely happy with the direction of the Republican Party, while 19 percent of non-religious Gen Zers feel the same way. This is a real difference, but about a fifth of non-religious younger Americans happen to support the GOP. In contrast, when looking at the Democrats, 37 percent of religious and 29 percent of non-religious Gen Zers strongly support the direction of the Democrats. Put differently, Gen Zers are not particularly happy with either political party. It is not the case that huge majorities of religious Zers like the GOP while secular Zers support the Democrats. If anything, religious Zers are more positive about the Democrats than their non-religious counterparts.

This pattern continues when respondents are asked about their trust in Presidents Trump and Biden. The data show that just 23 percent of non-religious and 36 percent of religious Gen Zers report trusting President Biden quite a bit or a great deal. While generally very low, religious Zers are more positive about President Biden than their areligious counterparts. This may surprise secular Gen Zers who often think religious Americans can only support those on the ideological right. When it comes to Donald Trump, almost half (49 percent) of religious Zers trust Trump and this is higher than the third (34 percent) of secular Zers who feel the same way. While there is a difference here, generalizing religious Gen Zers’ support for Republicans and non-religious Gen Zers’ support for Democrats would be misleading. Attitudes toward both the current and former President are not neatly and simply sorted along religious lines whatsoever.

On a series of policy issues, few appreciable differences between religious and non-religious come to the surface. The survey presented respondents with 17 topical socio-political issues ranging from taxes and economic inequality to prison reform and abortion and queried the importance of each issue in terms of impacting the way Gen Zers vote. Surprisingly, not one single issue dominated the responses of either religious or areligious groups—though religious Zers generally said that most issues were a bit more salient than the non-religious respondents. For instance, 41 percent of religious and 42 percent of non-religious respondents said that LGBTQ+ issues are either very or extremely important factors in impacting vote choice. Climate change, which is often at the top of the list of salient political issues for members of Gen Z, reveals minimal religious/secular differences at 50 and 48 percent, respectively. Polarizing issues which often promote greater turnout, such as abortion, revealed little difference with the religious/secular difference being only 2 points at 50 and 48 percent, respectively.

Simply put, the narratives surrounding religious voters having different priorities than the growing secular community are not standing up to the data. Interestingly enough, no particular issue that was surveyed dominated either group.

Particular lived experiences and impressions from social media are not necessarily true and that is certainly the case when it comes to perceived differences between religious and more secular members of Gen Z today. There is a lot more common ground among members of Gen Z than most members realize. The nation would be better served if these ideological and religious bubbles popped and many more worked toward the consensus that is already latent in much of our politics.

Samuel J. Abrams is a professor of politics at Sarah Lawrence College and a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.

The post The Politics of Religious and Non-Religious Gen Zers Are Not That Different appeared first on American Enterprise Institute – AEI.