Ryan Burge 📊

Some personal news. Starting August 1, I will be joining the Danforth Center on Religion and Politics at WashU (@CtrRelPol) as a Professor of Practice. I think it's a perfect step for my career as Senator Danforth envisioned the Center to be a place for public engagement around religion and politics. That's where I see myself headed in the next stage of my career.

@lukeburgis I lifted that information directly from the presentation from the Detroit Archdiocese. I tried to verify it with other source material and got conflicting conclusions.

Thanks for this @ryanburge One error: "The age cliff is coming fast — and it’s steeper than it looks, because the Catholic Church requires priests to step back from parish ministry at 70 and assume senior status at 80." The universal law is Canon 538 §3: a pastor, upon completing his 75th year, is requestd to submit his resignation to the diocesan bishop — who may accept it or not after weighing the circumstances. It's not even an automatic termination at 75; the bishop decides. Though @jdflynn could address/explain this far better than I.

If you want to see what Diocesan decline looks like in the Roman Catholic, I've got some great data from Detroit in today's newsletter. Just since 2000 Baptisms down 67% First Communions down 61% Confirmations down 54% Marriages down 71% I'll drop the link below.

If you want to see what decline looks like in a very real way with very real numbers -- I've got the data for you: graphsaboutreligion.com/p/built-for-a-…

👇👇👇🤔🤔🤔 Maybe someone wrote a book about how this might have not been the best response to the rightward drift by evangelicals.... Nah. Couldn't have happened.

In 1965, 1.24 million babies were baptized Catholic in the U.S. In 2022? 438,000. That's a 65% drop in infant baptisms in less than 60 years. First Communions were 850K in 1990. In 2025: 537K Confirmations are up, though! 491K in 1990 to 498K in 2025.

Who's the happiest group in America? Latter-day Saints: 38% say they're "very happy," tops among all religious traditions. Hindus are right behind at 37%. At the bottom: the non-religious. Just 23% of "nothing in particulars" and 21% of atheists/agnostics say the same.

For over a decade, X was my primary social media site to share graphs. That's not true anymore. I started posting graphs on my public Facebook page in January and it's just absolutely taken off. Followers on FB: 12K Followers on X: 36K Yet, in spite of a smaller follower count, my graphs are getting 3.5x more impressions on Facebook than Twitter. My revenue from Facebook is 3x more than Twitter. Out of the last 34 posts, 3 have gotten more impressions on Twitter compared to Facebook. I'm just failing to see how or why I should invest much time on Twitter in the future. @nikitabier

Abortion and immigration have almost nothing to do with each other as policy questions. But plot religious traditions on both and they fall on a nearly straight line. Nones and "other faith" in the top right. Mainline and Catholics in the middle. Evangelicals in the bottom left.

I've been collecting data about the rise of the non-religious across six different surveys in the United States. They all use a different methodology and question wording. Every one of them points to a much larger share of "nones" now than in 2008.

I break this down all kinds of ways today. By the religion of the respondent. By their political partisanship. By religion and politics. Lots to learn about what issues are radioactive. graphsaboutreligion.com/p/cosplaying-f…

College students were given a list of 20 potential "hot topics" and asked which ones are the most uncomfortable to discuss on their campus. The clear #1? The conflict in Israel and Palestine. Then it was abortion, the 2024 Election and transgender rights. New post today.

In 1987, the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America was double size of the Lutheran Church - Missouri Synod. 5.3M vs 2.6M. In 2024: ELCA: 2.7M LCMS: 1.7M

Here's a full spreadsheet of all 265 universities: docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d…

FIRE surveyed students at 265 universities. Here are the student bodies that are the most left-leaning: Scripps - 93% Democrats Wellesley - 90% Mount Holyoke - 89% Here are the least Democratic: Liberty - 9% HIllsdale -9% BYU, Provo - 24%

Evangelicals dominate the American South, but also huge swaths of the Midwest, too. Mainline Protestants have pockets in the upper Midwest and Plains. Catholics are dominant in the Northeast, and the Southwest. Utah? Well, you know.

On July 4th, I always like to be reminded of how much the Framers endured to give us freedom. And also, how much responsibility we have to all those who have given, "their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor" to maintain it for the last 250 years.

Christian nationalism has declined in the general population. This same survey asked the same questions in both 2007 and 2021. The share who say that the fed. govt. should advocate Christian values: 55% agreed in 2007. 38% in 2021.

Is America a Christian Nation? I couldn't find a single group of respondents who said "it always has been" There was one group where a majority said it "never has been" Mainline clergy at 65%. The nones were at 45%.