About a month ago, YouGov released the results of a poll asking how Americans feel about various religions. Respondents were asked a simple question: “Do you have a favorable or unfavorable opinion of the following groups, organizations, or belief systems in the United States?” They were given a random sample of 17 out iof a list of 35 religions and could choose one answer to the question:
- Very favorable
- Somewhat favorable
- Neither favorable nor unfavorable
- Somewhat unfavorable
- Very unfavorable
- Not sure
Among the religions in the poll was “The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (the Mormon Church).” And how did we fare?
Poorly. Really poorly.
YouGov looked at a net score for each religion, calculated by adding the Very favorable and Somewhat favorable choices, then subtracting the Somewhat unfavorable and Very unfavorable. Overall, the church was a -21 (that is, the percentage of those who viewed the church unfavorably exceeded the percentage who viewed it favorably by 21 percentage points).
Of the 35 religions in the poll, we came in 29th, after Wicca and just before Christian Science.
What’s more, we had a net negative among just about every group. Among those who say religion is very important to them, we had a -11; among those who say it is not, we were at a -41. We were at -12 among Republicans and -27 among Democrats.
I wanted to dig in a little deeper, and YouGov provided its data here. Its data separates responses by gender, by age, by race, by vote in the 2020 election, and by region. And among every group but one, the church had a net negative favorability rating. (I was surprised that among 18-29-year-olds, the church had a net positive favorability of 4. The church was lowest among those 65 and older, with a favorability rating of -36.)
Men and women both view the church unfavorably, though women see it more unfavorably (-24 to -18). Favorability increases with income (though even at the $100,000+ it’s net negative). Biden voters are more negative toward the church than Trump voters, though again, the church has a net negative among both. (Interestingly, 42% of Trump voters were neither favorable nor unfavorable, where only 22% of Biden voters were.)
And interestingly, the net negative favorability rate is similar in the West (-18) and the South (-19). Where do we do really badly? The Midwest (-29).
Why is the church so unpopular? I don’t know, though I doubt there’s a single cause. It wouldn’t shock me if it’s partly because we’re less well-known (better-known religions generally did better, with a handful of exceptions). Our treatment of the LGBTQ community probably plays into it (though again, we did better among the youngest than the oldest). It wouldn’t shock me if there were some hostility based on the church’s wealth. Honestly, there’s probably some because we’re a heretical Christian church.
Whatever the reasons, though (and I don’t know how valuable it will be to suggest reasons in the comments), the poll results say to me that we’re not doing a good job explaining to our neighbors the good things we’re doing. Maybe that’s because we’re not doing good things. Or maybe it’s because we’re not publicizing the good things. Or maybe we’re too insular and don’t participate in our communities. Or maybe it’s something else altogether.
And yes, popularity isn’t the only thing. It’s not the most important thing. But if the church has something good, something that could benefit our neighbors, it probably wouldn’t be a bad idea to present it in a manner that our neighbors will look upon favorably. Because otherwise, they won’t benefit from what we have to offer.