An Untold Story: Evidence of Faith Communities’ Positive Influence on Democracy
By PACE
At their best, faith communities can drive civic engagement, build cohesion across political lines, provide civic education, and play key roles in pro-democracy movements as they did during the civil rights era. At their worst, they can sow the seeds of discord, polarization, and violence in ways that gravely threaten democratic principles.
Recently, various groups have sought to understand the ways that faith communities impact democracy. PACE’s Faith In/And Democracy (FIAD) initiative and Democracy Funders Network’s recent webinar on the role of faith communities in preserving democracy are just two examples.
Throughout these efforts, funders have asked: “What is the evidence of faith’s positive influence and impact on democracy and civic life?” We believe there is an untold story about faith communities’ role in supporting positive character development, responding to crisis, bolstering the social safety net, holding political leaders and institutions accountable to moral standards, and organizing community members to civically participate.
On November 21, 2022, PACE and DFN hosted a webinar to present newly developed evidence from four organizations–three of which were grantees from PACE’s Faith In/And Democracy Fund. During the webinar, each speaker presented evidence from their work and then participants engaged with the speakers in breakout room conversations. You can view the recording below.
Here is a brief recap of the major points from each case study:
Chris Stackaruk of Neighborly Faith shared results from a national survey that demonstrates the extent to which Evangelical Gen Z’s (specifically ages 18–25) civic activities and beliefs are shaped by their faith leaders, compared to other leaders in their lives. In this nationally representative survey (n=1989) from May/June 2022, which included an oversampling for Evangelicals, 18–25 year old young adults were asked a series of questions about who influences their civic engagement and what issues they care about most. The survey found that Gen Zs of every faith say faith leaders shape their political opinions and civic behaviors more than other leaders in their lives; however,Gen Z Evangelicals are shaped by faith leaders much more than their peers. For this group, informal leaders like “prayer leaders” and “worship leaders” were as influential as pastors. Only 16% said faith leaders don’t impact their politics at all. Gen Z Evangelicals also value civic engagement and engage civically more than peers, although there is a gap between what respondents said they value and their actual participation rate for most civic activities. The civic activities young evangelicals hear their faith leaders encouraging them to do most (service/volunteer work and charitable donations/fundraising) are ranked as most important to them. It’s important to note, though, that the data suggests issues are not equally impacted; Gen Z Evanaglicals said they were most influenced by faith leaders on the topics of education, health care, COVID-19, abortion, and economics and least influenced on crime, prison reform, gun violence, climate change, immigration, LGBTQ issues, and foreign policy.
Sabina Mohyuddin of American Muslim Advisory Council reviewed new research on how civic engagement initiatives (like advocacy training and candidate forums) that are endorsed and hosted by mosques influence Muslims’ engagement with elected officials and voting. They found that events at mosques that encouraged civic engagement increased the likelihood of Muslims in Tennessee continuing with more civic participation in the community. AMAC worked with 14 mosques in Tennessee over six months in advance of the primaries on August 6, 2022. They organized 5 advocacy training events and surveyed participants before and after events and then followed up with in-depth interviews of 9 participants. Their results showed that after attending a candidate forum at the mosque, 65% of participants said yes, they were likely to attend more civic engagement activities, 35% said maybe, and 0% said no. Although men heavily outnumber women in regular mosque programs like Friday prayers and lectures, the survey participants for Muslim Day on the Hill were half women and half men, which suggested that civic engagement-related activities may be of particular interest to Muslim women. Follow up interviews revealed that ongoing barriers to civic engagement for Muslims include a lower sense of belonging due to language barriers, a lack of understanding about how the U.S. government works, and a greater concern for politics in ‘home’ countries. AMAC’s work was recently featured in a story published by the Tennessean.
Reverend Ciera Bates-Chamberlain of Live Free Illinois shared findings from their qualitative and quantitative data that evaluates the growth of social justice ministries, their engagement with the community, and their ability to win change in their community. They found that with investments in community organizing, the Black Church can be a strong community of accountability for political leaders to enact policies that improve lives. Live Free Illinois worked with 30 churches in the Rockford and Chicago region to evaluate their social justice ministries. The goal was to understand how effective they were in engaging their communities and winning change around issues related to gun and police violence. For example, with an influx of community organizing resources, faith leaders in participating churches were able to effectively educate politicians on the harmful unintended consequences of a violence-prevention policy called asset forfeiture, that would have done more harm to the Black community and is not proven to actually reduce gun violence. The study showed that just as affluent communities have organizers and lobbyists working on their behalf to influence policy, Black Churches also benefit from having resources to support coordinated approaches to advocacy for the issues that directly affect their lives and communities. Faith communities in general–and Black churches in particular– serve as a unique “connective tissue” to effect change in our democracy. They are often closest to people and families, have a unique look into the issues that impact them the most, and with some intentional organizing, can work within communities to effect change related to identified common issues of concern.
Aaron Dorfman of A More Perfect Union: The Jewish Partnership for Democracy recapped their efforts to mobilize the Jewish community to ensure free, fair, safe, and accessible elections in advance of the 2022 midterms. As a relatively new organization, they found that when given meaningful and accessible opportunities for action, a compelling rationale, and transpartisan political cover, Jewish institutions are eager to play a part in supporting free and fair elections. In the run up to the 2022 midterm elections, they built a cross-partisan network of 90 Jewish institutions in 14 states, each of which made one or more concrete commitments to recruit poll workers, poll monitors, and online misinformation monitors; to serve as polling sites; to build relationships with local election officials; and/or to recruit lawyers for the Election Official Legal Defense Network. In building relationships with a wide range of Jewish organizations, they found that some Jewish organizations take for granted the role of democratic norms and institutions in making thriving Jewish life in America possible. However, when it is made explicit, they start to understand the importance of committing time and resources to fostering civic health and engaging in nonpartisan democratic practices. They also learned that many centrist, apolitical Jewish institutions are alienated from civic engagement because so much of it has taken on a partisan valence. Giving these organizations credibly nonpartisan opportunities for action with genuine cross-partisan approval enabled them to participate in ways that they had not previously done. Genuinely nonpartisan opportunities to support free and fair elections are harder to access through faith-based networks than they ought to be. Even so, calling upon a shared religious identity is one way to overcome an overwhelming amount of skepticism about partisanship. In an increasingly partisan world, religious identity can help hold the boundary of a non-partisan space and taking time to build relationships is a critical component of the work.
We hope this is just the beginning of a series of opportunities for funders to continue exploring the intersection of faith and democracy. To learn more about PACE’s ongoing Faith and Democracy work, please visit PACEfunders.org/Faith and https://medium.com/office-of-citizen/tagged/pace-faith-democracy.
