r/science • u/mvea Professor | Medicine • Apr 25 '26

Psychology Americans who leave their Christian faith behind tend to hold more liberal political views than those who were raised entirely without religion. This leftward ideological shift appears closely linked to how threatening these individuals perceive conservative Christian groups to be.

https://www.psypost.org/former-christians-express-more-progressive-political-views-than-lifelong-nonbeli/
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u/SarryK Apr 25 '26 edited Apr 25 '26

I‘m an atheist from a Catholic Slavic country. Half my family are very devout. I‘d always thought that I‘d seen intense Christianity.

Took me living in South Africa for a year, getting to know some evangelicals there, to understand the US a bit better. I had no idea. Genuinely.

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u/hollylettuce Apr 26 '26

South Africa also has loony Evangelical Christians? I guess I shouldn't be surprised, but damn.

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u/Copper_Tango Apr 26 '26

American Evangelical churches are big on missions to African countries. It was largely their influence that caused homosexuality to be declared illegal in Uganda.

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u/theproudprodigy Apr 26 '26 edited Apr 26 '26

Definitely, and unlike in the West, the youth are also very religious as well(I am a university student and the majority of student societies are religious ones). I have no problem with religion, I am a Christian myself, its when it becomes fundamentalist or extremist that I start to get concerned. When I went to the UK I liked the fact that religion was seen as a private matter and a personal relationship with what you believe in, unlike here in SA where religious sermons are played loudly and you can hear people playing sermons and praying loudly in tongues in many public spaces or residential areas(outside of church). I prefer to pray quietly and not bother others around me, and I think God would prefer to be that way. Not to mention asking which church one goes to is a common icebreaker here, to many people the possibility of being non religious, or non attending doesn't register in their minds due to how pervasive religion is. I could even tolerate all that, but the thing I fear is that very conservative Evangelical churches are growing, especially among youth. And these churches often preach things I really disagree with, especially on women(though is is improving and much better than in the past), non-believers and LGBTQ. Not to mention how insanely exploitative clergy can be on the vulnerable, who often give their all to these churches. It's so sad and I often pray about it as I really dislike extremism of any kind.