Stephen Wolfe once said that White Evangelicals were the lone bulwark holding back the moral insanity in America, and support for biblical marriage is one key area where Evangelical pastors never broke, despite their mainline counterparts changing with the times. LifeWay Research published a study that shows that support for homosexual marriage has peaked among Protestant pastors, with support among mainline pastors topping out in 2019, when the study was previously performed.
The study had some key findings:
- Methodists (53%), Presbyterian/Reformed (36%) and Lutherans (34%) are more likely to be supportive of same-sex marriage than Restorationist Movement (8%), non-denominational (5%), Baptist (4%) or Pentecostal (1%) pastors.
Additionally, female pastors (42%), who are more common among mainline denominations, are far more likely than their male counterparts (16%) to back same-sex marriage.
- Younger pastors are more likely to be supportive than the oldest pastors. Protestant pastors 18 to 44 (27%) and 55 to 64 (22%) are more likely than pastors 65 and older (15%) to see nothing wrong with same-sex marriage.
- Pastors with a master’s (30%) or doctoral degree (26%) are more likely than those with no college degree (9%) or a bachelor’s degree (7%) to say they’re OK with same-sex marriage.
- Pastors at churches with fewer than 50 in attendance (27%) and those at congregations of 50 to 99 (25%) are more likely than those at churches with attendance between 100 and 249 (11%) and 250 or more (8%) to be in favor of same-sex marriage.
So the statistical profile of a pastor who supports homosexual marriage is a young female mainliner with a master’s degree in a small church.
All things considered, this is relatively optimistic, as that profile is a dying breed because those mainline churches will collapse.
