Evangelical clergy, by contrast, stand out as
especially conversionist, with 82% agreeing that it
is important to try to persuade people to join them.
Only 35% of mainline clergy agreed that such
conversion attempts are important, compared to
41% of Black ministers and 52% of Catholic priests
saying that. Consistent with their more ecumenical
views, mainline clergy are less likely than clergy
in any other group to agree that it is important for
them to try to persuade people in other religions to
accept their religion instead of the person’s current
one, though the differences between the mainline
percentage and the Catholic and Black Protestant
percentages are not statistically significant at the
conventional level.
Same question in the new report is here; seems like it’s from the same data round though? So that’s a bit confusing:
There is an additional question, on how this varies for ‘primary’ ministers vs others on page 77; feels like it should be broken down by religion first, but I haven’t looked closely.
This is from 2020; It seems like we might have more recent data and there’s been some shifts?
This is the 2025 report from the same group: https://www.nationalsurveyreligiousleaders.org/s/NSRL-report-2025-clergy-in-america.pdf
They say (page 28):
Same question in the new report is here; seems like it’s from the same data round though? So that’s a bit confusing:
There is an additional question, on how this varies for ‘primary’ ministers vs others on page 77; feels like it should be broken down by religion first, but I haven’t looked closely.
I… Can’t help myself…