c. 1997 Religion News Service

WASHINGTON _ The 105th Congress, now getting down to business, may not look like America in terms of class, race or gender, but when it comes to religion, members are fairly representative of the nation, according to a new survey of congressional religious affiliations.

While religious affiliation is not an absolute indicator of political ideology, analysts say the survey confirms that the generally conservative political tone of the new Congress corresponds to a continuing growth in the number of theologically conservative representatives and a decline in the number of mainline Protestants, who tend to be more theologically liberal.”Slowly but surely, the changing religious configuration in Congress represents the changing landscape of American religious experience,”said Albert J. Menendez, the demographer who conducted the study. “Religion is only one factor of many, but it’s important not to lose sight of the fact that in the American context, religion has always translated into political action and political conviction,”he added.

According to Menendez, who is also associate director of the Silver Spring, Md.-based Americans for Religious Liberty, Roman Catholics remain the largest single religious group in Congress, with 151 of the total 535 members. Catholics, also the largest religious group in the United States, have had the largest congressional presence since 1964.

Southern Baptists, the nation’s second largest religious group, have the second largest congressional presence as well, with 67 members.

Rounding out the top religious groups in the 105th Congress are United Methodists (59), Presbyterians (55), Episcopalians (42), Jews (35), unspecified Protestants (28), Lutherans (22), Mormons (14), and United Church of Christ (10) and”Christians”(10).

In addition, Menendez found six Eastern Orthodox Christians, 30 members who belong to a variety of smaller religious organizations, and seven who claim no religious affiliation.

This year, for the first time ever, there is one representative from the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, a Missouri-based group that is completely separate from the Utah-based Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormons). There are no Muslims, Hindus or Buddhists listed in Menendez’s survey.

Overall, Menendez said, the numbers track relatively closely to trends in American religious life _ with some notable exceptions, such as the Jewish community, whose congressional presence is significantly higher than its roughly 2 percent proportion of the population.

According to Menendez, the survey numbers are similar to the statistics of the 104th Congress elected in 1994.”The basic contours are still pretty much the same,”he said in an interview.

Menendez, who has been conducting this study for 25 years, said one of the most interesting trends he has documented is a”complete nose dive”in the number of mainline or”establishment”denominations in Congress.

Episcopalians, for example, have now dropped to their lowest representation in 50 years. Today, there are only half as many Episcopalians in Congress (42) as there were in 1980 when Ronald Reagan first won the presidency. Similarly, United Methodists, members of the United Church of Christ and Unitarian Universalists are at their lowest numbers in 50 years.

James L. Guth, professor of political science at Furman University in Greenville, S.C., said this represents the overall decline in membership of mainline denominations in America.

Guth, who also studies the impact of religion on politics, said he suspects that if Menendez had broken down some broad denominational categories such as Presbyterians and Baptists, he would have found an even more pronounced decline in mainline Protestants and a more pronounced growth in the number of evangelical Christians.

According to Guth, the increase of evangelicals and theological conservatives in Congress”is an offshoot of the growth of the movement we call the religious right. They are part of that same branch.” Menendez also noted the growing numbers of members of Congress who define themselves with the vague terms of”Protestant”or”Christian.”This year, a total of 38 members of Congress _ including many conservative Republicans _ chose those categories.

At one time, said Menendez, those terms may have described people who were nominally Christian, but he believes it now represents the evangelical trend toward a”post-denominational society,”where traditional institutional affiliations are no longer as important. There are numerous”non-denominational”evangelical churches, he said.

Party affiliation within religious groups remain at about the same levels as in 1994, but sharply different _ among Protestants, at least _ from two decades ago, said Menendez, author of the 1996 book”Evangelicals and the Ballot Box”(Prometheus Books). “Twenty years ago, Protestants in Congress tended to be Democrats. Now they tend to be conservative Republicans,”said Menendez. Additionally, he said, today Jews and the religiously unaffiliated are largely Democrats.

Both Guth and Menendez highlight the fact that more Catholic Democrats than Catholic Republicans were elected this term. There are now 60 Catholic Republicans and 91 Catholic Democrats. In 1994, with the Republican landslide, the margin appeared to be narrowing.”The Catholic swing to the Republicans seems to have stopped for a while. It will be something to watch,”said Guth.

MJP END LAWTON