Class May Exclude Many from Our Churches

Commentary

by

UMC Future

United Methodist Focus | June 25, 2026

“It’s the Economy, Stupid,” is a watchword from the first Bill Clinton presidential campaign that regularly reappears at election times. Attributed to political consultant James Carville, it serves to stress the economy’s impact on voter behavior. As we are beginning to discover, there may be economic factors that also are at the heart of the challenge churches are facing: the reality that large segments of people do not affiliate with churches today in the United States.

Nancy T. Ammerman and Gerardo Martí are sociologists who contribute richly to a better understanding of religious life and motivations. Ammerman is professor emerita of sociology of religion at United Methodist-related Boston University School of Theology. Previously she taught at Hartford Seminary and UM-related Emory University. Martí is chair of the department of sociology at Davidson College where he is the William R. Kenan, Jr. Endowed Professor of Sociology.

In a recent Substack article, Martí reported on Ammerman’s recent survey of twenty years of congregational research. Ammerman draws on nearly 500 books and journal articles published between 2005 and 2025 to analyze the forces reshaping American religious life. The discussion below draws upon findings from that research Martí sees as noteworthy that speak to concerns related to “class” about which I have been seeking more understanding.

Forces Pulling People Away from Church

Why, then, are large portions of people in this country not affiliating now with churches? The forces responsible for declines in religious affiliation appear not to be primarily theological. For some, leaving religious commitment has to do with lack of religious belief; but for most, other factors are more responsible. Two that stand out, according to this research, are political and generational.

Political. Most politically conservative evangelicals tend to use the term “Christian” as synonymous with their views on a host of political, social, and theological issues. This practice has had a negative impact, especially on younger people, who have limited experience with the range of Christian expression in the nation. While such almost neo-fundamentalists represent only a portion of the U.S. Christian population, some may assume their views are representative. Persons less familiar with the variety of Christian faith traditions may be especially put off by those who condemn interpretations of the Christian witness other than their own. This judgmental attitude is apparently behind comments by the lieutenant governor of Texas saying that the beliefs of a Presbyterian Senate candidate would send him “to hell.” The merging of Christian identity with dehumanizing public policies and rhetoric has left some people wanting nothing to do with any church.

Generational. The other driver that Martí highlights from Ammerman’s research is generational. Ammerman describes the issue of so many not affiliating with churches as a problem of “cohort replacement,” where older members are not replaced by younger ones. We know from the work of several scholars that not only is each younger generation less affiliated with religion but that their participation levels do not appear to rise as they age. In each successive generation, fewer children are in homes where there is religious participation, a pattern that the children tend to practice themselves as adults.

The Economics of the Religiously Nonaffiliated

While several forces appear to be pulling persons away from church, Martí moves further to cite Ammerman’s research to describe a significant characteristic of that population: Ammerman estimates that at least half of the unaffiliated population are economically marginal, vulnerable, and occupy a decidedly less educated and less privileged social position. These numbers have grown as the nation’s economy has benefited those near the top of the economic ladder without comparable gains for those less well off. These numbers include the large numbers of people who are not doing as well financially as their parents at a comparable stage of their lives.

The church barrier for many is not income itself. It is the effect income is likely to have on social class and lifestyle. This population includes people who are different enough from the profile of today’s conventional churchgoers that they sense they are different. The church members notice the difference as well. The difference may not be racial, ethnic, or age, but rather a way of being unshaped by the assumptions taken for granted by church members. It may be their dress or family makeup, but they have been shaped by cultural forces other than church culture. Perhaps you have noticed the few that find their way into our churches and with regret say to yourself, “I doubt if they will be back.”

In a culture that no longer assumes Christian or even religious engagement, the economically vulnerable join other societal cohorts very different from them in their indifference to religious affiliation. It is not hostility but rather a sense that what happens in most churches is not about or for them.

A Blue-Collar Wedding

Barbara Melosh was a recent second-career seminary graduate when she became pastor of a small “blue-collar church” in Baltimore. In her memoir of that experience, Loving and Leaving a Church: A Pastor’s Journey, she calls the church Saints and Sinners Lutheran Church. Despite being in a blue-collar neighborhood made up of and surrounded by working people without much money, she discovered in performing her first wedding how culturally different their church world was from the lives of many of their neighbors.

A local couple had requested to have their wedding at the church. Barbara was nervous but felt well-prepared from her education and advice from colleagues. She immediately discovered the couple did not come from “central casting.” They both had children from previous marriages, plus a child of their own while living together. The couple said it would be a simple wedding with just a few friends and relatives. In premarital counseling, she discovered that the materials recommended in seminary hardly fit with their inventories, discussion of whether to have children, and preparing for retirement. She concluded that all these resources “were as remote and alien to them as NASCAR and biker bars were to me.”

All Melosh’s colleagues had stressed to always start on time. The wedding was to begin at 2 p.m. but neither the bride nor groom were there at that time. A few guests were seated. The bride arrived at 2:20, the groom at 2:35. But now the sanctuary was empty except for the long-suffering organist who kept playing. Everyone was outside smoking. At 2:45 the wedding started. When the groom entered, his friends let out hoots and cheers. As the bride “swayed” down the aisle, she was greeted by whistles and catcalls. As the pastor read from I Corinthians 13, she realized that despite all the setbacks and struggles of the lives of these two people, there was still much to celebrate as they pledged themselves to each other, despite the seeming strangeness of the wedding. As the guests were leaving, Melosh overhead one guest mutter, “They’ll never make it.”

This story is one illustration of how social, cultural, and class locations make it hard for groups to understand each other, much less form viable faith communities.

Class as a Defining Issue in Understanding Many of the Nonaffiliated

As the percentages of persons choosing “none” when asked their religious affiliation began to climb from the 1990s onward, many assumed that these numbers revealed an increase in disbelief. However, further examination of the “Nones,” including among the youngest of them, indicated that within this cohort were numbers of people who believed in God, including praying every day. The reasons for their lack of religious affiliation involved factors other than theological. Ammerman found in her research that while many people on the economic margins are missing from congregations, they are often far from indifferent to matters of faith. In fact, many hold traditional Christian beliefs. Absence from church is not a theological rejection but, instead, as Martí summarizes, “They are absent because most congregations have, without deciding to, organized their culture around people who already feel at ease in respectable institutions.”

Social class continues to be an understudied component of religious institutions. Perhaps the lack of research reflects the same insensitivity to class that many congregations exhibit. For example, in many ways the 20th century was “the Pentecostal century” religiously. Sociologist David Yamane, in reflecting on this growth, said that Pentecostalism is “arguably the most important recent development in Christianity.” The lack of mainstream attention to this sustained growth may flow from the same factors that have traditionally caused other trends associated with poorer people, from music to sports, to be undervalued, understudied, and underreported.

What Might This Mean for Congregations

The first instinct for congregations when confronting a challenge is to ask, “What can we do?” That’s usually the wrong question when confronted with an issue on which a congregation is not doing well. Churches are in no position to decide what to do. The first task in such cases is to ask, “What do we need to learn?”

There needs to be a season of learning that involves leaders of the congregation who become a learning community on behalf of the congregation. Gerardo Martí’s research on multiracial and multiethnic congregations, along with that of others, shows us how difficult it is for congregations to move from intentions to outcomes in diversifying the social fabric of a church. Those choosing to become a learning community may find these questions helpful:

  • With whom do we need to talk?
  • Where do we need to visit?
  • Who has experience in bridging economic diversity gaps?
  • With whom might we partner?
  • What do we need to read?
  • What do we need to learn about ourselves and those around us?

Leaders who form a learning community on behalf of their congregation are not trying to craft a comprehensive plan. They are looking for some small next steps to begin a process of renewed sensitivity and actions that take account of their social location that may differ from those they hope to serve.

As tempting as it is to say, “Let’s invite people” or “Let’s begin this outreach,” the reality is that they are probably not ready to invite or serve until they explore further the unspoken assumptions that may determine their outreach potential more than they realize.

References

“A Blue-Collar Wedding” Barbara Melosh, Loving and Leaving a Church: A Pastor’s Journey (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2018), chapter 5.

Pentecostalism is “arguably the most…” David Yamane, “Pentecostalism,” Encyclopedia of Religion and Society, Hartford Institute for Religion Research.

“What do we need to learn?” F. Douglas Powe, Jr., and Lovett H. Weems, Jr., Sustaining While Disrupting: The Challenge of Congregational Innovation (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2022), chapter 8.

For More Information

Ammerman, N. T. (2026). Studying congregations in a changing U.S. religious landscape: 2005–2025. Practical Theology, 1–20. https://doi.org/10.1080/1756073X.2026.2646027

United Methodist Focus is the Substack blog of the Rev. Dr. Lovett H. Weems, Jr., distinguished professor of church leadership emeritus at Wesley Theological Seminary in Washington, DC. He came to Wesley in 2003 as the founding director of the Wesley’s Lewis Center for Church Leadership after eighteen years as president of Saint Paul School of Theology in Kansas City. Previously he was a pastor in Mississippi for many years. He is the author of many books on church leadership that have had a broad appeal to a large constituency of leaders in both the public and private sectors.