{"id":62441,"date":"2025-11-17T20:01:46","date_gmt":"2025-11-17T19:01:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.uccronline.it\/eng\/?p=62441"},"modified":"2025-11-18T18:00:52","modified_gmt":"2025-11-18T17:00:52","slug":"religion-and-education-why-belief-is-rising-among-the-highly-educated","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.uccronline.it\/eng\/2025\/11\/17\/religion-and-education-why-belief-is-rising-among-the-highly-educated\/","title":{"rendered":"Religion and Education: Why Faith Is Rising Among the Highly Educated"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter  wp-image-130658\" src=\"https:\/\/www.uccronline.it\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/fede_istruzione5.webp\" alt=\"religion education\" width=\"602\" height=\"316\" \/><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><i>A study from <strong>Harvard University<\/strong> reveals a <strong>significant trend<\/strong> between religion and education. Old anticlerical myths fall, but if religion becomes <strong>elite<\/strong>, the evangelical message is at risk.<\/i><\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Is <strong>Christianity<\/strong> becoming an elite religion?<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">This is what an interesting <strong><em><a href=\"https:\/\/religionunplugged.com\/news\/2023\/7\/3\/religion-has-become-a-luxury-good-for-the-middle-class-married-college-graduate-with-children\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">analysis<\/a><\/em><\/strong> by <strong>Ryan Burge<\/strong>, Professor of Political Science at Eastern Illinois University, suggests after summarizing the results of a massive survey that lasted <strong>15 years<\/strong> and collected over <strong>570,000 responses<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">The study was conducted in the United States by Harvard University&#8217;s <i>Cooperative Election Study<\/i> from 2008 to 2022, and it debunks an <strong>old legend<\/strong> claiming there is a negative relationship between <mark><strong>education and religious affiliation<\/strong><\/mark>.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2>Less education and more irreligion<\/h2>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Looking at the <strong>charts<\/strong> summarizing Burge\u2019s findings, a <strong>general trend<\/strong> emerges.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">First, people with a <strong>higher level of education<\/strong> (right side of the charts below) are <strong>less likely<\/strong> to identify as atheist, agnostic, or among the &#8220;nones.&#8221; This relationship is especially strong for the latter category.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">In the image below, we focus only on data from <strong>2019 to 2022<\/strong>, and even within this range the group with the <strong>highest likelihood<\/strong> of being atheist is consistently made up of those with the lowest educational level (shown as &#8220;No HS&#8221; in the chart, meaning no high school diploma).<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-130653\" src=\"https:\/\/www.uccronline.it\/eng\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/fede_istruzione-1.webp\" alt=\"faith, religion, education\" width=\"986\" height=\"413\" \/><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2>More education and more religion<\/h2>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">But there is also a <strong>reverse effect<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">People with higher education levels are <strong>more likely<\/strong> to report a religious affiliation, as seen in the <strong>upward trend<\/strong> in the charts below.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Those most likely to attend religious services, on the other hand, are individuals who hold a <strong>graduate degree, a master\u2019s, or a doctorate<\/strong> (shown as \u201cPost-Grad\u201d in the chart on the right).<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><i>\u201cIn recent years,\u201d<\/i> Burge writes, <i>\u201cthere has been an almost <strong>10 percentage point<\/strong> gap in attendance between the lowest and highest levels of education.\u201d<\/i><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-130653\" src=\"https:\/\/www.uccronline.it\/eng\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/fede_istruzione2.webp\" alt=\"faith, religion, education\" width=\"986\" height=\"413\" \/><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2>Income level and marital status<\/h2>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">When the variable of <strong>income level<\/strong> is added, it becomes clear that in nearly every income bracket, people with a college education attend church at a <strong>higher percentage<\/strong> than those with a high school diploma or less.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">At this point, the American researcher also introduces <strong>marital status<\/strong>, concluding that married individuals are far <strong>more likely<\/strong> to attend religious services than those who are divorced, separated, or have never married.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2>Anticlerical myths and new risks<\/h2>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">The conclusion of this analysis, while debunking some <strong>anticlerical myths<\/strong>, is not as positive as it might seem.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">In fact, Burge writes, <i>\u201cReligion has increasingly become an enclave for those who have a <strong>\u2018normal\u2019 life<\/strong>: a college degree, middle income, married with children. If you fit all these criteria, your likelihood of regularly attending church <strong>is about twice as high<\/strong> as those who do not.\u201d<\/i><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">But if Christianity turns into a religion for the <strong>educated and wealthy middle class<\/strong>, then what happens to the words of Jesus: <i>\u201cThose who are well have no need of a physician, but the <strong>sick<\/strong> do. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance\u201d<\/i> (Luke 5:31\u201332).<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">The recent <strong><em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.uccronline.it\/2025\/10\/12\/dilexi-te-i-quattro-passaggi-che-mi-hanno-colpito\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">exhortation<\/a><\/em><\/strong> by <strong>Pope Leo XIV<\/strong> on seeing the face of Christ in the poor certainly helps prevent those with financial, cultural, and family stability from <strong>losing touch<\/strong> with the part of humanity most in need of His message.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A Harvard study shows a strong link between religion and education. Old anticlerical myths fall, but new risks are emerging.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":62442,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":99,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[2115,2114],"class_list":["post-62441","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-faith-and-education","tag-religion-and-education"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v25.6 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Religion and Education: Why Faith Is Rising Among the Highly Educated - UCCR<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"A Harvard study shows a strong link between religion and education. 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