PBS News Hour

JOHN YANG: Today, Christians across America celebrate Easter.

Muslims are in the midst of Ramadan, and Jews, who recently marked Purim, are preparing for Passover in just a matter of weeks.

So, it's very timely for the Pew Research Center to be out with the results of a survey looking at Americans' attitudes about the role of religion in public life.

Eighty percent of the more than 12,000 respondents said religion's role is shrinking.

That's the highest proportion in two decades of asking the question.

Gregory Smith is Pew's Associate Director of Research.

He helps coordinate the domestic polling on religion.

So, a big proportion of Americans saying that religion is losing influence.

Do they say that's a good thing or a bad thing?

GREGORY SMITH, Associate Director of Research, Pew Research Center: Most people who think that religion's influence is shrinking in American life think that's a bad thing.

They're disappointed to see it.

In fact, the survey shows very clearly that most Americans have a positive view of religion.

Most people who think religion's influence is declining say that's a bad thing.

The smaller number of people who think religion's influence is growing think that's a good thing.

And if you put those things together, we see very clearly that most people in the United States have a positive view of religion's role in society.

JOHN YANG: I was also struck by the responses to the question of whether respondents felt that there was a conflict between their personal religion and mainstream American culture and whether they felt their religion made them part of a minority group.

What did you find there?

GREGORY SMITH: So, the share of Americans who say they think there's at least some conflict between their own religious beliefs and mainstream American culture is up six points to 48% since we last asked these questions.

Similarly, the share of Americans who say they think of themselves as a minority because of their religious beliefs is up five points since we last asked these questions.

Now, most people don't say they think of themselves as a minority because of their religion.

Only 29% of Americans say that.

Still, the trend is in an upward direction.

JOHN YANG: What do you think that tells you?

Does it say something about religious beliefs, or does it say something about people's connection with mainstream American culture?

GREGORY SMITH: It says a little bit about people's religious backgrounds.

We know, for example, that Jewish Americans and Muslim Americans, groups that make up small shares of the population, they are among the most likely to say they think of themselves as minorities because of their religious beliefs.

But there's also an element of this that is about how people perceive things to be going in society.

We have done other polling where we ask people whether they think their side is winning or losing on the political issues that matter to them.

And big numbers of Americans, including majorities of both parties, say they think their side has been losing more than winning recently.

So, some of this is just a dissatisfaction, tension with broader society.

JOHN YANG: Well, precisely on that point, you also asked whether people felt that either secular liberals or conservative Christians were going too far in trying to control government and public schools in terms of religion.

What did you find there?

GREGORY SMITH: What we see is that most Democrats and most people who aren't particularly religious themselves, they think conservative Christians are going too far trying to impose their religion in public life.

The flip side of that is also true.

Most Republicans and most Christians, including a huge majority of evangelical Protestants, say they think secular liberals are going too far in trying to keep religion out of the government and public schools.

So, it's sort of people on both sides think that the other side is going to extremes.

JOHN YANG: Of course, this is a presidential election year, what did you find about people's attitudes toward or their feelings toward whether a president has strong religious feelings or not?

GREGORY SMITH: The survey is really interesting.

It finds that a huge majority of the public, including people across every religious group we're able to analyze and people in both parties, say they want a president who personally lives a morally upstanding life.

So, that's something Americans can agree on.

Fewer people say they want a president who is personally religious or who shares their own religious beliefs.

But many people, most Americans, about two-thirds say they do want a president that they can count on to stand up for people with religious beliefs like their own.

JOHN YANG: So, it's not necessarily that they agree with the religious beliefs or have the same religious beliefs.

They just want the president to be standing up for them.

GREGORY SMITH: That's exactly right.

It's way more important for people to have a president who stands up for them than it is to have a president who shares their religious beliefs.

And we can see, for example, that many of the people who have favorable opinions of Joe Biden and Donald Trump don't necessarily think that those two are very religious themselves.

But the people who have favorable views of each candidate do think that their preferred candidate stands up for people with their religious beliefs.

JOHN YANG: You also asked a question about a topic that's been a hot topic recently, Christian nationalism, the ideology that the United States should be a Christian nation.

What did you find there?

GREGORY SMITH: Yeah, the survey finds that a lot of Americans say they want the Bible to have some influence on U.S. laws and policies, but fewer, only 28% of Americans say that, if the Bible and the will of the people are in conflict, we should rely more on the Bible than the will of the people in terms of making laws.

JOHN YANG: Well, you take all this together and put it together.

What does it tell you about the state of Americans when they look at religion and how their views are changing?

GREGORY SMITH: I would say there's two main things that jump out at me.

One is that we know that religion does -- the place of religion in American life is changing.

The United States has grown gradually less religious in recent decades, and we see that in the growing share of Americans who tell us they think religion is losing influence in American life.

The other thing that jumps out at me in this survey is that Americans are divided on these topics, as they are on so many other things.

People on both sides of the political and religious spectrum think that those on the other side are going to extremes trying to see their preferred policies and approach to life enacted in laws and in the public schools.

JOHN YANG: Very interesting look.

Gregory Smith from the Pew Research Center, thank you very much.

GREGORY SMITH: Thank you for having me.