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Research Background

Over the last five years (2021–2025) student researchers from Butler University visited, both in person and virtually, 76 congregations in 12 different communities around the Hoosier State. Students were tasked with viewing at least one worship service and analyzing the congregation’s website and social media output.

The congregational visits were intentionally spread across the state to ensure gathered information reflected Indiana as a whole. Four communities were assessed in each of the northern, southern, and central thirds of the state. As a result, the following report has coverage across the state, giving us a decent geographic snapshot of Indiana.

The students made a total of 156 unique visits to Indiana congregations in these areas across a variety of denominations and traditions, representing both conservative and liberal theology. Thirty-six percent of the observations were in congregations considered to be evangelical. Forty-two percent were in Mainline Protestant congregations. Twelve percent were Roman Catholic congregations. Five percent of the congregations visited were Eastern Orthodox. The remaining six percent were classified as “Other” and included Jewish synagogues, Islamic mosques, a Latter-Day Saints congregation, and a Unitarian-Universalist one as well.

The purpose of these studies in relation to the Congregations and Polarization Project was to see if congregations were impacted by—or at least mentioning—polarizing issues. The student researchers were asked to identify if congregations were talking about topics such as the COVID-19 pandemic, racism/race relations, LBGTQ+ issues, immigration, abortion, or other clearly polarizing ideas.

While these observations covered a broad range of Indiana churches, several caveats are in order. First and foremost, these are the observations of Butler University undergraduate students and they were likely to seek out congregations of particular interest to them. The results do not necessarily represent congregations by race, ethnicity, education, or income throughout the state. The results are both interesting and informative, but like all results, they need to be understood in the appropriate context.

Findings

The baseline, and indeed our starting point for looking at how issues do or do not impact a congregation, was the COVID-19 pandemic. Because of the duration of this study (five years) and because the students were able to investigate what the congregations had previously said and done in 2020 and 2021, the study found the pandemic to be the most mentioned issue within congregational services and websites. The researchers found that over 65% of the congregations mentioned it. This was expected. However, the breakdown of mentions when types of congregations were factored in was revealing. The top group to mention the pandemic were Mainline Protestant congregations with 79% publicly discussing the pandemic, followed by Catholic congregations at 74%, and evangelical congregations at 61%. Orthodox and Other congregations, however, were less likely to talk about the pandemic. The Orthodox contingent was at 57% and in Other group was at 56%.

Initially, the researchers were asked to see if congregations were affected by, or even mentioned, the Black Lives Matter movement. However, as time moved on, the scope was broadened to consider race relations in a broader sense as well. What the researchers found was that, on average, 27% of Indiana congregations mentioned race relations in some way. While this is important—and might represent factors such as the location and demographics of both the congregation and the community they reside in—the real story comes from who talks about race. Thirty-nine percent of Mainline Protestant congregations talked about race. Thirty percent of evangelical congregations mentioned the issue is some way. Twenty-two percent of the Other group of congregations talked about it, while only sixteen percent of Roman Catholic congregations did so. Even more interesting is not only who mentioned race, but their context for doing so. Evangelical congregations, for example, were more likely to talk about “racial reconciliation,” while Mainline congregations were more apt to discuss their support for BLM. Because observations were not assigned using “race of members” as a variable, this result should be viewed with special caution. It is likely that in historic Black Churches, race was mentioned much more often.

Rather than race, the polarizing topic that was noticed most often was LBGTQ+ issues. It should be noted that this is also the issue where the theological/political divide between conservative and liberal congregations was most likely to be seen. Conservative congregations were more apt to discuss their support of traditional marriage between a man and a woman, while liberal congregations were more likely to talk about inclusion and full participation of LBGTQ+ individuals in the lives and ministries of their congregations. Furthermore, this issue was also the one where more liberal congregations were likely to be the most vocal—whether in sermons or on social media. Fifty-five percent of Mainline congregations talked about the issue, as did fifty-six percent of the Other congregations. Evangelical congregations (at eighteen percent) and Roman Catholic congregations (at sixteen percent) were by far less likely to do so.

When it comes to immigration, very few congregations mentioned it during the observed services or on their online accounts. This likely would have changed had the study begun during the 2024 election season and its aftermath. Just over 11% of congregations in this study discussed it. There are, of course, exceptions. When it comes to immigration related discussion, Catholic (16%) and Other (11%) congregations are most likely to talk about it. Because Catholic parishes are often reflective of immigrant communities, their leading place in these findings is not that surprising. The Other congregations might reflect immigrant groups (mosques) or simply be more vocal (Unitarian-Universalist) in their support of immigrants. Here, also, Protestant Hoosiers are seemingly united. Mainline and evangelical congregations were both only at 9%. But only seemingly. Evangelical Protestants were more likely to talk about outreach/language-based services, while Mainline Protestants talked about their support of immigrant communities (though they too often registered language-based services).

Researchers also looked at what might be considered the oldest polarizing issue in America’s culture wars dating from the 1960s and 1970s: abortion. Considering that the pro-life/pro-choice debate has long been a divisive issue in American culture and American congregations since Roe v. Wade, congregations have often been vocal about which side they come down. The recent (2022) Dobbs v. Jackson decision, which overturned Roe and sent the issue back to the states, has led the issue to reemerge in public debate. However, the groups talking about abortion most often are incredibly interesting. Overall, just over 15% of congregations made mention of it. Yet the top group that did were the Other congregations, at 33%. Only 16% of Roman Catholic congregations mentioned abortion during the observations. Again we see that Protestants, whether evangelical (4%) or Mainline (6%) talked about the issue the least.

Of course not every polarizing issue fell into these categories. As mentioned earlier, congregations talked about a wide variety of other issues. While some of these were topical (in the sense that they reflected a particular moment, such as the attempted assassination of President Donald Trump), they might only be mentioned by one or two congregations, making them important but not enough to generate a category of their own. What is important is that a large number of congregations are talking about things that might fall outside of what researchers expect to find (or plan on looking for).

What does this look like, in terms of tracking the various issues over the course of the study? As the chart below clearly shows, discussion of the pandemic (whether in the moment or historically) was always the top issue that congregations were willing to talk about. This is almost certainly an artifact of the five-year time period under consideration. However, the importance of the other issues has shifted during the time from 2021 to 2025. Discussion around race relations/BLM spiked in 2022 and 2023 before falling off. LBGTQ+ issues fell from second place in 2021 to fourth in 2024 but then spiked back up in 2025. Immigration and Abortion zigged and zagged at the bottom of importance, before spiking upward in 2025. And “other” issues, were steadily in fourth place from 2021–2023 before climbing to second place in 2024 and then falling to sixth place in 2025.

Of course the mix of congregations matters in all of this, but based on the ones observed by researchers for this particular study, we can see that the spikes in LBGTQ+, abortion, and immigration all occur in the wake of the 2024 presidential election season. Whether that would hold true in the future is difficult to determine.

Does Geography Matter?

When the CAP project was launched, one of the stated goals was to get as representative sampling of Hoosier congregations as possible, including in the form of location. While this facet of the project could not replicate the rural/urban/suburban nexus, student researchers have engaged in work that provided something of a geographic overview of the state. For a variety of reasons, Central Indiana is overrepresented in the data these researchers collected. However, by considering the averages within North, Central, and Southern Indiana, we can begin to see an interesting picture of what congregations have been talking about that mirrors—while also offering its own spin—on the issues mentioned above.

Not surprisingly, COVID-19 was by far the dominant issue in all three regions. However, while in Northern Indiana and Central Indiana, the mention rate was above 70%, in Southern Indiana the mention rate was only 56%. The Southern Indiana congregations did not mention or dwell upon the pandemic as much as the rest of the state.

Congregations in Northern Indiana were more likely to mention or discuss some issues than their co-religionists and sometimes co-denominationalists in the Central and Southern parts of the state. When it came to race relations (including BLM), 35% of Northern congregations engaged the topic, compared to 29% of Central Indiana congregations and 17% of Southern Indiana congregations. On LBGTQ+ issues, 35% of Northern Hoosier congregations engaged the topic, compared to 29% of Central and 33% of Southern Indiana congregations. On immigration, 23% of Northern Indiana congregations talked about it, while 22% of Southern and only 6% of Central Indiana congregations did so. On abortion (pro-life/pro-choice), 12% of Northern Indiana congregations talked about the issues, followed closely by 11% of Southern and just 4% of Central Indiana congregations. And on Other topics, 46% of congregations in Northern Indiana discussed these various issues, followed by 33% of Southern and 19% of Central Indiana congregations that were looked at.

Although these observations were not designed to be fully representative, the differences among Northern, Central, and Southern Indiana congregations seem strong enough to require further study. The difference is not merely in type of congregation. Mainline, Catholic, and Evangelical traditions are represented fairly in all three. There are many possible hypotheses based on regional culture, racial representation, and economic or educational variable, but stronger statements about the reliability of any of those factors is not possible in this sample of undergraduate student observations.

The Results

The key takeaways from this statewide survey of congregations include the following:

• The COVID-19 pandemic is the most significant event that Hoosier congregations have encountered in the recent past. The impact on congregations was substantial and that impact is likely to have direct effects for years to come. It would be unwise to discount the effect of the pandemic on all other aspects of cultural and political polarization.
• Orthodox congregations seem to be the least affected or engaged by polarization—at least publicly. Other than on COVID, they tended not to mention anything about these issues in their sermons or on their websites.
• Mainline Protestant congregations are more likely to talk about race (39%) and LBGTQ+ issues (55%) than any other group.
• The five-year period of this study makes it difficult to judge the impact immigration is having on congregations. Congregations with direct connections to immigrant communities are most likely to talk about this as an issue, but the high profile of the pandemic and of BLM and LGBTQ+ issues may have obscured immigration in the early years of this study and the matter might look very different today.
• From a geographic perspective, Northern Indiana congregations were more apt to discuss or mention polarizing issues than congregations in Central or Southern Indiana. Based on the data collected, this does not appear to be driven solely (if at all) by congregational type. It may well be driven by culture-specific elements, but that is not possible to ascertain from these observations.
• There are evident theological/political divides on issues including LBGTQ+ recognition/inclusion and abortion and these are tied to differences in theological tradition. One can also make the case that this is seen with discussing other potentially polarizing issues as well.
• This survey of congregations also seems to support the supposition that the more theological and politically liberal congregations are also more likely to speak out on issues. We see this with race, LBGTQ+, abortion, and even with other issues.